Stumbling Over The Cliff
As bad as the Obama administration has been in gauging the feelings of the US population, the Iranian regime keeps making blunder after blunder in its attempt to hold on to power. They have reached the point where they are doing things that not even the Shah dared to do.
The BBC has been providing what information it can, after being ejected from the country following the first round of demonstration: Iran opposition figures arrested after protests
A number of opposition figures have been arrested in Iran, a day after at least eight people died during the most violent protests for months.
Those detained include senior aides to opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, and a former foreign minister.
Mr Mousavi’s nephew was among those killed on Sunday. Officials deny opposition claims police shot them.
Juan Cole goes the the heart of the current missteps of the Iranian leaders:
The killing of Ali Mousavi, the 34-year-old nephew of former presidential candidate Mir Husain Mousavi, was also a violation of Shiite values. The Mousavis are putative descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, a sort of caste in Muslim societies called ‘sayyid’ or ‘sharif.’
…Killing a sayyid is a blot on any Iranian government. Doing so on Ashura, the day of morning for the martyred grandson of the Prophet, Imam Husayn, borders on insanity.
Martyrs are central to the Shi’ia form of Islam. Ashura is the most important day in the calendar for Twelver Shi’ia, the dominant sect in Iran. For a government that bases its legitimacy on adherence to the values and teachings of that sect to do something that not even the very secular Shah would have dared to do, is immensely damaging to the credibility of the country’s rulers.
3 comments
Yeah… really! Talk about loosing the plot. at this rate, they’ll make the Bushmoron look intelligent by comparison! That’s a feat I thought impossible.
OT: Hey Bryan… can you add an emoticon like this:
Shake Head Emoticon
It would save me some typing (and make hipparchia happy) with your blogs lately! I suspect it’ll be well used. 😆
I see that the regime has also arested SHirin Ebadl’s sister and trashed the offices of Khoneneis family. The Iranian regime is staring into the abyss and what is staring back is Green!
.-= last blog ..The beginning of the end in Iran? =-.
The only reason that Khamenei was able to make the level of ayatollah was the insistence of Ayatollah Khomeini. Khamenei is, by all accounts, an indifferent scholar and lacks the personal following that is a requirement for the rank of ayatollah. I have to believe that even his supporters among the ayatollahs in Qom are beginning to question his competency after recent events. He has apparently unleashed the Revolutionary Guard without any consideration for the long-term results.
In addition to everything else, the economy has been in turmoil for some time, with inflation running at rates up to 30%, which Dr. Cole thinks was probably the reason that banks were attacked, in addition to the basji. That means that the opposition is gaining support from groups who aren’t really interested in the political problems, but have an economic complaint. That is a major problem because many of those new people in the streets probably voted for Ahmadinejad in the elections for economic reasons. The economic component probably also explains the new cities added to the list.
This is a screw-up worthy of the Hedgemony, fueled by the same sort of arrogance.
OT: I’ll see what I can do, Kryten.