Iran: The Crushing Significance of Little Things

That what was once, just before the election, a sign of hope, of genuine discussion and democracy, of exchange between two sides, the pro-Ahmedinijad side and the pro-Moussavi side, as reported by Joe Klein in Time, now has degenerated into a violent confrontation that threatens to undermine the very legitimacy of Iran's system of government - this is a study in the crushing significance of little things.

The Iranians weren't asking all that much: both sides simply want free and fair elections. The bugaboo here is not America's favorite whipping boy, Ahmedinejad, so much as it is the Ayatollah Khamanei, whose Friday speech changed the tone from possibly resolvable to totally insoluble conflict between two sides, framed by obvious lies about Iranian unity. By choosing the lie and forced violation of basic human rights, which is always a violation of a nation's sense of security, in this one speech, those few words, this apparently "small" moment of time has transformed a budding democracy into a totalitarian nightmare acting under the veneer of what had been its democracy. I do not believe this is the aim of Ahmedinejad, who has played the Robin Hood of Iran's underclasses whose more "fundamental" and fatalistic view of religion was a riveting political force and remains so. He actually accomplished some "democratizing" things during his mixed-record tenure. But it is the crackdown and the grip on power evidenced by Khamanei that has unleashed the Basij and other paramilitary/police forces as arms of brutal totalitarian acts of violence and suppression that has brought the world's condemnation and horror at what has happened to Iran.

This is particularly weird when viewed in the light of who the opposition is: Moussavi was a trusted aide of the late Ayatollah Khomeini, father of the Islamic Republic. Khamanei appears to have reached the egotistical point of seeing anyone who appears to threaten his perceived "divine" grip on power as Enemy, and hence he has become more than what his title has previously entailed. He has become, as Supreme Leader, Iran's de facto dictator, with Ahmedinejad as his politically savvy enabler/front man. I hope this situation will change, but it appears to be getting worse.

Who's Afraid of a Big Dissent?

Do you ever get that sinking feeling that all the euphoria when Dems restored some balance of power to government is somehow - if not premature, not quite "euphoria"... more like "cautious curiosity checked by exaggerated caution"? Did you ever wonder why this democracy seems to lack some kind of vibrance? Like an injection of vitamin B or hormones might help ... in lieu of courage... If you're tired of being tired of politicians who never take a stand - except to say, "I always stand tall to take a stand!!" Please check out this great article from LexisNexis.com:

Where are the democrats? When it comes to Iraq, the opposition party is afraid to oppose.

By Michael, Terry

IT'S HARD TO get out of a deal with the devil. That's the congressional Democrats' dilemma as they continue to treat the Iraq war as a speed bump on their pathway to the perks of restored power.

Take Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware. Asked on one of the Sunday venues for pompous pontificators how he would respond to any attempt by President Bush to escalate the war in Iraq (to "surge," if you preferit in Newspeak), the Democratic "leader" on foreign policy responded, "There's not much I can do about it."

This is a man who sees a future president during his morning look in the mirror. Sadly, the glass reflects an empty suit who embodies the congressional Democrats' decision to reduce action on Iraq to a political calculus appropriate for the highway appropriations bill, not a moral imperative to challenge a policy that has sent thousands of twenty-somethings to their deaths in the desert.

You certainly can do something about it, Senator. It's called leadership. You rise on the Senate floor. You say you were out of your mind to write a blank check for this hideous abuse of American militarypower. And then you propose immediate withdrawal, just slow enough to maximize the safety of the 135,000 young men and women you helped put in harm's way by your collusion with this elective war. You do what Republican Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon had the guts to do last month, stopping just short of accurately labeling this public policy obscenity a criminal enterprise.

I have lived in the 10 surreal square miles of D.C. for more than three decades, usually playing by the rules of decorum dictated by the political and media classes, first as a young congressional aide, later as a national party committee and presidential campaign operative, and now as an aging educator of journalism students who want to spend their careers interpreting politics.

But like millions of other Americans, I can no longer contain the primal scream I want to direct at the members of my party who declined to engage in a real debate in the run-up to this completely avoidable misjudgment of old men and women. Nonexistent, and certainly nonthreatening, WMDs. A secularist paper-tiger dictator, despised by the Islamist lunatics behind the September II attacks. A tribal culture with zero indigenous movement for pluralistic democracy.

All of those things were knowable when congressional Democrats such as Biden had an opportunity to stop this madness before it started.Some of them actually shared the neoconservative pretensions of a new American imperialism. But most just quaked in their permanent campaign boots, fearing being labeled Cold War-style liberal wimps. They averted their eyes and closed their mouths instead of acting like a responsible opposition party.

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Now, I'm waiting to see what the other candidates say/do. Hillary Clinton may look somehow very professional & all, but I get this sinking feeling ... like she's just another politician ...