Sunday, June 21, 2009

Iranian Crackdown: Are we witnessing the start of the next Iranian Revolution?

CNN continues to offer excellent coverage of the Iranian Election Fallout and Crackdown. At this point, once everything settles down and order is restored, I'm not so sure that any of the key players in these events will be able to push forward with the kind of government that they want. Those key players being the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or Mir Hossein Moussavi. This has the potential to turn into something much different.

In my final post from last night I commented that the greatest concern with these events is who will emerge as the leader, the real reformer, from the Election Fallout and Crackdown? The message is clear that large numbers of the Iranian population don't want Ahmadinejad as the President and they want the Ayatollah and the Iranian Ruling Council to loosen up on the restrictions they have implemented over the last 30 years since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. when the Shah cracked-down then, the US backed Iranian Government was overthrown. The end result is what you have right now and in many ways is as repressive now (if not more so) as the Shah's regime prior to 1979.




This is more than dissatisfaction with Ahmadinejad and the Iranian Ruling Council. The economy is in bad shape in addition to the message being sent that the people want more freedom and civil rights restored. This is a dangerous combination when you have bad economy and social change mixed together. Sometimes the devil you don't know is the one that we need to be the most concerned about.

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