Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Ya-ta Boy]

There isn't much info yet about how Ali Mousavi was killed, but one report (I don't know if confirmed or not) says he was run down by a military vehicle in front of his home, then 5 people got out and shot him.

Steve Clemons reports: "But as Iran expert Barbara Slavin just wrote to me, things don't look good for Khamenei and his government. She wrote to me via Facebook: "[Khamenei] is stuck. If he begins to compromise, he's lost -- and if he doesn't, he's lost."

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/

That sounds about right.

[Ya-ta Boy]

On the unrest in Iran: Don't just do something, stand there!

Here are some cautionary lessons to bear in mind. First, we do not know enough about internal dynamics in Iran to intervene intelligently, and trying to reinforce or support the Green Movement is as likely to hurt them as to help them. So our official position needs to measured and temperate, and to scrupulously avoid any suggestion that we are egging the Greens on or actively backing them with material aid.

Second, this is an especially foolish time to be rattling sabers and threatening military action. Threatening or using force is precisely the sort of external interference that might give the current regime a new lease on life. If you�d like to see a new government in Tehran, in short, we should say relatively little and do almost nothing. I don�t object to making it clear how much the U.S. government deplores the regime�s repressive measures, but this is one of those moment where we ought to say less than we feel.

http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/12/27/on_the_unrest_in_iran_dont_just_do_something_sit_there

[Ya-ta Boy]

Here's a piece on the under-reported strategy of civil disobedience in Iran:

"But the green movement is far more than simply sporadic eruptions. This is the most vibrant and imaginative civil disobedience campaign in the world.

There�s the currency campaign, for starters. Thousands of rial notes have been stamped with a simple green �V� for victory. Others bear handwritten slogans that echo the public chants denouncing the regime. Some have even been reprinted with pictures: one is a cartoon of President Ahmadinejad with �people�s enemy� written underneath. Another carries a picture from the mobile phone images of Neda Agha Soltan as she lay dying on the street from a sniper�s bullet. Underneath is written �death to the dictator� � a common public chant against Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The currency campaign even denounces the regime�s foreign policy. �Khamenei the non-believer is the servant of [Russian leader Vladimir] Putin,� declares one slogan, written in green, on a 20,000-rial note. Another chastises: �They stole money and give it to [Venezuelan President Hugo] Chavez.� Some messages simply appeal for others to join the campaign to write anti-regime messages on one billion banknotes. The Government reportedly tried to take the marked notes out of circulation, but found there were too many to replace."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6969094.ece

There are several other examples in the article.

[Privateer]

[caniff]

[Observe]

--

[Ya-ta Boy]

"Iranian hard-liners have called for the execution of Mousavi and other opposition figures, while a previously unknown group claimed in an online posting that suicide squads were ready to assassinate opposition leaders should the judiciary fail to punish them within a week.

Iran's state prosecutor on Thursday warned opposition leaders could be put on trial if they don't denounce this week's anti-government protests.

"I explicitly and clearly state that an order to execute, murder and imprison (opposition leaders) ... won't resolve the problem," Mousavi said in a statement on his Web site, Kaleme. "I'm not afraid to be one of the martyrs people have offered in the struggle for their just demands."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100101/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iran

I suppose suicide bombers are the next step in Iran.

[bacasper]

For the current government to accuse the opposition of being "anti-Allah," as a Syrian friend recently informed me, sounds like a desperation move. We may see some major change coming very soon.

[Ya-ta Boy]

Call it what it is: Iran's revolution

"It has taken seven months and countless victims for the word "revolution" to be used to describe the protests in Iran. Why? There has been a tireless campaign, including by some Iranians outside Iran, to reduce the Green Movement to a call for "reforms" that keep the current government in place, with a few changes here and there.

Not so. What we are witnessing on the streets of Tehran and other cities is nothing short of a revolution - a carefully orchestrated, years-in-the-making attempt to overthrow a corrupt and repressive regime and replace it with something fundamentally more free, democratic and secular...


On Quds Day, chants of "Death to Israel" turned into "Neither Gaza nor Lebanon, I will give my life for Iran." On the anniversary of the hostage-taking at the American Embassy, "Death to America" became "Death to Russia."

The only question now is how long it will take."

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/01/03/2010-01-03_call_it_what_it_is_irans_revolution.html

Iran could be in a pre-revolutionary state. I think for a revolution to occur, there has to be an organized opposition with a developed idea of what they are aiming for. This writer says that has been achieved.

I keep thinking back to Tiannamen Square. Repression really can work, but it has failed so far in Iran, as the Ashura demonstrations showed.

[Kuros]

Here are some intemperate words on Iran:

[Kuros]

Don't Bet on Regime Change in Iran

I've cut this up to comply with TOS, please visit the original article.

[Gopher]