Careful What You Wish For
June 22nd, 2009 | Editorial Cartoons | 15 Comments
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The genie, as they say, is out of the bottle. The hard-line leadership of Iran is trying to do two opposite things at the same time–promote a partially open society and try to control it. Having given the people of Iran, who increasingly chafe under the limits of a rigid authoritarian society, at least the illusion that they had the option of choosing reform, the conservative clerics who have run Iran since its revolution are unhappy with the results. Now they are trying to have it both ways after the fact. Having delivered a sham outcome, they are trying to calm the unrest by simultaneously ratifying the bogus election of Ahmadinejad and investigating a small enough fraction of the polling to ensure the outcome, giving the impression at least that they are looking into irregularities. The opposition is having none of it. In the classic response of all authoritarian regimes, the next step is the bloody repression now taking place. The question is whether the regime will be able to stifle the protests completely, as China did twenty years ago at Tiananman Square, or whether the Iranian society is now open enough that the hunger for change has taken hold permanently.
Topics: Ahmadinejad, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, clerics, election, hard-liners, Iran
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The Iranians have no chance unless the Police/Military either defect or stand aside othewise this revolution will be short lived.
Its too bad the Iranians dont have gun rights, I am sure they wished they has our “Gun problems” rather than no guns at all at this point.
Long live the wisdom of the Founding Fathers.
And if the protesters had guns, what would be happening?
Answer is: Iran would look like Iraq. Now that’s an improvement.
Since the people in Iraq don’t have guns either, only the military and the terrorists do, it would seem your answer is lacking.
Not to mention that the two situations are entirely different as well.
To answer your question correctly, if the people of Iran were armed, you can sure bet that the police/military would be approaching the situation with a lot more care and the government would probably be more accommodating to its populace. Perhaps freedom would bloom.
Remember, freedom is bought and paid for in blood, not good intentions or wishy washy liberal ideals.
My answer may be lacking but the point was simply that there would be by two (or more) groups killing each other in an attempt to be in power. It’s not clear to me that the two situations are entirely different. You would still likely have Shia,Sunni and Kurds fighting over who is in power.
I’m not sure that it is logical that the police/military would be approcaching with a lot more care and that the government would be more accomodating. It doesn’t seem like that has been the universal response over history. As or more likely would be a much more aggresive response. Guns are of little value against bombs or tanks.
I’m also not sure that this is really a fight over freedom. It’s not lear that Mausavi was advocating freedom, although I did note that he wanted the police/military to report to him (as President) instead of the Supreme Leader. One can imagine where that step leads to….
Fair enough….we agree to disagree on this subject.
I think the people of Iran would be better off armed, you do not.
Pretty nice post. I just came by your blog and wanted to say
that I have really liked browsing your posts. In any case
I’ll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you write again soon!
Brilliant! It’s EXACTLY the way it is in Iran.
Thanks for helping Iranian people sending their messages to the world even by cartoons.
guns?!!!!!
seems you guys really don’t know what is dictatorship
we can’t even breath freely now you say it would be good if we had guns?
that’s a joke
BTW thanks for that caricature and your support
I think people in west are realizing how much difference exist between iranian people and their government.
When iranians travel to western countries , they’re treated as they have the same opinions and attitudes like their government , the way it’s way too wrong! … we cant fully understand what they go through when every entity in the universe (their government , western governments , western people) are against them.
I AM IRANIAN AND I BELIEVE THAT THE ONLY WAY TO GET THESE SICK BUSTARDS OUT IS TO SHOOT THEM IN THE STREETS THAT IS THE ONLY WAY .
Nowadays i think everybody in all around the world knows that, ahmadinejda is not the president of iranian people, he’s government’s President,
Awesome
You should have a great view about political situation in Iran
Can you guess the next step?
Email me!
a kind of Renaissance happened in Iran and hope goes well.
Fantastic cartoon!
Thank you so much for this. I am very impressed about how well you understanding the political situation in Iran.
I sent this around to all my Iranian and non-Iranian friends. Now a Persian version of your cartoon is going around the world!
Cheers
Saeed