We certainly need to make a break with our imperial past – by going all out for energy independence. But at the same time we should as a matter of principle support the democrats in Iran.

There was also the inappropriately named ‘Bobby Sands Snackbar’ on the same street.

‘Many Iranians ascribe to the British a combination of Machiavellian cunning, Metternichian realism and mystical omniscience. Far from being America’s servant, Britain is often credited with duping the Americans and getting them to do its bidding’.

A product of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the 1907 sphere of influence agreement with the Russians, the invasion of 1941 (done in collaboration with the Soviets – harsh but necessary) and the overthrow of Mossadeq in 1953 (which incidentally, the mullahs were delighted with, even though they harp on about it for propaganda purposes).

Question now is: Will Moussavi and the demonstrators be cowed into submission or will they continue to take to the streets in the hundreds of thousands? And if they do, How will the regime respond?

Israelinurse & Reza: To paraphrase Samuel Johnson,
Conspiracy Theories are the Refuge of Failures.

I am sure, though, that you are basing your view it’s just the “North Tehran glitterati” out on the street on the basis of (a) your extensive first hand knowledge of Iran and (b) your current sujorn in Baluchistan.

Either that or you are a prick.

Clearly an imposter. One says sport, as ane fule kno

Indeed.

And as Brett points out, here is John Wight right on cue -

we live in a different culture from the Islamic culture which currently dominates in Iran and throughout the Middle East. Perhaps if the West hadn’t spent the last 100 years colonising, occupying, and interfering in the region, to the evident detriment of its development, peoples, and cohesion then they may have adjudged our culture and enlightenment values as something to be embraced, rather than rejected as belonging to their oppressor.

Comment by John Wight — 19 June, 2009 @ 2:27 pm

Textbook stuff. Faced with an awkward question about women not being able to run for the Iranian presidency, John Wight decides that

IT’S ALL OUR FAULT!

Give his Khomeini his due I think he was in his own way as clever and inventive as the framers of the American Constitution. If you had to design a constitution for an Islamic Republic, then it would probably difficult to better his system of checks and balances.

Of course, the problem with the constitution lies not in its architecture per se but in its Islamic character, which puts a cleric in supreme charge and doctors the electoral process – and throws the dead weight of Sharia on top for good measure.

From another angle the Iranian system certainly has features that remind one of Nazi Germany – in particular there are the large autonomous power centres analogous to the Nazi Party, the SA, SS, military and independent satraps of the East. In Iran you have the “charitable” foundations, the Presidency, the Revolutionary Guards,the Guardian Council, the military etc

The Nazi system was bound by personal loyalty to one man and soon fell apart after his death with faction fighting faction. Perhaps the Iranian system also cannot function once loyalty to the Supreme Ayatollah breaks down.

But that does not mean that one man might not focus power more on one centre, as the Communists did under Stalin and Mao.

A better analogy is that this is the murderous infighting of the jacobin revolutionaries and Robbespieres time might be up.

The Los Angeles Times reported on June 18, 2009 that “hard-line Ansar-e Hezbollah militiamen warned that they would be patrolling the streets to maintain law and order.”

Members typically wear full beards, dress in black clothes, and wear Palestinian keffiyehs on their shoulders.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iran-protests19-2009jun19,0,4249713.story

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Ansar-e Hizbullah, or Followers of the Party of God or more literally Helpers of Hizbullah in Persian, is said to be a semi-official, paramilitary group formed in 1995 and consisting of “religious zealots who consider themselves” to be “preservers of the Revolution.”

It is thought to be financed and protected by many senior government clerics.

[Which factions now control it I wonder or is its loyalty split as some reports of them standing aside at protests suggests]

It is often characterized as a vigilante group as they use force but are not part of government law enforcement, although it may not meet the strict definition of the word inasmuch as the group pledge loyalty to theSupreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei[5] and is thought to be protected by him.

It has been described as an “offshoot” or “vigilante associate” of the Iranian Hezbollah, a loose-knit movement of groups formed at the time of the Iranian Revolution to assist the Ayatollah Khomeini and his forces in consolidating power.

Membership
Most of the members of Ansar e Hezbollah are either members of the Basij militias or veterans of the Iran–Iraq War.

[veterans of the iran-iraq war are Ahmadinajad's power base]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansar-e_Hezbollah
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The tragedy is that these protestors cannot win against the armed forces controlled by different clerical factions of the islamist state.

The popular protests of the 1979 revolution were used propaganistically by Khomeini to gain popular legitimacy but the force was iranian hezbollah the product of centuries of Shite clerical networks hold on temporal force.