Iran Heats Up: The Bazaar Strikes Back
The death spiral of the Islamic Republic seems to be gathering momentum. That big fire at a major oil well I told you about last week continues unabated, with big flames and clouds of noxious black smoke pouring out. And these are the people who offered to clean up the much larger catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico.
But mere physical disaster is trivial compared to the events that are taking place in Iran. In the past week, the regime has been confronted with two direct challenges: a strike in the grand bazaar of Tehran, and the very public battle between conflicting elements of the regime for control over the Free University. The strike in the bazaar — protesting a dramatic 70% increase in their taxes — was taken very seriously by the regime, because the supreme leader and his cronies know that if the merchants turned against them it could prove fatal. Khamenei capitulated within a few hours, just as he had two years ago when the bazaar shut down for an entire week. This sudden about-face from the supreme leader did not bring order to the country’s markets; the strike continues, which is big news indeed.
The Tehran bazaar was closed again on Wednesday, and spread to at least two other major cities, Isfahan and Tabriz. The regime reacted violently, sending Revolutionary Guardsmen and Basijis, all in plain clothes, to attack the merchants who had closed their shops. No bullets or clubs this time — the knife has now become the weapon of choice — and the Isfahan bazaar was placed under virtual military occupation.
While the strikes may have begun as a narrowly defined economic protest against new taxes, they soon took on a clear political hue, with chants of “death to the dictator!” ringing out across the bazaar. The latest report I have says that the strikes will continue Thursday, a religious holiday in any event.
This is a very big deal, and everyone knows it. That is why there is violence — about 80 persons wounded and an unknown number arrested, along with one victim, a very popular merchant in Tehran. Will it spread from the normally pro-regime bazaars to the long-suffering workers in such vital sectors of the national economy as oil and textiles? If it does, the ability of the regime to craft a rational strategy of self-defense will be tested.
Entrail readers will take note that on Tuesday, electricity went out all over Tehran no less than six times, which the regime predictably blamed on sabotage by enemy agents. And there is a decidedly negative augury on “regime unity.” Khamenei ran away from deciding the University issue, bravely deciding to leave things as they have been all along. The Free University is a substantial economic and cultural prize, one of the few really big prizes up for grabs in the Shi’ite kleptocracy — most of the others having been gobbled up by the mullahs or by the top brass at the Revolutionary Guards. As between physical plant and cash flow, the University is worth several billion dollars. Thus, the battle for control. Khamenei’s failure to take sides leaves both contenders spitting.
Meanwhile, gunfights continue to break out along the Baluchi border, and the aging fleet of Tupolov aircraft continues to experience a spectacularly high rate of hydraulic failure, most recently on Monday on a flight heavily populated with RG officers flying from Abadan to Mashad for vacation. The plane had to make an emergency landing and although there were many casualties, the pilot’s skill prevented a major disaster. Nobody trusts Iranian airplanes these days; the EU has banned the bulk of Iran’s civilian aircraft on safety grounds. But that is a different matter from the pandemic of breakdowns of RG planes, which have a distinct odor of sabotage.
It’s not surprising to see considerable internal turmoil within the ranks. Ryan Mauro calls our attention to the many signs of dissent within the Revolutionary Guards Corps.
On June 9, a top IRGC strategist, Hassan Abbasi, openly complained [13] that “we cannot count on many of the establishment’s own who were blessed by Khomeini and senior officials because sometimes their hands might actually be joined with the enemy’s.”
The IRGC defector, Muhammed Hussein Torkaman, said [1] that Ayatollah Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad had a plane on alert to fly them to Syria during last summer’s enormous protests. Another report [14] claimed that the plane was to go to Russia, but that is beside the point. Torkaman says that Khamenei has formed his own intelligence unit to spy on the top security services and he is rumored to be switching his bodyguards every single day.
One member of the security forces plainly told [15] The Los Angeles Times that he and many others at his base would refuse to follow orders to attack protestors during an uprising. “I would never do it. Maybe someone would, but I would never fire on any of these people myself,” he said.
Read the whole thing, and add to it the ongoing purge and reshuffling of top RG officers, especially in those areas where open confrontation is the order of the day.
The opposition is well aware of the cracks in the iron fist, and Mir Hossein Mousavi dedicated a considerable part of a statement this week to the Guards. He
pointed out the IRGC’s role in the post-election oppressions, arrests and interrogation of political prisoners as well as the Guards involvement in the financial sector with an “unbelievable size”. In addition, he called for the IRGC to return to its initial purpose which was to protect the country in the face of foreign threats and to create an environment suitable for economic development and fighting corruption.
“Unfortunately, we will witness a decline in the reputation of the IRGC and a dwindling of popular support for the IRGC. It is foreseeable that with the current trend, the IRGC will defend its companies, shares as well as financial and monitory institutes instead of defending the people and the country.”
It’s obvious that Mousavi is talking about current events, not the future, when he says the IRGC will lose popularity; that process is well advanced, and is part of the ongoing revolution that threatens the survival of the Islamic Republic.
Those who thought that the Greens had been crushed may have trouble recognizing revolution in its new clothes. Ahmad Batebi, who for a while was the international icon of the Iranian resistance (he was on the cover of The Economist, holding up a bloody tee shirt), recently gave a long interview, in which he had some very thoughtful insights. Have a listen:
The western world or the media think that movement means demonstrations, and if the latter doesn’t exist, nor does the former. However, we know that the culture of the Iranian people is different than that of the outside world. The fact that [the Iranian people] write slogans [on walls and banknotes] in the color green and distribute cassettes and CD’s demonstrates that the movement is alive. The movement is learning how stay alive without incurring deaths and arrests. The movement is transferring from one form to another.
In all social movements across the world, you see that when a movement goes underground, for a very short period of time, the activists become slower. This is not sluggishness, but rather the period of transformation. We are passing through this phase. This time, when we have protests in June, we will have less people arrested, less people killed, and that is how people will learn. It is natural that the government learns how to suppress people and the people learn how to resist.
Today the resistance takes many forms, and its leaders hope they can grind down the mullahcracy until it finally — as Marx would have put it — collapses of its own contradictions. The strikes in the bazaars show that a previously reliable component of the regime’s base has turned on Khamenei & Co., and the cracks in the Revolutionary Guard Corps suggest that the same process is fracturing the regime’s praetorian guard. If Iranian workers had a strike fund — as I have been saying for years — we would see how profound the fissures really are.
Faster, Please.
This is very interesting stuff. As I understand it, the bazaari crowd was instrumental in overthrowing the Shah. That means they can overthrow governments.
A quaking volcano, indeed!
And who overthrew the elected Iranian government in 1953 and placed the shaw in power?
First, learn to spell “Shah.”
Second, ask yourself, who let the current Mullahocracy depose the Shah?
Ah, you still believe that story made up by the KGB!
Here you go you special person you: http://homylafayette.blogspot.com/2010/07/pro-regime-anti-ahmadinejad-site.html
Irrefutable proof the strike happened as the source is the very criminals that run the regime.
And don’t let the door hit you on the posterior on the way out.
I might send Prof. Ledeen a case a whiskey if the regime collapses. It will be a joyous and wonderful day.
And the Sams of the world, who fairly worship these beshited criminal murdering dictators, will see their evil dreams flush into the sewer of failed regimes where it belongs.
Mr. Ledeen,
Once again you are lying through your teeth. I was in Iran last week and nothing of the sort happened in the bazaars you talk about.
Do you have sources for your information? Or do you just make up stuff as you go along? You have been wrong, so many times, for so long on Iran, that its becoming a point of comic relief for me to check your blog.
Keep up the lies, eventually you will be so dicredited in the eyes of the general populace, that this blog and the wingnuts who occupy it will be the only ones left.
Sam, I have to much respect for PJM to tell you what I think of your comment and accusations. Lets just say that Mr. Ledeen has earned his reputation the hard way. You sir , are establishing a reputation of a different sort.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b533b1c4-89d6-11df-9ea6-00144feab49a.html
Don’t be too hard on sam. He only believes what Organizing for America tells him.
NICE Comeback Menachem! FT.com is even an anti-Israeli Pink rag, thus they have the LEAST reason of anyone to either “lie”, “misrepresent”, or “exaggerate”a story such as this.
Thus “SAM” we can only conclude that EITHER
1) You are lying about the entirety of your trip to Iran
2) you DID go to Iran but did not go to the Bazaar and hence know nothing about it You interpreted the fact that because you did not hear raised voices from whatever foreigner-catering hotel you stayed at on the 59th floor. “it didn’t happen” )sort of like if the tree fell in the woods but no one saw it business).
OR
3) You DID go to Iran, and you DID walk on the streets, but as your intent was to pickup an Iranian hooker for the night, you were most decidedly *not* interested in any “minor strikes” or other “such nonsense”
OR (finally)
4) Your DID go to Iran, and you DID walk down the streets past the Bazaar, but because (perhaps) that area is a known place to pick up young cross-dressing men, you thought it best to say you didn’t hear anything, then if challenged you could simply say, “oh well I didn’t walk in *that* direction, I walked in a different direction” whereby saving face.
OK, either way you have formally been proved wrong. End of story.
I find it interesting that “Sam” was in Iran last week. It’s not the friendliest country to enter and if your American, you’d be in jail. I have a tendency to believe you’re just lying.
Maybe by “having been in Iran”, Sam meant “having checked out the news on the Huffington Post.”
Sam, I’m not a wing-nut. I’m a sniper rifle…and my sights are trained on people like you. You should have stayed in Iran. BTW…what are you doing wandering about a country so openly hostile to the United States and its allies, hmmm? IF you can travel is such a place, maybe we should find out whom you work for.
Hello, Mr. Langley, may I have a word with you?
Sam was in Iran, and still is, but his name is not Sam. Just like they have the basiji attacking the bazaaris who strike, they also have basiji in cyberspace who attack bloggers the government lives in fear of. Their attacks are a compliment. The more they attack, the more they show their fear. They know what they have done and are still doing. They know that they are living on borrowed time because of it, too.
I think it’s more likely you stayed at a Holiday Inn Express.
Reverse Sam’s name and you get the acronym for the Moslem American Society.
If you were really there, Sam, I’d like a link to your pictures.
Sam: My since is that Mr Ledeen reported correctly and you described yourself. I do not believe that you were in Iran last week and are not there now.
As an analyst with 30 years experience, and in the past I have a stunning record of projecting outcomes correctly and seeing the actual market conditions in spite of the “fog”, it is far more likely that you, Sam, are a mere lackey propagandist for the Iranian dictators that parade as religious; In fact that seems to match your post precisely.
Many of the footnotes, such as 1, 13, 14, lead to “owa.mailseat,” which is not traceable for the ordinary user. They appear to come from links in Ryan Mauro’s Front Page article.
Apparently at stake in the Free University dispute is the future political infuence of Hashemi-Rafsanjani, former ‘pragmatist’ President of the Islamic Republic. He was made chair of the Assembly of Experts after losing the Presidency; the Assemby is importantly the only check upon the Supreme Guide in Iran. Establishing the Free University is one of Rafsanjani’s key personal accomplishments and a source of his power and influence beyond his government position. If Ahmadinejad can neutralize Rafsanjani at the Free University, as he already has at the Assembly (8 of 16 members are now Ahmadinejad “hardliners”), Rafsanjani will be marginalized politically.
With Supreme Guide Khamenei so elderly and ill, the Assembly of Experts, which picks the Supreme Leader, becomes the fulcrum of power politics in Iran. While ostensibly marginalizing Rafsanjani at Free University, the actual prize is the control over the Assembly process of appointing the next Supreme Guide. If Ahmadinejad can remove Rafsanjani’s influence from Free University, he will then make a move to remove Rafsanjani’s influence in the Assembly.
Either way, the regime is obviously consolidating, steadily heading from absolutism toward totalitarianism.
Never heard absolutism and totalitarianism presented as separate and different types of government before. It makes sense though. Absolutism being the rigid adherence to some existing code, rule, law, i.e. Islam and its book, or perhaps communism (a bit more flexible).
Totalitarianism, OTOH, is rigid adherence to whatever the dictator/politburo SAYS is the rule, today. If they say tomorrow that the rule is completely opposite what it was today, then the sensible ‘citizen’ just forgets today and does whatever they say tomorrow, ‘for ze good of ze state’.
I wish Mr Ledeen was right, however the reality is the Mullahs of Tehran have the Guns and the willingness to use them. As long as the Mullahs do not lose their nerve they cannot lose power. Wishful thinking will not change that.
Slight correction; the Mullahs, like the Shah, had groups of supporters with guns. The most dangerous sign for the regime is that many elements of the RG have defected in the last year. It is clear that even Khameini does not trust many of them. This is actually a long time in the making. Money has been spilling out of Iran for several years now, which means that many involved in the government don’t believe the current regime will be around long enough to catch them and punish them. Perhaps one of the most obvious signs that the regime is no longer able to support itself is due to the fact that Hizbullah and Palestinian elements were brought in to help control the crowds last year; the obvious points that can be taken from this is that Khameini either 1) doesn’t think his supporters are able to control the protesters or 2) he doesn’t think that they will continue to support him. It’s probably a mixture of both.
My sincerest wish is that any chance of reforming the IRI disappeared last year and the next wave of protesters may be joined by defecting elements within the government and may lead to a peaceful, free, democratic Iran.
Their political system is SOOO much better than ours.
Nick, you’ve got to be kidding! You are either a little touched in the head or pulling our leg. However, if you really believe their political system is so much better than ours, I suggest you move there and quickly. Oh, that’s right! Wben you get there you may have to spend quite a bit of time in jail. Oh well, free housing and food, right?
And free medical care too !!!
In Iranian jail, medicine is routinely withheld from prisoners, food is inadequate, and living quarters sometimes means taking turns standing and sleeping because there’s not enough room on the floor for everyone at once. Oh, unless they consider you a real threat, then you might be placed in solitary confinement in a dark hole in a rock, indefinitely. If found guilty of a capital crime, you could be hanged without being given a chance to say goodbye to your family, sometimes in private, and sometimes publicly exhibited before the entire town, including children, with a spare piece of construction equipment used as the makeshift gallows.
So yeah, it’s a little different over there.
If the current regime in Iran is toppled, one has to wonder if the Obama administration will attempt to shore it up, like they did with Honduras.
Rebecca, that’s a very interesting question. If a full-scale revolt breaks out, I see Obama siding with the Mullahs.
Opposing any government overthrow on principal would be a good indication of Obama’s plans for us if he feels he’s losing power.
It is easy to get hopes up in a situation like this, but remember Zimbabwe. Totalitarian regimes sometimes linger beyond all reasonable expectations. That said, the mullocracy may be on the way out. It is great to hear that the opposition is still ongoing and doing things like shutting the bazaars. Serious, not symbolic things and the the regime is backing down in some cases – real sign of weakness. Bring it on.
There always appears to be a deepening of dissent and now talk the regime could have fallen. But until there’s some more visible symbols in the West, it’s hard to believe anything is eminent.
Besides, Obama and much of the West appears indifferent to the people. One can hope it is not the case but if the regime was that close to tipping, the West and the US should have given the Iranian people the support to cast off their chains.
It appears they haven’t. Obama has been terrible in neglecting people’s quest for freedom. He calls it the moral equivalence of agreeing to look the other way without judging.
Because he’s the leader of the great represser, the US. And he will now bow to tyrants.
all very true. I just read Mousavi on BBC Farsi, denouncing Ahmadinejad’s forign policy saying that it is killing the people and the country. he also said the nuclear issue should be put on for a refrendum. all good things. But you are very correct about the Merchants.
My dad was a rice and tea merchent in Tehran’s Bazzar and a couple of times they went on strike during the Shah for political reasons. most of the merchents in Bazzar are very religous and back then very pro khomeini. the fact that they are now going against those a….holes speaks volumes..as I mentioned I an 53 years old and I think by the time I am 60 they will be gone… who knows may be it is next month!!
A 70% increase in taxes? Don’t tell Obambi, he’ll want one, too.
If only our own mullah, B. Hussein Soetero, would give the regime a push.
The Iranians who yearn for freedom are modeling for us something we may have to learn: once you lose your freedom, there is a point where you no longer care so much if you lose your life. Fighting back at the risk of your life becomes a reasonable action.
If you don’t have deep resources, I suggest you figure out where in these United States you want to be stuck, because after Jan 1, 2011, all bets are off with regard to access to cash, movement across state lines and stable banking processes.
After you’ve read Dr.Ledeen’s piece google ApolloSpeaks at Townhall.com and read my “Dead Men Walking.” Then click “The Coming Iranian Civil War and the End of the Nuclear Mullahs.”
A Green Revolution indeed.
Good luck to it; The establishment of a true
Islamic State would be a great step forward,
for the Iranians, and for the rest of the world.
Step forward into the 7th century, join Islam. How many died today because of this silly superstition?
Succint.
Love it!
The death spiral of the Islamic Republic, as it is currently interpreted. Let us not forget that the “leaders” of the Green Movement have no intention in breaking down the Islamic nature of any future government and, also, let us not forget that Mr. Moussavi was instrumental in organizing and empowering Hezbollah. This may just be another form of the true and tested NYPD method of good cop, bad cop; cops nonetheless. Will there be any palpable change in a new and improved Islamic hue in matters of foreign policy and domestic freedoms, I am not sure. All I know, albeit simplistically, is that as long as the Islamic tag is attached to the regime, there will be no freedom for the Iranian people and it will still be an existential threat to Israel. I sense that these leaders regard all those brave Iranians who are giving their lives for change as just “useful idiots”. My gut tells me that the Moussavis and Karoubis see the Green Movement as a convenient and domestic version of Felix Dzerzhinski’s “The Trust”. Believe me, there is no one alive who would like to see these criminals face justice more than I. But my pessimism does not allow me to anticipate that joyful day in my lifetime, especially under the current US administration which has tasked even our Space Agency (NASA? You must be kidding!) to appease Islam!! Go figure!
Not true Horseradish.
Many, many reports from the Green Movement since June 2009 make it clear that the protesters do NOT want an Islamic regime but a secular democracy. There is a strong history in shiism (of which Grand Ayatollah Sistani in Iraq is an adherent) that says that clerics should not get directly ivolved in national politics. Prior to 1979, Iran has had a long history of secular governments.
I couldn’t agree with you more, TS Alfabet. I am an Iranian expat and know and love my people. As I have said before, I have the mullahs to thank for doing what the Pahlavis were never able to achieve; to alienate them from Islamic fundamentalism. However if you read my comments carefully you will realize that my referrence was not to the oppressed Iranian people. They, undoubtedly, want a secular form of government. Anyone who argues otherwise is at best uninformed and at worst a liar. However, I am not convinced the Moussavis and Karroubis want the same thing. In fact, Moussavi said in no uncertain form that his movement is NOT about changing the Islamic Republic to a Secular Republic. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYNvkl0cQYI
I feel that these so called leaders are using the dissatisfaction of the people to simply replace one form of theocracy with another. I pray that I am proven wrong.
I have never been to Iran, but I did study History, including ME History in undergrad and grad studies. My guess is that you are probably right, that this is Mousavi’s intent. That is, to save the IR by ‘reforming’ it of its worst elements. Many of them of course he knows, and they are some type of rivals. My feeling is that anyone in the upper reaches of that regime basically supports an Islamic theocracy.
I see a possible dubious outcome that the Islamic ‘reformers’ win, the world – fed stupidity by the media – sees it as resolution, and the weapons programs, repression, etc., go on as before.
What Karrubi and Moussavi can say what they like and what they must to stay alive.
But they are riding a Tiger. And it is the tiger that decide where to go and how to go there. Their possibilities are limited. They can stay on top and ride or they can fall and die. It is not the Green that need Karroubi or Moussavi, it is Karrubi and Moussavi that need the Green to be relevant.
When Gorbaciov come to the power, he wanted reform the system, not destroy it.
But he destroyed it anyway (or simply it was failing so much that nothing could have prevented the falling anyway).
“My gut tells me that the Moussavis and Karoubis see the Green Movement as a convenient and domestic version of Felix Dzerzhinski’s “The Trust”.”
Gorbachev intended to be the head of an improved, still communist Soviet Union. Tsar Putin is no great shakes, but he’s not what Gorby thought would be done.
Update: I just talked to my mom and the merchants opened up their stores. the disgusting Iranian government just caved in
well the bazaars were closed today in tehran, tabriz and mashad. don’t have a report from isfahan as yet.
When a revolution changes tactics, this says a lot as to how flexible the revolutionaries are in achieving their strategic goals.
I wonder if those outside of Iran, who are driving for the
same thing as the Green movement, if they are paying attention to this. Because if they are, a change in tactics just might bring them closer to achieving their goals. Whether they be Tibetans or Tea Partiers.
Faster, please. Indeed.
I fear these religious nuts will be replaced with a different breed. But similarly inclined. Muslims are hateful. Period.
Mr. Ledeen has been wrong many times before. Not sure he’s going to be right about Iran this time either.
bunny, i’m reporting, not forecasting. trying to fill the information gap, ya know…
Ledeen has correctly predicted nine of the last zero Revolts Against The Mullahs(TM).
Sheesh.
The islamic republic cannot cease to exist fast enough. Once the mad mullahs have nuclear weapons, though, they will want to take a lot of people with them. If the iranian theocracy goes quietly perhaps we can at least begin to hope that the pedophile and genocidal regime in saudi arabia will disintegrate as well.
Marty: You are so right, the difference between Iran and the House of Saud is merely tactical, bothe have the goal of spreading Islam with all its vile consequences. The spread of ‘WHABIism’ and the material aid the SAUDI regime to the dundumentalists and the establishment of all hate spewing MADRASAS will only be revealed when these infants grow to be INFIDEL HATERS. Michel laedeen, please be right with your assesment …no false hopes and wishfull thinking. With G-d’s help (coming froma non-believer…) you will be proven right
shakshuka: i am right; these events did take place. the regime is deeply concerned. i don’t know what the outcome will be, and i am advocating a policy–support the opposition–with which very few policy makers agree.
Michael,
Thanks.
Q: Are the Greens playing us? If, for instance, the Greens succeed now – before Iran has operational nuclear capacity – they would inherit a moral obligation to stand-down development and focus on domestic economic security. One wonders if the Greens and their supporters in the mullahcracy haven’t been disingenuously biding their time, letting the regime crank away with development, in the hope that internal revolutionaries will inherit a nuclear force… vae victus and all that.
If this is the case, your call for clear American support ought to have been heeded long ago to forestall it.
how many would have to die for you to take them seriously?
It’s not the Greens in the square I’m questioning – obviously – but whether there are – or not – significant leadership issues.
Are the Ruskies playing them? Are there some on top who are in it simply for the power?
It’s not as if history lacks precedent for such cynical plays. I’m rather concerned that the Greens in the square dying now are going to be rounded up later by “their own.”
Yeah, I take them seriously. I just hope that when the present regime falls that it’s a genuine change towards liberty and not another nuke-armed “dictatorship of the proletariate.”
If only the USA had a president and congress that would drill for oil. We could push the price of oil down to
such a level, that the Iranian Regime would topple under the weight of its own incompetence.
The Big guns will be “coming out” very soon!
latest update: Just talked to my brother in Tehran and asked him what is going and he siad” Ghiamateh”. it litaraly mean judgement day, and I guess a bette term would be all hell is breaking loose..
another update.. Mr Ledden is correct.. my brother siad that the Bazzars, in Tehran, Isfahan, shiraz, Tabriz and Mashad are closed until this sundat as tomorrow is a religeous holiday there
Thanks for the confirmation.
Might I still suggest that you work on your spelling? I understand that English may not be your native tongue, but the Firefox browser (not trying to plug them, just explaining) has a built-in spellchecker.
thank you. i rather not take time and do it. very busy at work..sorry..at least I try my best to get the point accross. my spelling has nothing to do as english being my second language. a lot os pepole born and reased here have the same problem..
best
Mr. Ledeen,
you are definitly one of the most utopic commentators on iran. due to your crap, still a lot of americans are not familiar with the real iran. please visit the countries you are writing about. be authentic.
shalom
that drivel about “visit the countries you are writing about” is nonsense. i’m an acknowledged expert on fascist Italy and never visited…nor did I set foot in Machiavelli’s Florence or Tocqueville’s America. scholarship is different from tourism, ulash.
I’d like to see your passport, so that I can determine how recently you were in the Islamic “Republic” of Iran. By your own logic, that’s the determining factor in how seriously I should take your statement, isn’t it?
Yup!
the merchants are not the Green Revolution.
Iran is seeing a TEA PARTY emerge. Taxed Enough Already
So, what are we trying to make out of this? Are we going to put a negative spin on this as well? What can we conclude from this civil disobedience? I am surprised we are not making this into another riot and jail rape in Iran and official iron hand management or bloody revolutionary, anti government protests!!
The Iranians have their internal problems and we have ours. We just had violent protest for shooting a Black man and the verdict that came out. The chaos that pursued had more property damage and violence than anything we have seen come out of Iran, but I have not seen a single video clip from it or any CNN round a clock reporting of it!! Why is that?
So, the Iran phobia and the propaganda that we put out there has other purposes, which is to demonize that country and get the ground ready for a war that is pushed by the Zionists.
The Oakland riot? Zombie predicted it and Fox reported on it. About a dozen businesses damaged, mostly from looters. Couple of trash bins set on fire and a small incendiary device exploded near a police station that caused no damage. Hardly the same thing. This strike is a very big deal.
It is quite sickening that you compare the looting of a Footlocker in Oakland to mass executions, stonings, beheadings, impalings, unspeakable torture at Evin Prison and other unspeakables and simply call them “internal problems”. Such comparison only bespeaks of your political bias willing to excuse anything that you may perceive as anti Jewish. I have news for you brohim. The people of Iran would welcome anyone who would rid them of the butchers who are running the country now. And one more piece of news, sunshine. The Jews in Israel are there to stay so save your breath. Forget the diaspora claim that they are returning home after 4000 years. I will give you for the sake of argument that after 4000 years they can’t displace the indigenous people (although the Palestinians are NOT indigenous and they themselves are of Agean origin and settled, by force, the land referred to as Palestine). But I will not give you recent history. During WW2, that gem of a prince, Mohammad Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti (Wizard?) of Jerusalem tied the knot with another gem, the ever lovable Adolph (Dolphi to friends). That was a declaration of war on the Allies and the Jews. Well, you and your Axis buds lost the war and were conquered. And, as they say habibi, all is fair in love and war. Deal with it.
I read the following on Ynetnews.com:
“During a conference held at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy on Friday, Reza Kahlili (pseudonym) estimated that Iran will eventually attack Israel, Europe and the Persian Gulf states. He called for a preemptive strike on the regime in Tehran, but not on the Iranian people or the country’s infrastructure. ”
and I thought, no wonder Iranians know how to beat the CIA, Mossad and KGB at every turn…..they know exactly how and what to say at each moment in their careers to make sure they attain what is in their best interest…
anyone wwanna place bets on Reza Khallili other than the former CIA Direcor Mr “It’s Slam Dunk”
================TEST QUESTION===========================
Why does Mr Micheal Ledeen care more about Iranian people’s rights than about Saudi Arabian people’s rights?
a. Mr Ledeen believes that the 15 Saudis suicide bombers in 911 were really Iranians but with Saudi passports and with Saudi surgically transplanted faces by French Plastic surgeon
b. Mr believes that the Saudi support for Al Qaeda in Iraq and for Abu Musab Al Zarqawi who planted the bombing of the two Shia Saint toms is really Iranian supporters who Only use Saudi Rials
c. Mr Ledeen believes that Saudi support for Al Qaeda, Pakistani Taliban, Waziristan gangs, Afghan Taliban, killers of Benazir Bhutto, followers of Jaishe Sahaba, killers of Pakistani Sufis and Shiites is really done by Iranians Who Only use Saudi Air Mail to send in their fiancial support
d. Mr Ledeen believes that Saudi Arabia actions constitute a threat to United States interests and soldiers but not to Israel’s. Whereas, Iran’s action are a threat to Israel and not to US interests.
e. Mr Ledeen believes that US is a melting pot and each group is milking the cow for his own tribe. US interests means Black, WASP, Hispanic & other group interests. He doesn’t care about those interests. But he cares about Israel’s interests because it is more specifically represent Jewish interests.
Wa Assalam, Nameh (letter) Tammam (finished)- cut the Bull S&^%
always nice to have my deepest thoughts clarified for myself. do you do lottery forecasts too?
Of course he does. That’s why he has time to sit around and write comments like the one above. He won the lottery, so he doesn’t have to work.
Or, perhaps, he has another source of income… makes one wonder.
Mesbah: Your post is the perfect example of Arab/Islime culture: make up any rubbish, write it, and you now have proof: see: it is written!
In “Western” culture it is called “talking till you believe your own BS.”
uuhhh, right. now, where are my cheetos?
One thing is certain with regard to the iranian regime, they don’t have the backing of the people. When push comes to shove you have to make the majority of them happy or at least keep them somewhat satisfied or they’ll burn you down eventually. The lessons history has to provide in this are pretty clear, yet amazingly enough people that come to power seem to chose the wrong path time and time again.
Imagine if we could assemble the first continental congress again in the America, or even more astounding would be to see the Iranian people do the same. What would the progressive socialist world do?
We’ll see where this goes in Iran, whatever happens it’s sure to take a long time and end badly for the regime sitting now.
…still waiting for that live feed of the Iranian oil fire….
By the way, here’s a newsflash for the lefties here who chose to throw slime on Mr. Ledeen rather than take what he says seriously:
The bazaar merchants are still protesting.
And that news is not from Fox, but from the reliably lefty Los Angeles Times.
Would you lefties like your crow baked or fried?
esther haman is not welcome here.