Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Ya-ta Boy]

Clinton: Iran is becoming a military dictatorship

Some have been saying this for months now, but it now seems to be the official US attitude. It puts the US firmly and openly on the side of the opposition Green Movement.

"Speaking to Arab students at Carnegie Mellon's Doha campus, Clinton said Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps appears to have gained so much power that it effectively is supplanting the government.

"Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship," she said. "That is our view."

Last week the U.S. Treasury Department announced that it was freezing the assets in U.S. jurisdictions of a Revolutionary Guard general and four subsidiaries of a previously penalized construction company he runs because of their alleged involvement in producing and spreading weapons of mass destruction."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100215/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_clinton_mideast

That will be good news to the opposition, which commonly chants "Down with Russia", "Down with China" because of their support for the 'elected' government.

It comes at a good time since the Greens were defeated in last week's demonstrations. They are having to reassess their approach since giving an oppressive gov't a month's notice of just where and when you are planning an anti-gov't demonstration finally met a brick wall.

A new front has opened:
"A leading conservative rival to Ahmadinejad, lawmaker Ali Mottahari, warned that Iran was not yet out of the clear.

"We cannot claim the crisis is totally over until both sides make up for their mistakes," he said in an interview with Khabaronline (in Persian), the news website affiliated with parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani. "The differences of opinion between the government and [the opposition] might have been eased to some extent, but they still exist. Our statesmen should not imagine that people's massive presence in the Thursday rally reflects the approval of their performance.... The presence of political elite in the rally does not mean there is no longer any criticism or objection towards the regime."

Mottahari recently called on opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi to stop calling for protests for a bit and let government insiders like him take care of Ahmadinejad and his ilk."

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2010/02/iran-a-day-after-22-bahman-rally-a-conservative-ahmadinejad-rival-opens-fire.html

So while neo-cons spout off about bomb, bomb, bomb Iran (see Sarah Palin's Nashville interview), things continue to develop in Iran, the US gov't works to increase economic pressure while further delegitimizing the administration, a new front opens up in Iran.

[visitorq]

^ endless hypocrisy.

[Reggie]

Absolutely amazing, as the world�s number one arms dealer, the world�s leading nuclear armed super power, having more military bases in more nations than any other, militarily occupying more nations than any other, and that our military is the largest single portion of our budget by far Hillary Clinton is going to lecture foreign students on the dangers of military dictatorship in a nation that we militarily occupy its two closest neighboring countries?

We have absolutely got the best propaganda in the world and the most completely brainwashed mass of citizens that someone like Hillary could make such a statement with not only a straight face but half the brain dead, undereducated, wholly ignorant and deceived people in the nation cheering her on.

It defies all reason and boggles the imagination that Americans could be so blind as to the militant nature of our own nation and its agendas while being extolled to look for the tell tale symptoms of it in other nations at a time when our own nation is off the chart in its scope and scale of gunboat diplomacy, deadly violence as a solution, and has a perpetual culture of war and death.

[visitorq]

^ well said.

[visitorq]

Man, I really hope we don't ever end up attacking Iran... Aside from all the obvious reasons that killing/maiming innocent people and destroying their country would be horrible, it's also a country I've been interested in traveling to for awhile. It just looks like such a fascinating part of the world. So much culture and history. The prospect of seeing it turned into Iraq #2 (ie. a bombed in hell-hole), does not impress me one bit.

Obviously the government's no good, but all the regular Iranians I've met (and I've met a fair number) have been really cool, friendly (as well as free-thinking) people.

[mithridates]

Summary of the responses so far: the US is hypocritical, thus Iran will not be a military dictatorship.

[visitorq]

[mithridates]

[Dude Ranch]

It is funny how hard the media is beating the drum for war with Iran. Who has an interest in that country I wonder.

[mises]

[visitorq]

[caniff]

[mithridates]

[bacasper]

[beck's]

America has to stop these continuous, long-term foreign military adventures and idealistic notions of "nation building" in parts of the world that are only just emerging from savagery. Americans are destroying their economy by following these paths which make necessary the out-of-control printing of money.

What we need to do is encourage democracy in Iran through the funding of democratic rebel groups in Iran and coming out strongly in favour of the benefits of the politics of democracy and the economics of captialism. This can be done through media blitzes and careful use of the CIA to fund and encourage the Iranian rebels. We do not need to send troops into Iran. We put the Shah (a great leader compared to the nut-job in power now) on the throne without any military involvement. We can do this again.

If military force is needed to prevent Iran from attacking Israel or any of its neighbours with nuclear weapons it should be done with the airforce. Simply bomb the sh-t out of the nuclear facilities and the launch pads. Using our airforce completely destroy Iran's will to make war a la Dresden and the other German cities circa 1944.