Iran Election Result

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Rip

You are being delusional. There are plenty of civilized and even secular people all over Iran. They can't have a candidate because all candidates have to be approved by the mullahs. Which mean to run you must believe in the type of government they want and swear an allegiance to them.

That is correct, but these social classes are not "all over Iran". They are formed by an educated social middle class, that is quite bourgeouis and interested in european cultural influence. But that should not hide two facts: another part of the same middle class is very conservative, and even many of the "moderate" are for the most strictly Islamic. Also, they are not all over Iran, but are concentrated in the bigger citiesd and metropoles, especially Teheran of course. I must say I met some extremely kind and very - really: VERY - polite people there, and I know many Westerners who could learn better manners from them. But the rural places are dominated by strict conservatism and orthodoxy. I compare the situation to that in Turkey, where there is a similiar split between city and rural populations.

It's a bit paradox, because in the early history Islam focussed on controlling the cities and ignore the rural country a bit and ignore nomads as well as long as they payed their taxes. It was too difficult trying to control them completely.

[Rip]

Originally Posted by Skybird

To think I am a born anti-democrat for simply not liking it, and prefering something different for the sake of that alone, would miss the point about me. I simply do not see it working if the community subscribing to it exceeds a certain size, and I realise that many people in the world for political and/or religious and/or economic reasons do not favour demiocracy for themselves, and have ideas that are dearer to them. I also see private enterprise controlling political decision making, which means the latter is not independant from the first - and this bad circumstance always, always kills any potential for a democracy becoming real.
In fact democracy gets hollowed out - the bigger the community size, the easier business can hide the process in the uncontrollable size and complexity of the resulting construction of politics. andn thta is a reason why so many people defdend this process while being unaware of it, and thinking they would infact defend democracy. But in fact they help to erode it by their support.

Democracy is no holy grail for me. I think of it as a tool, not more, and it is not the only tool available. It either is a benefit for the task ahead, or it is a hazard. If it is a benefit, it is not my problem. If it is a hazard or does not serve the purpose that i want to see succeeding, then I throw it away and try something else.

Rather than struggle with wording my feelings I will lean on someone more gifted with expression than I.

The American preoccupation with promoting democracy abroad fits into a larger liberal view about the sources of a stable, legitimate, secure, and prosperous international order. This outlook may not always be the chief guiding principle of policy, and it may sometimes lead to error. Still, it is a relatively coherent orientation rooted in the American political experience and American understandings of history, economics, and the sources of political stability. It thus stands apart from more traditional grand strategies that grow out of European experience and the so-called realist tradition in foreign policy, with its emphasis on balances of power, realpolitik, and containment.
This distinctively American liberal grand strategy is built around a set of claims and assumptions about how democratic politics, economic interdependence, international institutions, and political identity encourage a stable political order. It is not a single view articulated by a single group of thinkers. It is a composite view built on a variety of arguments by a variety of supporters. Some advocate promoting democratic institutions abroad, some lobby for free trade and economic liberalization, and others aim to erect ambitious new international and regional economic and security institutions. Each group has its own emphases and agendas, each may think of itself as entirely independent of the others (and occasionally even hostile to them), but over the years they have almost inadvertently complemented one another. Together, these efforts have come to constitute a liberal grand strategy.

This conviction about the value of democracy runs through much American foreign policy thinking in the 20th century. In 1995, Anthony Lake, then director of the National Security Council, declared:
We led the struggle for democracy because the larger the pool of democracies, the greater our own security and prosperity. Democracies, we know, are less likely to make war on us or on other nations. They tend not to abuse the rights of their people. They make for more reliable trading partners. And each new democracy is a potential ally in the struggle against the challenges of our time-containing ethnic and religious conflict; reducing the nuclear threat; combating terrorism and organized crime; overcoming environmental degradation.
Free Trade, Free Countries: Liberals see trade and open markets as a kind of democratic solvent, dissolving the political supports of autocratic and authoritarian governments.
Trade fosters economic growth, the argument goes, which encourages democratic institutions. Hardly anybody doubts that the first part of this proposition is correct. Even the opponents of free trade rarely argue that it doesn't promote growth. Instead, they say that it disproportionately hurts certain groups, or causes social disruptions, or poses a threat to national security.

But does economic growth encourage democracy? The classic case that it does was made by political sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset in the 1950s. Lipset argued that economic development tends to increase the general level of education, which promotes changes in political culture and political attitudes. These, in turn, encourage democracy. Most important, economic development creates a rising middle class, with a far greater degree of immunity to the appeal of class struggle and antidemocratic parties and ideologies.
There are many other reasons to accept the prosperity-democracy connection, not least that experience tends to bear it out. Not all democracies enjoy high levels of prosperity, but there is a strong correlation. Political scientists Thomas J. Bolgy and John E. Schwarz offer another reason why this is true: "only under conditions of prosperity and capitalism" are leaders likely to "accept defeat peacefully at the polls, secure in the knowledge that they will have fair opportunities to regain political power, and opportunities for economic benefit when they are out of power."
The liberal emphasis on trade takes a very materialist view: economics shape politics. It is a far cry from starry-eyed idealism. It has a long history in official American foreign policy thinking, showing up as early as the 1890s as part of the rationale for the American Open Door policy, which declared this country's opposition to economic spheres of influence in Asia and around the world.
More recently, the trade emphasis has been at the heart of American efforts at "engagement" with politically unpopular regimes - whether South Africa during the 1970s and '80s, the Soviet Union, or lately China. Trade and market openings are only the tip of a liberalizing wedge - often to the surprise of the antidemocratic leaders who eagerly grasp the opportunity to trade with the United States and its partners.

Just as important as promoting peace, the American vision of openness - a sort of economic one-worldism - would lead to an international order in which the need for American hands-on management would be modest. The system would, in effect, govern itself. The "prosperous neighbor" formula conveys only one of the reasons for believing that trade promotes peace. Again, there are some very realistic arguments behind the proposition. As countries engage in more and more trade, their economies evolve. Industries and sectors that enjoy a competitive advantage in foreign markets thrive, while those that cannot withstand foreign competition wither. The economy grows more specialized, carving out a niche in the larger international marketplace. It also grows more dependent, needing both foreign markets and foreign goods. In the language of political science, trade creates "mutual dependencies." No longer can the state easily determine and act upon narrow nationalistic economic interests. Now it has a stake in the stability and functioning of the larger international order.
At the same time, economic change creates new vested interests with a stake in economic openness and a supportive international political order. Studies of Japan and other industrial countries show that corporations that invest overseas not only develop an interest in international conditions that support those investments but also become a new voice back home advocating the opening of the domestic market.
In the traditional American view, trade also helps "socialize" other nations. Nowhere has this been more explicit than in the Clinton administration's approach toward China. In 1997, President Bill Clinton explained:
China's economic growth has made it more and more dependent on the outside world for investment, markets, and energy. Last year it was the second largest recipient of foreign direct investment in the world. These linkages bring with them powerful forces for change. Computers and the Internet, fax machines and photo-copiers, modems and satellites all increase the exposure to people, ideas, and the world beyond China's borders. The effect is only just beginning to be felt.

Today, Republican and Democratic leaders alike favor a foreign policy agenda organized around business internationalism, multilateral economic and security organizations, and democratic community building. It is a coalition not unlike the one that formed in the 1940s when the United States was contemplating the shape of the postwar world. Its members don't all have the same motives or interests. Some pursue democracy, the rule of law, and human rights as ends in themselves; others see them as a way to expand and safeguard business and markets; still others see indirect payoffs for national security. But this is nothing new. Out of the mix of motives and policies still comes a meaningful whole.
The United States may be predestined to pursue a liberal grand strategy. There is something in the character of the American system that supports a general liberal strategic orientation. Behind it stand an array of backers, from U.S. corporations that trade and invest overseas to human rights groups to partisans of democracy to believers in multilateral organizations. Democracies - particularly big and rich ones such as the United States - seem to have an inherent sociability. They are biased, by their very makeup, in favor of engagement, enlargement, interdependence, and institutionalization, and they are biased against containment, separation, balance, and exclusion.
It may be, as some critics argue, that Americans have been too optimistic about the possibilities of promoting democracy abroad. But this sober consideration does not diminish the overall coherence of liberal grand strategy. The last British governor of Hong Kong, Christopher Patton, captured this truth about America's role in the promotion of democracy: "American power and leadership have been more responsible than most other factors in rescuing freedom in the second half of this century. America has been prepared to support the values that have shaped its own liberalism and prosperity with generosity, might, and determination. Sometimes this may have been done maladroitly; what is important is that it has been done." America has not just been spreading its values, it has been securing its interests. This is America's hidden grand strategy, and there is at least some evidence that it has been rather successful.

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/exdem.htm

I agree with pretty much everything Mr Ikenberry had to say.

Rip

[Skybird]

And I agree with some - and disagree with some. I also say that this essay to me is the formulation of the ideal case as it was thought to be in theory. Reality looks different, and has created different results putting the theory in question - results that all too often are opportunistically and comfortably ignored so that the theory must not be questioned.

[Rip]

Originally Posted by Skybird

That is correct, but these social classes are not "all over Iran". They are formed by an educated social middle class, that is quite bourgeouis and interested in european cultural influence. But that should not hide two facts: another part of the same middle class is very conservative, and even many of the "moderate" are for the most strictly Islamic. Also, they are not all over Iran, but are concentrated in the bigger citiesd and metropoles, especially Teheran of course. I must say I met some extremely kind and very - really: VERY - polite people there, and I know many Westerners who could learn better manners from them. But the rural places are dominated by strict conservatism and orthodoxy. I compare the situation to that in Turkey, where there is a similiar split between city and rural populations.

It's a bit paradox, because in the early history Islam focussed on controlling the cities and ignore the rural country a bit and ignore nomads as well as long as they payed their taxes. It was too difficult trying to control them completely.

Or so you think. But the truth is many of them will say whatever makes them the least likely to have their head chopped off. There is no way you could get their real opinion while they have to sleep every night under the rule of someone who kills people for saying the wrong thing. If you walked around NK and talked to people you would think Kim was the greatest thing to walk the earth. Even from the people on the verge of starving to death as a direct result of his tyranny. If they ever do manage to ever throw the mullahs and establish a democracy you will find a majority of them would rather have a representative government.

[Skybird]

Sorry, but in the early and mid-90s I experienced the North-West and Teheran a bit different than you imply. It simply was less police-control than you think and more honest conviction showing in people - hope for some more pragmatic freedoms by the young, religious convictions with the wide majority of the rest. People spoke surprisingly free as long as no camera and microphone was around. And - another surprise - especially the younger and the middle class bourgeousie spoke less hate-filled of the West and America than TV-pictures today give an impression: quite the opposite. But that was before the American rethoric turned hostile on them for not wanting an all-out turn towards Western ideals. I still think today that back then America terribly wasted a very great chance to foster more sympathy of the younger generation for America. All it would have taken maybe was not to turn against them rethorically, but behave cautiously supportive towards even the more pragmatic approach on freedoms they wanted - instead of telling them they should go all the way towards Western democracy or they could go to hell.

I saw the same phenomenon in Turkey: the "Westernised" city population, the conservative rural areas (with 80% or so of the national population). And neither at that time nor in that place people were under threat by state police and secret agents. the conservatism was real. If some women feared for their lifes, then it was due to the wrath of their families over their eventual disobedience - not due to the police tracking statements. But you can imagine that they did not tell me such things. Relations I was confronted with were mostly not too relaxed anyway. In Iran I met far more hospitality and warmth, I really must say. Iranians are extreme patriots, too, but in Turkey there was much xenophobia and national arrogance towards the West, in the rural areas I mean. Strange for a people depednig so much on international tourism. But the tourists go to the cities only - that is the difference. And then they go home to Europe and think they have seen the true face of Turkey. Absurd.

[geetrue]

Clues to how they may have rigged the votes ... the villages were no longer allowed to open the ballot boxes and count the votes. See bold type: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1096071.html

"In 2005 Ahmadinejad won for several reasons: The reformists boycotted the elections and his rival [Akbar Hashemi] Rafsanjani was identified with the most corrupt elements in the regime. That is why Ahmadinejad tried this time to claim that Mousavi in effect represents Rafsanjani, but people don't believe him. In 2005 Ahmadinejad was actually running against George W. Bush, whereas this time the U.S. is headed by President Barack Obama. It's therefore reasonable to assume that support for Ahmadinejad declined this time."

Which means you do not doubt the claims that the elections were rigged?

"There's no doubt. Mousavi's chances of winning in the cities were known. That isn't the case in the villages. But people who are involved in what's happening in the villages said that the rate of support for Ahmadinejad there was about 20 percent. The rest supported [Mehdi] Karroubi and Mousavi.

In the past, opening the ballot boxes and counting the votes was done in the villages themselves. This time the Interior Ministry took the closed ballot boxes. When they announced Ahmadinejad's victory, people in the villages were as angry as those in the cities."