On Iran and More (Call it the "Iran Propaganda Thread" if you wish)

Rouhani has won in a landslide, in an election that became a referendum of sorts on the future course of the country.

With these results, I am sure that the path towards Iran's capitulation on a host of issues signalling resistance to US hegemony in the region is going to be paved. Perhaps such capitulation will be enough to see Iran spared a fate similar to what many others in our region are going through, although that is not certain by any means. But on the negative side, any hope that Iran can become a major power wielding an influence and position commensurate with its history is perhaps postponed indefinitely, even if that was already largely postponed in light of the nuclear deal and Raisi was certainly not the person to have kept Iran on that path in any case.

Anyway, congratulations to Rouhani's supporters and my best wishes for an Iran that does live up to many of the slogans from the Rouhani campaign, even if I have serious concern about some of the things the Rouhani camp has done during their time in office and am not entirely enthusiastic about the new Iranian intemezo in the region proving so short lived and coming to an end.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-for-landslide-in-huge-victory-for-reformists
Iran: Hassan Rouhani set for landslide in huge victory for reformists
Just before 9am, the interior ministry said Rouhani was ahead, with 14 million votes to Ebrahim Raisi’s 10 million, with over half of votes counted

 

No I don't think Raisi would have handled anything better and I think I said that in my post. But I am not otherwise as confident as you about what will be happening under Rouhani either, but wish for the best.

 

Some of them were, or claimed, to be hoping Rouhani would lose. But some of that is because these folks will certainly try hard to de-legitimize Rouhani. This kind of like being against the nuclear agreement, not necessarily to derail the deal, but to set the stage for taking the benefits of the deal but reneging on the benefits that Iran had bargained at the right time. A lot of times, the devil is in the details. For instance, while AIPAC threw a raucous and lobbied very hard against the deal, they also quietly lobbied against certain procedural games some of the Republican opponents of the deal wanted to play to attach conditions to the deal that they knew would kill it. One way to interpret what they did was to say: "okay, we will let the deal go through, but create the political conditions for the US to renege on its part of the bargain once Iran has given up its surge capacity." (Kind of like wanting to keep the cake and eating it too).

Remember, some of them have explicitly mentioned that they will be going after re-imposing sanctions and their whole games after Iran's election because they don't want to influence the election result against Rouhani. And Trump has similar issued waivers on some of the sanctions but called for a review of the whole package, with many people expecting that after the election is over, Trump and company will begin to concentrate on their mischief against Iran.

Maybe I worry too much, but what I mentioned and some things I don't want to discuss on the internet, does cause me to have some concerns. On the other hand, I agree that Raisi was not the answer either and far from it.

This is s report from last month, incidentally, to give some context to what I am saying.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-usa-sanctions-idUSKBN1762OR
New U.S. sanctions bill delayed by concern over Iran election

 

I agree that Rouhani is a better choice and in a much better position to prevent the UK/ EU to join with the rest of the folks who are after tearing Iran apart and that he may be better able to frustrate plans to have everyone ganging up on Iran. But that is not necessarily because the UK/EU are interested in doing good or doing something worthwhile for Iran. They have their own agendas and those agendas aren't meant to make Iran all that influential, prosperous or strong. But for many of them, a huge market like Iran isn't something to pass up and if they can get Iran weakened enough, and in the meantime convince the US that Iran has been sufficiently defanged, they don't mind seeing a government in power that gives them a bunch of sweat heart deals and is internationally a bit more presentable. And maybe that is the best we can realistically hope for, but it is much less than what I want for my country.

P.S.
While I am hoping for the best, I think the examples of others who followed the same path in places like Libya and Syria and elsewhere should serve as a cautionary note in imagining that the UK/EU are ultimately that reliable.

 

The intense and passionate support that Rouhani was able to garner as the election campaign got underway was palpable and easy to notice around the middle and upper middle class areas in Tehran. For the past few days, people in the streets close to where I live were basically having parties each night. Conversely, while Rouhani's opponents tried to rally the economic anxieties of lower middle class people and others and channel it in favor of Raisi, the choice of Raisi as the person to carry the banner for those sentiments failed at the end to inspire many of those folks. As a result, while over all turnout was very high and, in absolute terms (but not in percentage of eligible voters) more people (41+ million) voted in this election than any other election, the huge turnout was fueled mostly among those in middle and upper middle class areas in places such as Tehran who turned out in unprecedented numbers, while turnout in lower middle class areas which often fueled the high turnout number in past elections was below average.

I think I have said this before, but I will repeat it for emphasis: regardless of my doubts about Rouhani, I have no doubt about the kind of sentiments and aspirations that drove much of this passionate supporters. The slogans and the songs in the pro Rouhani rallies were ones that would even make someone like me, who has been skeptical of Rouhani, forget for the moment the issues that made me skeptical and want to join in the hopes and dreams of the crowd.

At the end of the day, I do believe this election was a referendum of sorts on what the people of Iran wanted and didn't want. And what this referendum said was the people of Iran do not want violent change and instability, but do want much greater freedoms in the social and political arena and want Iran to do what it reasonably can to be accepted by the west to be reintegrated back into the western dominated global economic, social and political order.

 

I am afraid Iran faces very difficult times ahead and neither faction in Iranian politics have the right answers. Both factions, frankly, are ultimately mired in corruption. And that corruption - which extends even to having suspicious foreign links and countenancing suspicious moles in key places in the government - makes it difficult to imagine how Iran can save itself from the dangers that appear to be in the horizon. The unnatural obsession of the conservative factions with some social issues you alluded to makes things obviously worse. At the same time, as the worse plans against Iran are those that look to tear it apart and throw it into mayhem and chaos, working outside of the system isn't much of a choice either. That would help those who have the worse agendas against Iran.

I don't want to sound overly pessimistic, particularly when I see so many Iranians - in large part because of what you mention - in rather jubilant mood in the wake of the election. But you follow Iranian related news carefully and know full well that the Trump/Neocon/Israel/Wahhabi Arabia/MEK (and whoever else they can enlist to the 'cause') is the last group that cares at all about the welfare of the Iranian people or the truth when it comes to Iran. They are also the last group that is bothered with what the people in Iran want or think and the first to dismiss the election as being irrelevant. Their plan, which they have been working on for some time, is to throw Iran into chaos and mayhem ("implosion").

The UK/EU (plus certain parts of the US establishment who isn't all that thrilled with the US being a poodle of the Israeli Lobby), on the other hand, prefer to turn Iran into a weakened and largely irrelevant state, with Iran instead busy giving them concessions and deals which strengthen their position in Iran while adding more to their coffers to finance their creeping takeover of Iran's key institutions. But at least their preference (which doesn't necessarily translate to what they can deliver against the US/Israel and company) is to prevent an implosion and, instead, in return for all the things they are going to get, they are willing to give the Iranian people a measure of freedom on the issues you alluded to along with some stability. But that is if they can convince the US to go along with their preference. Otherwise, the weakened state they want to see from all this dynamic will simply help bring about an implosion even more reliably and effectively.

Even if, by chance, an Iranian politician appears who wants to at least stand up to and say something against this dynamic, he will be turned into an international pariah. Of course, no politician will be perfect and all of them will have some issues that can be blown out of proportion and used against them. Nothing remotely perfect, in fact, can climb up the political ladders in Iran to be in position to make a difference when there is simply too much corruption and treachery around to avoid getting tainted by it.