Tuesday, February 03, 2004
IRAN'S CRISIS - THE WORSE THE BETTER ?
Iranian voters appear to be so disillusioned with Iran's psuedo-democracy that provides a fig leaf of legitimacy for the numerically tiny clique of hardline mullahs and Pasdaran security apparatus bureaucrats around " Supreme Guide" Khameini that they are greeting the mass-resignations of reformist legislators with a shrug.
In the early 20th century, Bolshevik radicals following Lenin used the expression " the worse the better " as a slogan to greet worsening conditions for the lower classes in the Russia of Tsar Nicholas II. The Marxist Left's hope was that unbearable suffering would bring about a revolutionary explosion that they could ( and did ) exploit.
Since the advent of President Khatami and his reformist brand of Shiite Islamism, Iranian hardliners have escaped some of the accountability for their unpopular policies because the ineffectuality of reformers and their electoral majority in an ultimately powerless Majlis became targets for the frustration of average Iranians demanding liberalization and greater democracy. The only silver lining to this latest twist to the struggle in Iran is that the hardliners will stand alone on their national stage over a mostly discontented, mostly young population.
A potential powder keg the United States should try to light. ¶ 8:12 AM
Iranian voters appear to be so disillusioned with Iran's psuedo-democracy that provides a fig leaf of legitimacy for the numerically tiny clique of hardline mullahs and Pasdaran security apparatus bureaucrats around " Supreme Guide" Khameini that they are greeting the mass-resignations of reformist legislators with a shrug.
In the early 20th century, Bolshevik radicals following Lenin used the expression " the worse the better " as a slogan to greet worsening conditions for the lower classes in the Russia of Tsar Nicholas II. The Marxist Left's hope was that unbearable suffering would bring about a revolutionary explosion that they could ( and did ) exploit.
Since the advent of President Khatami and his reformist brand of Shiite Islamism, Iranian hardliners have escaped some of the accountability for their unpopular policies because the ineffectuality of reformers and their electoral majority in an ultimately powerless Majlis became targets for the frustration of average Iranians demanding liberalization and greater democracy. The only silver lining to this latest twist to the struggle in Iran is that the hardliners will stand alone on their national stage over a mostly discontented, mostly young population.
A potential powder keg the United States should try to light. ¶ 8:12 AM
