Posts from — June 2009

While I believe that Obama shouldn’t be doing much to “help” the Iranian demonstrators, there are plenty of meaningful things that have been done:

• Foreign embassies in Tehran (Australia, UK, and others) are providing care for demonstrators. It’s been widely reported that demonstrators going to hospitals have been arrested by the Basij EDIT: the part about the embassies is a rumor, and has been denied by the UK and possibly others.
• As was widely reported, Twitter rescheduled its downtime to avoid being down while Iranians were awake (at the request of the state department, too)
• Facebook released a Farsi translation of the site.
• Google added Farsi to its translation tools.
• YouTube relaxed its guidelines for violence in videos coming from Iran in recognition of the media situation

There are plenty of issues for which I have lukewarm support or object to Obama’s handling, but Iran isn’t one of them. Obama has been doing exactly what he should be doing: as little as possible. He’s spoken out against the violence and in favor of rights, but hasn’t made clear statements about being on a specific side of the conflict. Charles Krauthammer’s Op-Ed on Friday argues that Obama should “pick a side” in the conflict, and make it known. The first question anyone should ask with a proposed policy like this is: “To what end?” Would Obama’s full, public support of the demonstrators help the demonstrators? Of course not. If Obama made a statement clearly supporting the demonstrators, that statement would be played on Iranian TV for days on end. In fact, there are reports that it’s already happened, in a sense:

This morning a friend of NIAC who gets Iranian Satellite TV here said that state-run media showed President Obama speaking about Iran this morning. However, instead of translating what he actually said, the translator reportedly quoted Obama as saying he “supports the protesters against the government and they should keep protesting.”

(source)

The Iranian government would love nothing more than to paint the demonstrators as a US-fueled movement. If such a thing were successful, it’s reasonable to expect that it would end the movement. Not surprisingly, Krauthammer doesn’t address this aspect at all in his article. To him, foreign relations is just a Ronald Reagan impersonation contest, it seems.

BloggingHeads.tv has a great discussion between Reza Aslan and Eli Lake.

I’ve been reading and watching a lot about Iran since the election, and this is by far the most enlightening thing I’ve seen. Both of them have a firm grasp on Iranian history and they cover the important issues and discuss rationally. If you can make the time to watch this, please do, it’s a good use of your time.

(here’s a link, in case the embed doesn’t work)

The quality of a news outlet is inversely proportional to the amount of time it spent “covering” David Letterman/Sarah Palin over the weekend.

I’ve read several reports that the police in Iran were targeting women. I doubt that this really shocks anyone, given the state of women in Iran (despite it being much better than many middle-eastern countries).

This video shows Iranian police beating a woman:

(via Andrew Sullivan, whose blog has been invaluable in keeping up on this)

The WSJ reports that 2 student newspapers have reported that two women and three men were killed during a dorm raid at Tehran University.

This is the violence of a regime in panic. It’s terrifying and may get much worse.

Side note:
I always hesitate before posting any violent images on this blog. If this bothers you, let me know, as it’s open for debate. A while ago, I was listening to a podcast about imagery of war in the media. Someone made a point that resonated with me, paraphrased: There is something manipulative about showing violence of war, but there is also some manipulative about not showing the violence.
Side note 2:
The photo above is not from Tehran University, as far as I know.

I’ve read this in several places in reports from Iran:

People have left their houses’ doors unlocked for demonstrators to have a safe haven to escape when the riot police attacks them. The solidarity and unity of the people is amazing.

(src)

Seeing so many people in the streets around my age, I can’t help but wonder what I’d do in the same situation. Part of me hopes I’d be in the streets, but part of me knows I’d be inside trying to get the Internet to work

Boston.com’s Big Picture blog has a good roundup of some of the best photography from Iran over the weekend.

Here it is, worth a listen:

I think this was just about perfect: any intervention from the US will help Ahmadinejad, so it’s especially important that we leave the politics to Iran. On the other hand, politics aside, it’s important to speak out against the violence against peaceful assemblies.

Here are some ways that the events in Iran might be considered a failure:
- The protests are quelled and Ahmadinejad retains power.
- Mousavi is elected but turns out to be just like Ahmadinejad

Even if one of these things happens, I think some good comes out of this.

The Iran we see right now is dramatically different than the Iran we’ve discussed in the past. The old image of Iran looks something like this:

I’m not saying that this is not a huge aspect of Iran, but it’s incomplete. Now we see students in the streets, risking their lives for democracy and reform. Even if they “lose”, they’ve certainly made a dent in the future. Too often, when people discuss Iran, they discuss some caricature of the country. We’re lead to believe that the country is filled with Ahmadinejads, but that isn’t really the case. There are no shortage of things that Iran has done that I don’t support, but a reform movement in the country is absolutely something I do support.

I’m also glad that there’s some expectation of something democracy-like, unlike our allies in Saudi Arabia (where women aren’t allowed to vote, for example).

Mir-Hossein Mousavi is the Iranian presidential candidate who officially came in 2nd the election last week. I did a bit more reading about him tonight, and I think that he’s a better candidate than Ahmadinejad for Iran and the world. There are no shortage of positions and history he has that will be unpopular with the West, for good reason, but he at least seems more willing to have reasonable relations with the US and Israel, improve the position of women in Iran, and acknowledge the Holocaust.

I don’t think he’s a savior of the region or anything, but this is bigger than him.