You can barely see it in the popular press, but the global insurrection is going great guns, despite the fecklessness of the so-called Western world. And it’s going great guns in our enemies’ countries, not just in those of our (at least erstwhile) friends.
In Syria, for example, the anti-Assad demonstrations are getting bigger and are explicitly calling for regime change. In Iran, there are ongoing strikes, violent anti-regime demonstrations in the oil regions in the west, adjoining Iraq (think Basra), and continued sabotage of the country’s gas pipelines.
The destinies of the Damascus and Tehran tyrannies are closely linked, which is why the Iranians have been sending some of their top experts to Syria, to aid the Baathists in putting down the insurrection. The mullahs have delivered between 350 and 400 cameras that are hidden in traffic signals, in order to identify the activists, and more than 42 censors to shut down foreign radio and tv broadcasts. And there are many Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollahis in Damascus, along with Iranian-trained Arabs, nearly two thousand strong as of the 11th, to show the Syrian security forces how it’s done.
In other words, it’s an attempt to replay the Iranian repression on Syrian soil.
It’s not working very well, as you can see by reading the latest updates from the Reform Party of Syria, including this stunning video of Army defectors leading a crowd in Dara’a and shooting their guns in the air. Crowds in Damascus and Latakia on Friday were very large, certainly tens of thousands of people, and maybe more. And the revolt is spreading to new towns and cities every day.
There’s a paucity of reportage — another parallel with Iran — and the last reliable figures I have are from the 11th. As of that date, there had been uprisings in 9 cities, 229 persons had been murdered and more than 1,000 were injured, and roughly 2,700 had been arrested.
For the moment, Assad is combining the mailed fist with acts of appeasement (sporadic prisoner releases, including the hated Kurds, promises to cancel the “Emergency Law” that has enabled any and all violence by the regime ever since 1963), which is the worst of all possible strategies (the crackdown further enrages people, while the appeasement is taken as a sign of weakness). The Iranians are telling him to buy time, organize a truly effective repression, and then act forcefully. But the Iranian model is probably not a winning play, to judge by recent events there:
–Iranian Arabs in the Ahwaz oil region have risen up, first on Friday’s “Day of Rage” in which at least nine protesters were killed by the regime’s security forces, and then again on Saturday, about which there are only very early reports as I write on Saturday afternoon. The regime doesn’t want the world to know about these protests, both because it suggests the vulnerability of the country’s major source of income, and because it shows once again that Khamenei and Ahmadinejad have failed to impose their will on a population that wants an end to the regime itself. Thus foreign “observers” have been forbidden to travel to Ahwaz, and the disinformation mavens in Tehran staged their own “demonstrations,” claiming that the population was protesting the treatment of Shi’ites in Bahrain. Nobody was fooled, least of all the (mostly Sunni) Ahwaz Arabs.
–The systematic sabotage of the petrochemical industry and the nation’s vital pipelines — to which I have so often referred — continues apace. On March 15th, the Azerbaijan Movement for Democracy and Integrity in Iran claimed credit for the fiery conflagration of the big Tabriz refinery. The facility was totally shut down for three days, and more than 100 fire-fighting vehicles took 11 hours to get the blaze under control. The government declared a state of emergency and the security forces sealed off the area in a massive manhunt. But no arrests were made.
–Strikes, of varying duration, in the oil sector, ranging from the big petrochemical plant at Bandar Imam to the Abadan refinery and oil fields.
–The relentless destruction of the country’s gas pipelines, which run from the southern refineries to the Turkish border. Three major pipelines come together south of Tehran, just outside the holy city of Qom, and they were all blown up on February 11th. After they were patched up, there was another blast on April 8th, which was branded a “terrorist attack” (nobody was prepared to believe the fairy tale about yet another accidental explosion, even though the regime’s capacity for failure and self-destruction is incomparable in the modern world).
You mentioned Assad and the Iranian regime. Let us also not forget the silence of the Obama administration on such luminaries as Castro, Chavez, Lula and any other leftist or “let us surrender all of our sovereignty to the UN” characters that dot the political map of the world today. Is it masochism? I don’t know. I think Leopold von Sacher Masoch would be incensed by the gratuitous use of his harmless hobby. I wish it were only masochism and/or lack of cojones. I believe there is a lot more to it than may meet the eye. It is a case of a brother not wanting to harm other brothers in arm. Do you really believe that the concept of freedom and the wonderous and beautiful story of the United States of America has any meaning to the current C in C? I don’t, and no reasoning will ever convince me otherwise.
Masoch pointed out that a master/slave relationship between the sexes,
in either direction, reduces the capability of the society, compared to
one in which the relationship is between peers, different but equal, and
that the most difficult task in producing such a society is to raise girls
up to be women, functioning as adults in society.
HR, we is on ‘da same page!
Oscambo is purposeful; insane, but smart enough to sort out the facts. The scary aspect of our failure to impeach and imprison him is our lack of will to do so. He is a sociopath, a megalomaniac, who needs to be locked up; not loosed on the people of the world.
If those easily discernible facts are observed, the observer has an obligation to join with other good people to rid our country of this usurper, in a moral and legal manner. Cowards at heart, the majority refuse to see him for what he is, and thereby abslove themselves from taking any meaningful action. They are like the cowardly husband who cannot hear the burglar downstairs breaking up the place because he would then be impelled to go down and deal with the burglar, and there is no way the Wuss is going to do that!
Nobody spends two million dollars to hide his personal records unless he has an awful lot to hide. Lets find a sane judge, get an order, and pull and publish every one of the documents in question. When they show, and they will, that he is not eligible to be president, and knew that fact, we can lock his worthless backside up for a hundred years, and feed him through the keyhole. Then we can undo every awful thing he has done and set things right. And we can provide him with myriad cellmates, demonrats and GOPhers alike; blind, smelly, destructive critters. Who is up for it?!
And what about Bahrain?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/16/bahrain-eyewitness-riot-police
The latest crimes of occupation forces in Bahrain.
Horseradish,
you (and Ledeen and Obama) all forgot about Bahrain and Saudi Arabia? Well not quite. Ledeen and many others (of course not all) on the Right implied support or outright supported Brutal Saudi occupation of Bahrain. They also called for Mubarak to crush the insurrection early on. Obama administration also seem to have accepted as essential or inevitable the Saudi campaign of terror in Bahrain. and terror it is: Hospitals have been attacked, nurses and doctors beaten, many taken away and missing and amongst the arrested some have been tortured to death, bahraini soccer stars arrested, lawyers, human right activists, national monuments blown away, even the very pavement of the roundabout stained in blood of bahrainis who came there in hundreds of thousands seemed to offensive and ripped out by occupation forces.
An occupation force whose tenets of (wahabi) religion calls for the murder of Shias and suppression of any form of democracy, an ideology that does not even accept the concept of political reform and has re-written the Quran to make it clear the general terms referring to non-believers is really about Christians and Jews.
The Bahraini foreign minister said of Sunnis and Shais that they hate each other (who talks about his own people like that?) and indeed this “hate” is what is being created and then magnified by occupation forces whose real aim is to stop Arab Spring from reaching its shores. Indeed Saudi occupation forces appear under orders to systematically inflame sectarian divides.
Last summer, a chill of oppression began to circulate Bahraini political space when Sunnis joined Shais to object to the corruption and land grab by the Bahraini ruling family. Indeed google map made it visual how little beach and shore property was there and how much of it was taken by the ruling family. The Bahraini dictatorships is not ideological; it is a thuggish criminal organization led by prime minister for life that would happily send a Jewish ambassador to Washington while at the same time keep the population divided by sectarian devices; would gladly work with Mossad the way South African Neo-Nazis did. The return to constitutional rule is what this criminal family is afraid of not “Iranian meddling.” Bahrani shias voted with Sunnis for Independence from Iran and the Bahraini merchant culture had seen itself as a city-state for centuries.
Now it is matter of life and death for Arab dictatorships in GCC and Yamen; thus they have steered the eyes and their guns (indeed Saudi Arabian officials have used language of war against Iran) toward an enemy that the West could (and according to them) should focus on in order to let them off the hook while they suppress their young populations and suffocate the Arab Spring in the blinding sand storms of deception. It is reinforced by the old age hatred for the Iranian nation. The same hate that gave energy to another Arab assault on Iran (which then was also accused of “meddling” via shais) by Saddam. You will find the opportunist and enemies of freedom once again cheering for both sides to loose or side with the Arabs if there is another military conflict. To hell with whatever tens of thousands of young Iranians sacrificed; chemical weapons? fine. Hopefully, this time the Arab dictatorship are a bit wiser and lack of Naval power will make them think twice (though now Saudis have accelerated Naval purchase and preparations for such an eventuality, to crush the “head of the snake” and they meant the people of Iran really, they always mean the Iranian people, you know those damned “Persians” who should not have been created along with “flies and Jews”.
There have been always a conflict in the American soul between two spirits: both borrowed from Europe. One is Nationalism that calls for the rise of every European nation to define its national interest in terms of “great power” politics. The other is of course the revolutionary and ideological consequences of enlightenment. America is its greatest battleground.
The people who call for selective support of Arab Spring in the region, who call for bombing of Libya while support GCC-wahabi occupation and brutalization of Bahrain advocate a form of American-Israeli Nationalism. I do not want to pretend I can predict the future; I do not know to what ultimate aim this cynical “real realpolitik” approach leads to but I do know that the price paid for it is both morally and ideologically too great, repugnant and consequential in ways that might not appear to those who advocate it now. To me in the 21 century a simple idea is at work, you can see it all around you, in the letter that the daughter of a Bahraini human right activist wrote to Obama, you cannot hide: you are either with us or you are our enemy. They will make it simple for all those who stand with oppression lost in whatever web of justification they have weaved: “If you stand with tyrants you are our enemy. We do not care what sophistication spins in your skulls” as one Bahraini wrote to me.
“freedom” is no longer worth the pixels they are written in here. “Stand with tyrants and you are against us” she added. I suggest the sophisticated (in the Obamas national security meetings or here) add that to their (shameful) great power calculations when they do their math in terms of enemy of my enemy is my friend.
http://www.u.tv/News/Health-of-Bahrain-hunger-striker-slumps-as-regime-comes-under-pressure/8a2179d4-55cb-4a71-b66b-5f8794f9ccd8
The Bahraini freedom-fighter who wrote the letter now on hunger strike and weakening. Shame and disgrace on all those who side with her oppressors; the enemies of freedom.
I detect a pattern: our administration reacts to the exact extent it is shamed into reacting by the media.
In other words they form foreign policy by watching TV. Vogue is saying the Syrian upper class is neat and petite so there is no reason for a no-fly. Michelle Obama may be telling her husband that no woman who wears such shoes can have a husband that is evil – noblesse oblige and all that.
Noblesse Oblige is the obligation of _true_ nobility to rule fairly.
Obama simply does not have a clue. He couldn’t make a hard decision if his life depended upon it. But he can pick good ice cream & make basketball picks…
” It’s what you get from a president who sees America as the root cause of mischief, and perhaps even evil, in the world, and is more concerned about punishing his own people than fighting our enemies.”
What I see is Obama being the ultimate coward. Think about it. What are the only two uprisings Obama refuses to comment on? Syria and Iran. And what are the two coutnries that border Iraq and have the power to totally destabilize Iraq? Syria and Iran. Face it, Obama is dying to leave Iraq as soon as possible. He doesn’t want to stay and is going to do everything in his power to abandon that country to the Iranians. He probably doesn’t even want to keep any bases there, bases that we fought and died for to obtain. The jerk doesn’t really see how useful it would be for us to have major American bases in Iraq, especially as a safeguard AGAINST Iran. So Obama doesn’t want to do anything to Iran and Syria that would give them an excuse to cause more problems in Iraq, thereby giving our military a reason for staying. It’s the ultimate betrayal of everything our troops fought and died for. And what Obama doesn’t also understand (or want to admit) is that Iraq will probably fall anyway after we leave, so we may as well stay, like we did in South Korea after that war ended.
When I was a boy, I studied European history and at the start of studying World War One my teacher always called Turkey the “Sick Man of Europe,” because of how weak Turkey was militarily at the time. Who knew that, today, the Sick Man IS Europe, weak militarily, politically, and certainly morally. Seems that Obama takes all of his lessons from the Europeans now. He wants to copy their social-welfare states, their military weakness (to pay for the social-welfare state), and their cowardice. How the mighty have fallen.
Obama started this “war” against Libya, & then proceeded to lose it due to his utter incompetence.
Obama should surrender himself to Kadaffi & go to Libya to face trial for war crimes.
Could someone please explain to me why Turkey would force Iranian planes to land when they are moving into the Islamist order?
Turkey is not “moving into the Islamist order” in the sense you imply. Erdogan wants to establish Turkey at the head of the Islamist order. He has no interest in fealty to an Iranian Shia scheme for regional Islamic organiztion. Nor does he want to see the Muslim Brotherhood establish such a scheme by organizing Sunni Arabs.
Depicting Erdogan as a “Neo-Ottoman” has become a stock shorthand in European and Middle Eastern media. We just don’t hear much about that over here in the US.
Meanwhile, Iran has been trying to foment an Islamist uprising in Azerbaijan, much to Turkey’s chagrin. With Syria in turmoil, moreover, Turkey and Iran are vying to get their Kurdish problems under control (see Michael Ledeen’s info on Iran’s skirmishes with Kurds), as Kurdish national aspirations are a problem for all three nations plus Iraq.
The Iranian arms shipment in question was to Syria and may have been intended for Hezbollah in Lebanon. (It was intercepted in March.) From Turkey’s perspective, the regional situation has changed since 12 Jan, when the Hezbollah “coup” in Lebanon led off the firestorm in the Middle East.
Turkey and Saudi Arabia tried hard to broker a new government deal in Lebanon that would NOT involve Hezbollah control of the government, but the US didn’t back their play. The US has been essentially inert throughout the entire Islamic-world eruption.
That gives regional players an opportunity they haven’t had for at least 40 years to press their own agendas. Turkey’s not going to sit by passively and let Iran strengthen an axis with Syria and Lebanon. Erdogan wants to keep Turkey’s thumb on whatever power-brokering axes emerge, which is why his government is running around with Qatar and the Saudis trying to “help” everyone in sight.
I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago here: http://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/2011/04/04/turkey-rising/
This is our world without US leadership.
tks J.E. Dyer, well said and a very good post too.
Thanks, Mr. Ledeen — as you can guess, I’m a big fan of your work too.
Mr. Ledeen -
When will the sabotage efforts against the current Teheran Regime amount to anything beyond an annoyance – PRAY TELL?
Dr. Shalit
Harry Harrison gave the best summary of the reason why medieval tyranny
cannot succeed in a futuristic society; It helps to know that the dialog
paraphrased below takes place in a small community with a primitive oil
refinery as their only industry, and only they know the secret process.
The speakers are the evil but intelligent tyrant, his evil and stupid son,
and our hero the engineer.
ET: Take the Hero out and kill him.
OH: Wait ! You can’t kill me because I know that what comes out first is best.
SS: Father, I am confused; Does he mean I cannot cut his throat ?
ET: No, he means that if you do, I cannot find anyone else to do his work.
Tyrants who kill their best and brightest are cutting their own throats. >:)
Yes, those running the government would be “masochists” if they were on our side and meant well, but they’re not on our side, they’re only pretending to be, so “sadists” would be the better psychological profile. Those who fall for their line are the “masochists.”
ricpic: i have trashed your comment. save your racism for others, don’t try it here.
Please forgive my boldness, but can we at least see what the “racist” is, so that as intelligent citizens we can hold it up to the light, and judge for ourselves?
I think for myself. I need no one to do it for me.
sorry, but i couldn’t stomach it. i’m not thinking for you Bob, I’m trying to maintain good manners.
I stand corrected sir. Thank you.
“It’s what you get from a president who sees America as the root cause of mischief, and perhaps even evil, in the world, and is more concerned about punishing his own people than fighting our enemies.”
Bravo! I promise to visit you in jail. Then to join you there, of course.
So true. President Obama came in as being a Uniter. All he’s done is divide our nation in many ways. We need a tough fair president who will more importantly UNITE.
If the “Arab Spring” wins in Syria, what is your estimation for the survival or quality of life for various non-Muslim communities in Syria in the aftermath, say for Christians? In other words, is this a case where the greater good for the many outweighs the possible bad fates of the few? Perhaps indiscriminate Muslim violence on non-Muslims would not be an issue here? However, if to make an omelette the breaking of eggs is required, perhaps we could get more bang for the culinary buck in North Korea where everyone is on the same ethnic page?
We are assuming that Obama’s friends are the USA’s, and vice versa. I do not believe this to be true. I believe Obama genuinely hates and resents this country, and wants Muslims to be more powerful than the USA. Read his books. It is between the lines, if you are looking for it IMHO. At least nobody questioned GWB’s patriotism.
2012 can’t come soon enough.
Since I believe we’re almost out of time, my candidate meter only measures one quality: Can I see this person as a stone-ass, son-of-a-bit#%-in, war-time leader who is genetically incapable of backing down when convinced of the rightness of the cause? Palin and West pass with flying colors, so does Trump. Anybody else, not really.
Of course, in the end, I will simply vote for the un-Obama. But while we still enjoy the luxury of debate….
On my candidate for president ledger I have two columns. The first column is the candidates sincere core platform. The second column is for electability. The first column is always pretty easy for me and often times garners no declared candidates names. The second column…. not easy by any definition.
Let me address the first column. Does the candidate have a ‘core’ [constitutional restoration] platform for the government…the Congress and the Executive? Thats it! If they do, that candidate makes my ledgers first column.
The second column. How do they fare with the ‘realities’ of becoming elected….AND succeeding with their platform? A tough call!
We have such a divided ideological nation and a government that two branches have surrendered the lines of their constitutional authorities. For decades it was routine for the majority population of voters to elect democrats. Since the 70′s it has vacillated primarily over defense and economic circumstance just as today but…..now add an extreme dose of social and capitalist ideological divide. I suspect, given the matrix of the past nearly two years and the beginning runup to the next election, the GOP will have some extreme self inflicted injuries to overcome as factual information comes to surface, as fodder for the taking. Additionally, until the heated GOP divisions are concretely settled for a single core platform, a GOP’ candidates electability is greatly diminished in the coming 2012 general election. Sad but true! The only thing that possibly could overcome this is, a remaining bad or diminishing economy and continued high unemployment, in which possibly, Obama could receive the negative ‘emotional’ vote like Bush handed the democrats in the 2008 election. Thats how I see it right now.
I view the congressional seats far more important than the presidency and will continue to believe that is the only place a genuine constitutional restoration can take place….if only the congress would restore and abide by their constitutional authorities of separate but equal powers over a limited government.
I find not one, potential GOP/Tea Party candidate thus far making my ledger!
Thank you for the updates.
Without this continuous flow of information the fight against the internationalist subversives would be impossible, we couldn’t see the big picture.
Prayers for the Freedom Fighters everywhere.
Michael,
I always look forward to your cutting edge reports, greatly enjoy them, keep it up. What greatly concerns me is what is the attitude of our State Department, not Her Majesty, but the rank and file. I know they are pro Arab, but what are they currently doing, recommending, advocating, — how do they affect Obama’s actions and attitudes, and can a conservative administation change the culture there? Most grateful for your comments.
“It’s what you get from a president who sees America as the root cause of mischief, and perhaps even evil, in the world, and is more concerned about punishing his own people than fighting our enemies.”
Just who are Obama’s own people? His twoand a half years in office have given me the distinct impression that it’s not the American people, of any color or creed.
And then there is the John Sweeney question…..
Why is John Sweeney Faxing Mahmoud Abbas? Top Secret Israel Bashing from Union Thugs?
http://wwwtwosetsofbooks.blogspot.com/2011/04/exclusive-why-is-john-sweeney-faxing.html
The President increasingly reveals his incompetence in the field of foreign affairs. He does not know whether he is “afoot or on horseback”!
I vote for horseback since he is the south end of a north bound horse.
Obama has essentially only two foreign polices!
“Hey buddy, can you loan me a dime.”
“what do I have to do for you to be my friend?”
Is there any reason to think the crises in countries across the middle east are linked rising food and fuel prices?
my buddy “Spengler” at asiatimes sure thinks so, and he’s very smart.
I think they are sado-masichists. I wish they were only masochists.
To obama freedom is his enemy, so that makes all freedom loving American`s, obamas enemies. You may say you are a freedom lover, but if you expect the government to take care of you, you don`t even know what freedom is!
The only place I’ve heard any of the information about Iran in Mr. Ledeen’s post has been right here. Pajamas Media is essential to learning real news given the MSM’s loss of the ability and will to report it.
Tom, thanks for the kind words for Pajamas–which is better all the time, I agree–but Twitter has lots of stuff on Iran. Have a look at #iranelection for example.
I love how desperate to criticize Obama you are.
Your complaint is that we don’t pressure the head of a government that is designated as a state sponsor of terror to resign?
If we said much more they would feel justified in massacring their own people.
Where would that get us?
just imagine! “they would feel justified in massacring their own people.”
as compared to now, huh? good grief.
It seems to me that Obama would be a decent president (just not the president of THIS country).
Dear Bob,
Surely you know by now that earning the label ‘racist’ is a piece of cake these days. Just disagree with the US Supreme Leader, and any administration personnel, Democrat or union member will oblige you.
However, I doubt that our author jumped on that bandwagon. Instead, he probably read something nauseating and genuinely racist. And to paraphrase, he is the ‘decider’ here – he does have the responsibility of maintaining civility. Thank you Michael Ledeen and Bob and everyone else who contributes to that.
Given the track record has been established by the MSM, it bears repeating: They are in the business of delivering what they conclude their audience wants. This is limited by what the story tellers consider to be true, and that they look like they know what they talking about.
So, once again we see the sincerity and passion of silence by those who think
they know better, and they don’t see the Emperor has no clothes. At least, you Michael, are creative in describing the Emperor sans clothes.
Correct David,there is a jungle of emperadors sans clothes.
Seems like the Saudi counter-attack after the loss of Egypt is in full effect. Not sure the Saudis realize the risks involved.
I’m not all that interested in Syria, however I am concerned about the United States. I think there needs to be a regime change here. Now.
There is a mistaken assumption, reflected in this article, that the majority of Arabs in Khuzestan are Sunni. They are, in fact, mostly Shia. The Iranian regime and some Sunni extremists like to portray the unrest among Ahwazi Arabs as religious when it is, in fact, ethnic and related to long-standing grievances about racial discrimination and persecution.
Michael -
This is the Middle East, not the Midwest we are talking about. The fellow with more/bigger weapons and the stomach to use them invariably wins.
Dr. Shalit