Iran Update
Iranian callers to Brian Lehrer’s show on WNYC this morning say friends and relatives in the country are telling them the violence is much worse than reported. Tehranlive photoblog is here. Lehrer has more links here. This is in Tehran:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyssJGHsGyw
This BBC report is chilling [via]:
And:
There are two ways this popular will can be crushed:
(1) The Ayatollahs can order a brutal, repressive, murderous carackdown, including midnight raids, death squads, and tens of thousands of “dissapearances” of young politically active reformist students (see Argentina in the 1970 and 80s).
(2) We can follow the advice of American neo-conservatives and attack the country, thus uniting the vast majority of the population behind the Ayatollahs (again, see Argentina during the Falklands war*).
*of course, the Falklands war was started by the Argentine military to consolidate their power, so following the neo-cons here would be like doing the Ayatollahs’ dirty work for them.
@Serolf Divad: I predict a massive show of force to get control of the country, a ruling by the Ayatollahs that the election results are null and void, and they’ll appoint an Iranian Gerry Ford as an “interim President”.
Check out the size of the crowd – this is shot from above, so you can really see the numbers:
@SanFranLefty: This thing is not going away.
@SanFranLefty: Remember the “Ayatollah Assahola” bumper stickers?
blogenfreude: Actually, it is. Quickly, and badly. I have fear for these people.
(And note well the fact that, once the inevitable happens and the rebellion is crushed, that there might be such a patriotic fervor — artificially manufactured or not — that some kook in the Iranian army might go ahead and bomb Israel. The odds of this actually happening are very long. But they could get shorter… and too close for comfort.)
[ON SECOND THOUGHT: maybe not. Maybe the anti-Israel rhetoric is designed purely for show and for domestic consumption. And maybe they’ll just keep using Hezzbollah or Islamic Jihad or whoever else to do the dirty work for them. I mean, there has to be a calculation somewhere within the hierarchy which says that Iran cannot withstand air strikes from the US/Israel, and that whatever nascent nuclear technology they have would surely be Target No. 1. I don’t know. This is hard to figure.]
@Serolf Divad: see Argentina in the 1970 and 80s
See also Iran in the 80s, if my neighbor with Kurdish family in the region is correct.
The story, which I don’t have time to confirm right now: there were power fights among leaders of the revolution. Those who lost were murdered and declared “martyrs” for public consumption.
NOJO • An Earworm for Elon @¡Andrew!: 2022 is now the ocean’s hottest year in the recorded history. Stored heat is building…
MANCHUCANDIDATE • An Earworm for Elon Another rich motherfucker can't accept losing. Bolo pulls a Trump, unleashes a wave of hopeless…
MANCHUCANDIDATE • An Earworm for Elon The stupidest part was watching various MSM talking heads DEMAND that the Dems save the GOPers from…
¡ANDREW! • An Earworm for Elon Lying media: And now back to declaring FLAWLESS VICTORY and demanding RED WAVE.
NOJO • An Earworm for Elon Looks like 15 is it, after what may be the weirdest adjournment vote in history, if history tracked…
¡ANDREW! • An Earworm for Elon These antics are delaying serious Republinazi bizniss, like:1. Ginning up fake investigations into…
NOJO • An Earworm for Elon Ten Speaker ballots. Free coffee!
¡ANDREW! • An Earworm for Elon @nojo: The ongoing climate disaster is just too great a problem over a century in the making for us…
NOJO • An Earworm for Elon @nojo: Also takes just ten Republicans to just sit out a vote and lower the majority threshold.…
NOJO • An Earworm for Elon @¡Andrew!: No specifics, but in general, I don’t see why this doesn’t go into next week. No…