Dafydd: The Fuse Is Lit
Invoking my right to post very occasional thoughts on this wonderful board — and secure in the knowledge that Patterico can easily delete any post if he thinks that “extraordinary circumstances” do not prevail — I do want to put this up.
People have long predicted a revolution in Iran. We have noted for a long time that about 70% (or more) of the population of Iran is below the age of 35, and that these people — who have little memory of any life other than that provided by the mullahs on the Guardian Council or by Khomeini himself, are profoundly dissatisfied with the religious strictures of this theocracy. They also tend to be very pro-American for not entirely explicable reasons… though perhaps it’s a reaction against the extreme anti-Americanism of the mullahs they love to hate. And for years, people have predicted that the students will lead a revolution that will eventually overthrow the theocratic rulers.
Of course, we also know this has never happened, despite specific predictions in the late 1990s. But the past is not always prolog; there is a qualitative difference between 1997 on the one hand and 2005 on the other. What has occurred in between is the revolution of rising expectations. And with what just happened yesterday, the “electoral victory” (however obtained) of ultra-hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Guardian Council may have just lit the slow-burning fuse of that revolution.
A revolution of rising expectations follows a long period in which people generally believe that next year will be no better than this, that their sons and daughters will grow up in the same world they themselves did, and that nothing will change. Then something happens: some major change in material condition, or a sudden gust of freedom (often both).
In the case of Iran, it was a series of modest reforms, giving a greater freedom to the lives and even politics of young people; at the very least, authorities turned their faces from minor violations of the strict religious code for dress, dating, and the behavior of women. This was coupled with the explosion of the Internet, which allowed those inside this national prison to see what life on the outside was like, and which also exposed them to the political and economic ideas that created freedom, wealth, and modernity itself.
Expectations soared. Iranians began to believe that tomorrow would be better than yesterday, that their children and grandchildren would thrive in a transformed world. Progress accelerated, feeding upon itself and fueling the rise in the expectation of even more progress in the future. As usual in such cases, expectations rose to far exceed any possible reality.
In the theory of such revolutions, the explosion is sparked by the sudden crushing of rising expectations. When the mailed fist comes smashing down on all those dreams, the reaction of the people is far more catastrophic than if the fist had been there all along.
This is just what happened in the Soviet Union in 1991: there was a long period of steeply rising expectations under Gorbachev, especially two years earlier, when the East German authorities allowed the Berlin Wall to be torn down (and don’t think the Soviets didn’t hear Reagan say “Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”)
But this wind of freedom was followed by the coup d’état and the sudden realization that the Communists would never allow those dreams to be realized — and in fact, promised to hurl the Soviet Union back to the days of Leonid Brezhnev. The result was predictable in course if not specifics: Boris Yeltsin standing atop a tank in front of the parliament building, the coup plotters fleeing to their dachas on the Caspian Sea, and eventually out of Russia entirely.
To a lesser degree, this is just what happened in 1776, after the British began a massive crackdown on the long unchecked rights of the American colonists. And this model also describes the French Revolution, where a long period of progress and rising expectations was suddenly thwarted by a huge fiscal crisis and the convocation of the Estats General in 1789, during which the aristocrats abruptly repealed many rights and privilieges of the middle class.
The mullahs, being utterly ignorant of history (and indeed anything else not found in one particular book), have no idea that they have set up the precise situation in Iran: soaring expectations of both freedom of conscience and freedom from want, smothered by the robe and the turbin.
Nobody can say with certainty that the Iranians will revolt; but the Guardian Council has certainly created the perfect powderkeg for the explosion of freedom, and this election has lit the fuse. All it will take is a single spark at the right moment — for example, the crackdown on religious apostasy that Ahmadinejad promises — to finally blow apart the first and most brutally evil of the Islamist revolutionary socialist regimes.
I suspect they understand history well enough to be frightened by what we are in the process of bringing about next door. It scares the hell out them and this is to some degree a reflexive reaction. Similar to swerving over a 1000 foot cliff to avoid a head-on collision with an 18-wheeler.
RiverRat (f64620) — 6/25/2005 @ 3:47 pmOn relection, it’s more like swerving a Hummer over a cliff to avoid a head-on with a Mazda Miata (representing the Iranian “reform” movement).
RiverRat (f64620) — 6/25/2005 @ 3:59 pmI’d love to hear from Dafydd why he uses a name that is partly Welsh and partly English. Welsh spelling would be Dafydd ab Huw. English would be David Hughes. I’m another David — St. David was to Wales what St. Patrick was to Ireland.
dchamil (431dba) — 6/25/2005 @ 7:45 pmGIVE ME A @#$%?!&# BREAK!
Here’s an idea about how we all band together and report this story directly to the Am people. The Blogos now has the power to drive this story.
Maybe then it will become a story in and of itself that the MSM will have to report. In the meantime who cares the MSM in no longer relevant.
Here’s a post I put up over at Roger L. Simon re a letter I sent to FOXNEWS.
I’ve fixed some of the typos here:
*****
GIVE ME A @#$%?!&# BREAK!
I’ve had my fill about the poor party girl missing on Aruba. I can empathize with her parenst, but wall to wall coverage by FOXNEWS is driving me up the wall. There is a story breaking on the Iranian election that has great implication for all of us in the GWOT.
See this letter I wrote to FOXNEWS today:
*****
Dear FOXNEWS,
I’ve seen on your news reports and some of your news shows that you are falling into the same trap the MSM has on this critical election in Iran.
This election is a sham and fraud. The Mad Mullahs of Iran are cooking the books and the MSM is taking their false reports hook, line, and sinker.
The MSM is lazy in their reporting and their reporters are filing reports from their hotel rooms from from the Regime’s press releases. Yes, I know it’s difficult to get the “real” story on the ground because of the media babysitters this regime assigns to the world media.
I expect more of FOXNEWS if you truly wish to be fair and balanced. The straight information is not hard to come by in the Blogos. The true foreign correspondence are the brave men and women blogging from inside Iran to get the truth out who are literally risking life and limb to do so.
The least you can do is track this information and report it when you can with a caveat about the sources or report straight up when you can corroborate what they are saying.
Several sites are reposting photos (JPEGS) from the street that the polling places are deserted. The Iran people are sending a message to the free world by their non participation in this sham election.
The Iranian people will effect their own regime change if they know the have the support of the Am people and the free world in their struggle for freedom.
This is the message that President Bush and Secretary Rice are trying to bring to the Iranian people but the MSM is obsessed with GITMO and other things to bash this administration.
Follow the threads at these links. Our best option is if the Iranian people send the armed Pakistani thugs packing and overthrow this regime. The consequences of the Iranian regime going nuclear are unimaginable. This administration I don’t believe will blink for one minute if it becomes necessary to have a direct confrontation. The Iranian people do love America but they are a very proud and nationalistic people and the consequences of a direct assault would not be good for all involved.
At least you can do is to carry the message of the Iranian people and report objectively to the Am people and don’t fall for the propaganda of the Iranian regime.
Follow these sites for up to date info on Iran and the Iranian election:
Dr. Zin at Regime Change Iran
Link Here
[…]
and
Publius Pundit
Link Here
This site has photos of the empty polling places.
Story is at this link:
Read Here
FYI the turnout out in the first election was on 7% which is way short of what the regime has been reporting.
FOXNEWS impress me that you will not follow the rest of the crowd and report objectively to the Am people on this developing story.
Ron Wright
Ron Wright (4bdfff) — 6/25/2005 @ 8:16 pmHmmm. It strikes me that the reaction of the mullahs, instead of swerving off a 1000-foot cliff to avoid hitting an 18-wheeler, might be rather more like jumping out of a 92nd story window to avoid being burned alive. A fine irony, that.
We’ll see.
betsybounds (bc1a3d) — 6/26/2005 @ 5:29 amI pray and hope Iran is ready, but fear the mullahs are going to attempt to do a China/ Tianamen crack down; accept economic progress without political freedom.
If they did it right, they could prolly get away with it. I expect them to do it wrong — and the US troops next door in Iraq much leave MUCH faster than currently projected.
Tom Grey - Liberty Dad (cc0ab7) — 6/29/2005 @ 5:45 am