Meet Iran's George W. Bush

[Chris]

Meet Iran's George W. Bush

Ahmadinejad has made a mess of the economy, clamped down on political dissent and social freedoms, militarized the state, and earned the enmity of much of the world. In large Iranian cities, even those who voted for him in 2005 are almost unanimous in their disappointment. But in Iranian elections, demographics are everything. It all depends on who, exactly, shows up to the polls.

Iran has its own version of the Red State dynamic. Although just 35 percent of the population lives in rural villages, which are more traditional and conservative than the cities, these people make up almost 65 percent of those who have voted in elections since 2005. Rural Iranians have been well-served by the Islamic Republic in general, and by Ahmadinejad in particular. The villages are poor, but since 1979, the Islamic Republic has brought them electricity, education, clean water, roads, local governance, and countless other improvements. Rural Iranians benefit from generous subsidies, becoming clients of the state even while urban Iranians have grown increasingly alienated.

In the cities, the failure of Iranian export industries has produced joblessness and resentment. Civil society--including the country's largest universities and its impressive community of journalists, activists, and intellectuals--faces unrelenting repression. The country's ill-used middle class spins its wheels, almost completely shut out of the country's economic, political, and cultural life. It is in the cities that young Iranians chafe most visibly at the Islamic dress code and the laws against the mingling of the sexes. But while urban Iranians outnumber their rural brethren, they are so disenchanted with the Islamic Republic as a whole that they are increasingly disinclined to vote.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/06/08/opinion/main5072617.shtml

Teh BDS, it burns.

[BEG]

I don't even get mad at this shit anymore.  I have to believe that the general public has got to see through this crap by now.  If they don't then we get what we deserve. 

[Eupher]

I read a recent editorial by Daniel Pipes, who fronts the Middle East Forum and other information outlets on the web. He's an academic who has built a career out of studying the ME.

In short, he said that in order to properly put the Iranian bent on nuclear weaponry right out there in front where it belongs, it's best to leave I'm-a-nut-job right where he's at.

Ali Khamenei, the REAL power-holder in Iran, is far less in-your-face than I'm-a-nut-job. And make no mistake - he's pushing the nuclear weaponry agenda with a lot more ooomph than I'm-a-nut-job.

It's best to keep the lunatic out there braying his lunacy, rather than bring the new guy on board, because they're both singing off the same sheet of music.

The West can be teh Stoopid at times - forgetting completely about the danger because it's been cloaked in reason and soft words and "accommodations" which are anything but.