Iran

kedabba,

Hoo boy, this is going to take me a little while to respond but I should have that tomorrow.

Preferred User said:

You say you hate religion. I take it that puts you in a real minority in Iran? Do you have to be pretty careful where you say that?

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I guess it depends where you say it, when I was in Tehran almost everyones knew about my ideas, my teachers m classmates and nothing happened. Several times I even had a hot debate with several mullahs about God existence and Violence in Islam and as you can see nothing happened.

Preferred User said:

your president

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hey watch out that idiot is not my president anymore, I am Canadian now!

Sorry i forget about this part.

Preferred User said:

I take it that puts you in a real minority in Iran?

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It is hard to say, because most of my friends were thinking like me, of course I choose my friends to be like that, so I am not quite sure, but I can say there are considerable amount of people specially in Tehran that do not have a religious beliefs. I am guessing percentage wise it should be very close to US.

kedabba,

but I do believe that the election was free, there might be some low percentage of cheeting but that's inevitable and exist everywhere.

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From what I've read and heard, it seems the elections are generally open. The problem, as I understand it, is that the mullahs choose who can run for any particular post (PM, assembly, dogcatcher, etc.) so that the result is that anyone who winds up being elected is, more or less, a stooge of the mullahs. That individual will do basically whatever the mullahs proclaim. Is that accurate?

Why group#2 got elected?

In order to understand why Ahamadinezhad is elected we need to understand the structure of the society in Iran. Last year Richard Rorty was invited to Iran and he had a speech in Tehran University, in that speech he said you cannot inject democracy into the society, democracy is a self-adaptive process and you cannot plan for it. He simply implied that you guys (Iranians) cannot have democracy, and of course that makes lots of intellectuals angry in Iran but I am totally agree with his insights.

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I'm not familiar with Rorty, but his info seems accurate. Democracy takes time, effort and some amount of education. I can't imagine he said the Iranians couldn't have democracy, I imagine he said something about it taking time and effort.

In Iran people are looking for a government that doesn't bother them and let them live!

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Aren't we all!

Ahamadinezhad was very unknown, and the only official post he had before election was being the meyor of Tehran for a short period of time, he also has PHD in Mechanical Engineering (Education considers as a very high value in Iran) from an accredited universtiy in Tehran. Most importantly he was not mullah (no turban!), before election when I was talking to people, they were saying (exact quote) "at least this guy doesn't have any turban and he is not connected to anybody". He is a perfect living example of populism.

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Your last statement is somewhat worrisome, "He is a perfect living example of populism." If that is accurate, then he has the support of the bulk of the population. His recent statements are what trouble me and most everyone else. Thus, if the bulk of the population support this, then we are in real trouble.

Actually i have the videos of some of his before election speeches for instance he said "I will bring oil money to everybody's home" or "Women can go and watch the soccer matches!" or "Who cares what kind of the dress our girls wearing, we need to put our focus on the economical issue" (take a look at this, two days ago in Tehran http://www.farsnews.com/plarg.php?nn=M175747.jpg ) or "I will not drive Benz(Official government car) unless everybody in iran drive a benz" this was why he got elected as simple as that. One of his rival promised people to give everybody $100 if he get elected, can you believe that?

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Actually, thats not hard to believe at all. Our Republicans just came up with an idiot idea for giving every US taxpayer a $100 rebate for high gas prices so long as they can start drilling in ANWR. Idiot ideas certainly aren't limited to Iranians.

and he get 8,000,000 votes!!! Don't get me wrong the same thing could have also happened in US

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It just did. See above.

but if somebody makes such a comment the media will crush him, but as i said before media in Iran is in hand of government and cannot freely act. But why they didn't stop ahamdinezhad you may ask? because on that time khamaneye prefers him to his main rival Rafsanjani. Rafsanjani is very powerful and somehow I cannot categorized him, but he is definitely partly in group#3.

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Rafsanjani? Isn't he a mullah (wears a turban)? And wasn't he the PM (or something similar) just a little while ago? If I remember correctly, he is (or was) a moderate with a lot of support from students. Got in some type of trouble with the mullahs a while back?

What did i meant by ransom?

Before everything get messed up European were promising Iran if you stop the nuclear process we are willing to give some free trade options instead and also we will provide you different way of accessing the nuclear energy which is more advance and cheaper. And the Iranian negotiator were keep bargaining about the amount. And that was their biggest mistake. And also European mistake that didn't solve the problem quicker.

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OK, 10-4. I remember those negotiations, the Russians were involved as well. So, are these negotiations completely dead? And if so, why? From whats being reported in the West, it seems that the negotiations were a bit of a farce, a delaying tactic by the Iranians. Do you think that is accurate?

I can certainly understand Iran's need for electricity and reluctance to use oil to produce it (thats only smart, better to export it). Does Iran have any other sources of electricity (coal deposits for example)?

Explaining Israel comment?

Again I need to prepare a long introduction before answering this. A month ago parliament in Iran agreed to $50,000,000 yearly aid for Hemas. This makes lots of people mad, even the non-educated in the remote area, why? Let me explaing it to you in more detail. I agree that considerable amount of the people in Iran (I hesitate to say Majority I think it needs an election) do not like Israel and this is a political problem in Iran,
but as an Iranian I am ashamed to say that they also hate Arabs (this one is a social problem and government still struglling to solve this), and this is more a racial problem rather than political one, which I think needs lots of planning to get fixed. When I say majority I mean %99+, hates Arabs, you can test this and call an Iranian an Arab and watch his reaction! This is also vice-versa, Arabs call Iranian, outsiders.

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I understand that Iranians are actually "Persians" although I don't understand the difference between "Persians" and "arabs". And to hear that Iranians "hate" (a very strong word, I hope that you use it incorrectly) arabs is somewhat baffling. Whats the difference? Maybe you could recommend a good book.

After Iranian adapted Islam, they created another version of it and called it Shi'a (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shi'a) of course majority of the Shi'as say this is BS, but believe me it was invented by Iranians. Majority of Arabs (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Yaman, UAE, Pakistan, Palestine, Egypt, Syria) are sunni and they call Shi'as apostate (they call you infidel), and a huge subset of this sunnis are called Wahabis(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahabi all the 911 highjackers, all the suicide bombers, al-Qaida, Pakistan and Saudi basically US allies in middle east!) they believe if they kill a Shi'a they will directly go to heaven.

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I have a basic understanding of the Sunni, Shi'a and Wahabis mainly because, back in my college days, I got to know two arabs (a Palestinian and an Iraqi) pretty well. They somewhat explained this to me when the first Gulf war was going on. And this brings up another question. You say that Iranians "hate" arabs. Basically, as I understand it, because they are Sunni. But what about the Iraqi Shi'a? Aren't they arabs? And don't they have fairly close ties to Iran?

Do you know three years before US invasion to Afganistan, Taliban beheaded (yes with sword) 12 Iranian diplomats in Iran embassy in Kabul (read guardian events on 1998 http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterror/story/0,1361,557393,00.html) no really have you even heard of this before!

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No, that I had never heard of. What was the Iranian response to the Taliban (that was not described in your article)? And what was Iran's response to the US "invasion" of Afganistan? We hear stories in the west of the Iranian government supporting the Taliban.

So you should understand the scenario in Iran is a bit different. Was those jewish comments for people? I don't think so. People hear these type of comments every day from the more important people in iran, but this was the first time a government official said it loud.

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The book I mentioned, "The Haj", described this philosophy pretty well.

Everyone in Iran were surprised about the world reaction to these comments, because Khomeini and other religious leader that have more power than ahamdinezhad were saying it literally everyday after the revolution. I believe those comments were mostly prepared to screw up the nuclear negotiations that government rivals were started. Larijani (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Larijani) was leading the negotiation and he is the trustee of Khamaneye, he was imposed to ahamadinezhad by khamaneye. Interestingly he was one of the presidential candidate who get the lowest amount of the votes because everyone knew his connection with khameneye, before election he used to manage the national TV in Iran.

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So, it sounds like the negotiations with Britain, France, Germany and Russia were pretty much a sham.

About that book I would like to make you happy and promise you that I will read it, but there are lots of books in my priority list to read. For instance I prefer to understand more about pragmatism and also history of US but I will add it to my "Must Read" book difinitely.

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Well, after reading what you've said so far, you may not like it. It was written by a Jew (I think) and describes relations between Jews and Sunni arabs between about 1900 to the 1960's. The primary characters are all Palestinian Sunni with secondary Jewish characters. Personally, I found it very enlightening but I'm just a neophyte in the history of the Middle East. Maybe you could recommend some good books on the subject. And if you need some good books on US history, I can certainly help you there (depending on what subject your specifically interested in.)

How can we get rid of this regime? Hmmm! that's a good question, Iran probably is the only country in the middle east (beside Israel and not even Turkey) that its people is pro-west!

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I do understand that most Iranians are pro west. Which is why this whole thing is puzzling.

but how can they get rid of this anti-west government i really don't know, all I know is war is not definitely an answer and make everything worse for the people of Iran but I believe it is comming, because US will get lots of benefit from this war (look what US government spokesman have to say about this http://mediamatters.org/items/200603100008 ). This war can harm China, India, Russia and also European, so why not? Who the fucking cares about the soldiers, or "uncivilized" people of iran and their ugly and dirty children!

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I'm familiar with what our current government and their religious supporters are saying at the moment. I saw some Evangelical Christian clown this morning saying that we need to attack now (he was standing below a sign saying something to the effect that the world was coming to an end). If he and Bush get their way, he's probably right.

It seems to me that the ONLY people that can stop this are the Iranian people themselves. Their present leadership seems bent on self destruction. Usually (according to human nature) this is due to insecurity and a lack of self worth. As an example, I'd recommend you study what happened to the Germans starting just after WW I up until the end of the second world war. I see some definite similarities.
I'd have to really go back in my memory but several volumes worth looking at would be the collected works of Winston Churchill, and, I think, there was even something by Albert Speer (Hitlers architect) that may be of use. Somehow, the Iranian people are going to have to wake up and realize what is about to happen to them and do something to stop it. I'd suggest that there would be people from outside Iran that would be willing to help but, given what happened with the Shah, thats probably not a good idea. So, it seems the Iranians will have to do this themselves.

I don't believe that the US government will get any benefits out of this (I don't think anyone will) other than being able to say that this is a logical progression of the war on terrorism. The problem is that the Iranian government is making it so damn easy for the neocons. Its almost like the two groups are colluding on this. What I believe will happen is that instead of a few thousand military deaths (like we have in Iraq) there will be tens of thousands of US fatalities. And you can probably put that number in the hundreds of thousands for Iranians.

There has to be a way to stop this.

"Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare?" Orson Welles' character, The Third Man(1949)

By the way listen to this one, Ahamadinezhad senior advisor yesterday said Emam Mahdi(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahdi)'s sword will behead some of the mullahs and will destroy US as soon as he rise!!!!!!! So be warned!

We are living in a mad mad mad world, I wish, we, the liberal people (preferably atheist!), could have our own country in our own planet!

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Good quote from Welles. And I've heard the threat from the mullah's, as have most everyone else. And I'm not an atheist (agnostic) but I'd just as soon get rid of all religions. They cause much more trouble than their worth.

Ok I won't be able to answer all of the questions now but I can refer you to this one:

mindido said:

I understand that Iranians are actually "Persians" although I don't understand the difference between "Persians" and "arabs". And to hear that Iranians "hate" (a very strong word, I hope that you use it incorrectly) arabs is somewhat baffling. Whats the difference? Maybe you could recommend a good book.

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It is hard to enter this area and try to be politically correct, I am just giving you some information by all means that doesn't mean I believe in them.
Iranian are originally migrated from Siberia (started 10,000 years ago) to the persia. Before World War 2 the Iranian king Reza Shah started to strengthen this idea and he called it Pan-Persian movement (totall BS), and he consider himslef Aryan, here you can see the root of the word http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan. Actually the word Iran means land of Aryans. Now I guess you can read the rest! in this site also you can find accurate information regarding history. http://www.iranchamber.com/

kadabba said:

here you can see the root of the word http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan.

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kedabba,

OK, the Wikipedia site answered several questions I had about the difference between Arabs and Persians. If I understand this correctly, Iranians are closely related to East Indians (India) while Arabs are more closely related to the Jews (that must be controversial!) There is also an insight to your comment about "hating" arabs that the arabs have more to worry about from Iran than anyone.

Actually the word Iran means land of Aryans. Now I guess you can read the rest! in this site also you can find accurate information regarding history. http://www.iranchamber.com/

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Will check the site out. Thanks for the info.

mindido said:

Arabs are more closely related to the Jews (that must be controversial!)

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Call me naive, but I just recently learned that "Semitic" does not mean "Jewish". Semites are "a member of any of a number of peoples of ancient southwestern Asia including the Akkadians, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs". (Merriam-Webster)

mindido said:

kedabba,

OK, the Wikipedia site answered several questions I had about the difference between Arabs and Persians. If I understand this correctly, Iranians are closely related to East Indians (India) while Arabs are more closely related to the Jews (that must be controversial!)

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You got it, but of course from my point of view after 10,000 years being neighbors and screwing each other these doesn't have any meaning! But still majority of the people from both side believe in it. Labeling is a strange phenomena!

Regarding Arabs and Jews problems, the problem is not racial (of course lots of Jews in Israel consider themselves white and Equropean) but rather is a religion problem. By the way do you know that Islam is realy close to Judaism (Specially those Orthodox Jews not the ones with european flavors).

Preferred User said:

"Semitic" does not mean "Jewish". Semites are "a member of any of a number of peoples of ancient southwestern Asia including the Akkadians, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs".

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Yes, and Jews are the subset of this, with a religion label. Phoenicians are basically Syrians, I believe Akkadians is on the western Iraq, but I am not quite sure. Arab is the language and the religion so Syrians and Iraqis both are also considered Arabs.

If somebody from another planet come and see the small problems and the huge similarities I bet he can't stop laugh at our stupidity!

Hi guys,

I tought you might like to see this:

Specially the right menu link " Who runs Iran? A guide to the system of government " will answer lots of your questions.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/middle_east/2006/inside_iran/default.stm

kadabba said:

A guide to the system of government " will answer lots of your questions.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/middle_east/2006/inside_iran/default.stm

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Interesting link kabadaba. If I just look at the diagram on that page, it looks like all arrows lead to the Guardian Council? And they must have one top guy don't they? Is he really the most powerful guy in Iran?

mindido said:

From what I've read and heard, it seems the elections are generally open. The problem, as I understand it, is that the mullahs choose who can run for any particular post (PM, assembly, dogcatcher, etc.) so that the result is that anyone who winds up being elected is, more or less, a stooge of the mullahs. That individual will do basically whatever the mullahs proclaim. Is that accurate?

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Yes it is.

mindido said:

I'm not familiar with Rorty, but his info seems accurate. Democracy takes time, effort and some amount of education. I can't imagine he said the Iranians couldn't have democracy, I imagine he said something about it taking time and effort.

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I don't believe that democracy is not censsarily the best form of controlling a country. Look at US, it is become very similar to monarchy, several families are controlling the country.

But apparently it is the best existing one.

mindido said:

Your last statement is somewhat worrisome, "He is a perfect living example of populism." If that is accurate, then he has the support of the bulk of the population. His recent statements are what trouble me and most everyone else. Thus, if the bulk of the population support this, then we are in real trouble.

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By "Populism" I meant the political system, not neccessarily the meaning of the word itself. However, I believe at most about 15% of the population are his supporters.

mindido said:

Rafsanjani? Isn't he a mullah (wears a turban)? And wasn't he the PM (or something similar) just a little while ago? If I remember correctly, he is (or was) a moderate with a lot of support from students. Got in some type of trouble with the mullahs a while back?

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Yes he was, but the one that has lots of support from students was Khatami not him, Rafsanjani's family controlling the oil and therefore have lots of economical powers, he is not politically related to any group basically he is changing face based on the needs.

mindido said:

are these negotiations completely dead? And if so, why?

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Yes I think so, because the elected government of Iran sends different signals than the appointed negotiators, and this made European confused and angry and they stop the negotiation.

mindido said:

I can certainly understand Iran's need for electricity and reluctance to use oil to produce it (thats only smart, better to export it). Does Iran have any other sources of electricity (coal deposits for example)?

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Iran has a huge amount of Natural Gas.

mindido said:

Basically, as I understand it, because they are Sunni. But what about the Iraqi Shi'a? Aren't they arabs? And don't they have fairly close ties to Iran?

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Hard to say, they realy respect the mullahs (Spirtual leaders), but not happy with the Iranian people. For instance Ayatollah Sistanni in Iraq is actually Iranian.

mindido said:

What was the Iranian response to the Taliban (that was not described in your article)?

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If it wasn't because of US they would have attacked Afganistan long time ago.

mindido said:

And what was Iran's response to the US "invasion" of Afganistan?

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They were quite happy and they even offered help to American troops.

mindido said:

We hear stories in the west of the Iranian government supporting the Taliban.

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That's total BS. However it is totally possible that some small groups without the government intervention have done something, but definitely not in a large scale.

mindido said:

Maybe you could recommend some good books on the subject.

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I can introduce you some good books about Iran:
1- All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror by Stephen Kinzer.
2- Persepolis: the Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi (Graphic Novel). This was literally what happen to me in my childhood.

mindido said:

And if you need some good books on US history, I can certainly help you there (depending on what subject your specifically interested in.)

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What fascinate me about US, is the fact that it seems it is built totally by natural selection. Let me give you an example. New York is a mess, and exactly because of that it is beautiful, nothing has been pre-planned in New York, they just fix it (evolve it) based on the needs. It is similar to a beautiful jungle that grows by the force of nature, as oppose to the symmetric cities in the Europe, which are similar to a beautiful park totally man made.

There are lots of things that I would like to know about US. I like to know about the history, the biography of the great people, about pragmatism and lots of other things.

mindido said:

It seems to me that the ONLY people that can stop this are the Iranian people themselves. Their present leadership seems bent on self destruction. Usually (according to human nature) this is due to insecurity and a lack of self worth. As an example, I'd recommend you study what happened to the Germans starting just after WW I up until the end of the second world war. I see some definite similarities.
I'd have to really go back in my memory but several volumes worth looking at would be the collected works of Winston Churchill, and, I think, there was even something by Albert Speer (Hitlers architect) that may be of use. Somehow, the Iranian people are going to have to wake up and realize what is about to happen to them and do something to stop it. I'd suggest that there would be people from outside Iran that would be willing to help but, given what happened with the Shah, thats probably not a good idea. So, it seems the Iranians will have to do this themselves.

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If you have worked in a team environment (I am not trying to make any generalization) you would have probably noticed that people that are coming from pure socialism (Not the western type of socialism like Denmark, Sweden, France or even Canada) are horrible team-player. They are very smart, but they cannot work as a team, or it is very tough to work with them in a team, they are usually rigid and insist on their ideas. I believe this is the byproduct of that type of socialism, which force you to become an individualist. In Iran the problem is the same, people are not thinking as a whole they just think how to solve their own problem and that would be enough. But i am agree this problem should be solved internally and all of these threats by US is only useful for the hardliners in Iran, and will help them to suppress the liberal. Instead of threat, just put satellite TV on Iran and just HBO would be enough to change the government in couple of years.

mindido said:

I don't believe that the US government will get any benefits out of this

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I am afraid they do get benefits of the war.

mindido said:

Its almost like the two groups are colluding on this.

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Isn't that weird!

mindido said:

And I'm not an atheist (agnostic) but I'd just as soon get rid of all religions. They cause much more trouble than their worth.

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100% agree.

Preferred User said:

And they must have one top guy don't they? Is he really the most powerful guy in Iran?

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Yes there is and you can see his glasses on the picture below that diagram!

If we just change the constitution, most of the problem will be solved.

You guys should really read what Mark Bowden (wrote Black Hawk Down) wrote in the NY Times today, called Playing to the Home Crowd in Iran.

Part of his summary:
Here's the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/05/opinion/05bowden.html?pagewanted=1&th&emc=th

Well, it's four years later than the last post, and I have to ask something. I cannot understand Ahmadinejad's defiance to the US and most of the world to build a nuclear weapon. I don't know a lot about Iran, but I know the United States, and I guarantee this country will retaliate if he takes it much further, Obama or no Obama. The only countries to ally themselves with Iran as I see it would be North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, or Hezzbollah, which wouldn't really be much help. Russia and China are business partners, and I doubt if they would support them in a conflict. So...why this stubborn defiance?

Briefly, his neighbours in Pakistan have it, India has it, Israel has it but won't admit it.

He doesn't want to be the only kid in the neighbourhood without one

Yeah, but Iran is just asking for an attack from Israel for precisely that reason...they're building a nuclear device. Israel wouldn't mess with them otherwise. That's what I mean...they're drawing the heat on themselves by doing precisely what they're doing! If they keep it up, eventually somebody's gonna come in and kick their ass! But the thing that amazes me, is that he doesn't try to keep a low profile with it...he's so defiant and insulting about it! I just think he's asking for it.

Well, here goes Achmedidajerk goes again, insulting the US by claiming 9/11 was an internal conspiracy with Zionist leanings. So, the whole US delegation of the UN gets up and walks out on him. He's not helping things for his country, is he?

And the consensus is that he's pissing off the Iranians, also. This is a fight he just has to know he's not going to win, so why don't the little fucker keep his mouth shut?

Aboud the Ahmabine-whateverhisnameis. It's well known that half of Iran hates him, but most certanly whoever replaces him will be most likely just another Allah freak hating west.

Imo the only way to calm those fuckers down is to calm the fuck down ourselvers, meaning - the west should pull away from wars in middle east (let them kill each other if they want). Us (the west) and also Israel should shut the fuck up for a while.

btw... Ahma-whateverhisnameis lost a lot of his dictatorship credit when he picked a fight with Paul (the German octopus) - "Jimmy Kimmel"