Iran coming to a boil


To paraphrase Star Wars, the more you tighten your grip, the more will slip through your fingers.
This article by Robin Wright in the Washington Post covers a topic that is more important than it seems. Emphasis added.

Iran is in the midst of a sweeping crackdown that both Iranians and U.S. analysts compare to a cultural revolution in its attempt to steer the oil-rich theocracy back to the rigid strictures of the 1979 revolution.

The recent detentions of Iranian American dual nationals are only a small part of a campaign that includes arrests, interrogations, intimidation and harassment of thousands of Iranians as well as purges of academics and new censorship codes for the media. Hundreds of Iranians have been detained and interrogated, including a top Iranian official, according to Iranian and international human rights groups.

The move has quashed or forced underground many independent civil society groups, silenced protests over issues including women's rights and pay rates, quelled academic debate, and sparked society-wide fear about several aspects of daily life, the sources said.

Few feel safe, especially after the April arrest of Hossein Mousavian, a former top nuclear negotiator and ambassador to Germany, on charges of espionage and endangering national security.

The widespread purges and arrests are expected to have an impact on parliamentary elections next year and the presidential contest in 2009, either discouraging or preventing reformers from running against the current crop of hard-liners who dominate all branches of government, Iranian and U.S. analysts say. The elections are one of several motives behind the crackdowns, they add.

Public signs of discontent -- such as students booing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on a campus last December, teacher protests in March over low wages and workers demonstrating on May Day -- are also behind the detentions, according to Iranian sources.

Iran and Syria have both waged a proxy war in Iraq because they know what is at stake. They can't allow democracy in any form to flourish in Iraq. The borders are too open, too many relatives would start asking "Why can't we do that if our cousins can?"

It's going to get worse before it gets better, but this is a very good sign.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Tue - June 19, 2007 at 02:44 PM  Tag


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