a thread about the civil unrest in egypt (& elsewhere in 'the region' if necessary)

yeah i'm terrified for these dudes tbh

cosign there

xpost

Me too. Read some quote from a revolutionary guard leader where he referred to the protesters as "corpses". Chilling.

Iran: a) has a long history of violent repression, b) is not susceptible to external pressures (ie, from the US, it's neighbors, etc) since it's basically a pariah state already and c) I'm not entirely convinced the reformers are actually in the majority there, it seems much more evenly split, so the protesters are not necessarily even gonna have sheer weight of numbers on their side.

where he referred to the protesters as "corpses".

Great way to insure your country has no future. Sure you're not in the pay of Iran-haters?

Ahmadinejad seems high up on the scale of paranoid leaders who would crush the protesters even harder than normal because of everything that's already happened...like his crazy reasoning would see it as a chance to show off his iron fist of kill-smash-death

both religious and economic motivations prop up the iranian gov't. dunno what it's gonna take for things to change there; almost all the 'peaceful' revolutions i can think of have the crucial element of the Thugs deciding not to crack heads. in iran's case it seems like there will always be plenty of true believers or state beneficiaries who have no trouble getting the clubs out again. maybe a numbers game? how long can a believer-state last?

in some ways, he's just misunderstood.

M_Ahmadinejad Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Youth of Iran! Just a gentle reminder that throwing me out is pointless: a bunch of bearded geezers run this place. I'm just a handsome face

official account iirc.

lol

Iran seems more likely to transition very slowly to a more democratic and free society via a gradual opening up and liberalization. The time line would be years (decades even), rather than days. That's sad for the younger generations that seem desperate for change.

I'm not entirely convinced the reformers are actually in the majority there, it seems much more evenly split, so the protesters are not necessarily even gonna have sheer weight of numbers on their side.

I think this is a key point. I think you have to ask in all these countries, what is the point of the regime? In the absence of popular legitimacy through elections, what gives the state its legitimacy? In many of the Arab republics, such as Tunisia and Egypt, it WAS nationalism, both through anti-colonial struggles, and then war with Israel. Mubarak was a war hero etc. But given the pro-Western, pro-Israel line and the passing of time, that didn't wash any more, so the regime becomes about nothing other than its own survival and enrichment.

In Iran, however, the regime has the twin justifications of nationalism and religion. Unlike in Egypt, where it seemed nobody who wasn't on the payroll had anything good to say about the regime, there are plenty of people in Iran who support Ahmadinejad, and plenty more who support the system. Even the leaders of the opposition don't want to overthrow the velayat e-faqih (rule of the supreme jurisprudent) do they? They feel the revolution has been stolen by Ahmadinejad and want to restore it (I'm a bit unclear on this point, though). Ahmadinejad has his own constituency and in many ways is a populist. Playing hard-ball on the nuclear issue is in part pandering to public opinion. There's also the point that it is actually a more plural state than, say, Egypt was. They've had five presidents since the revolution, including a reformer and very different stripes of conservative. None of which justifies crackdowns onp protesters or the death penalty or whatever, but worth thinking about.

Someone mentioned Hamas in Gaza being next, which also seems unlikely to me. I'm sure life in Gaza is shit, but doesn't the government have an obvious thing to blame in Israel. They have the legitimacy of resistance. And are actually elected too. The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank seems very likely, however. Abbas's term ran out in January 2009, so he has no democratic legitimacy any more, and the craven attitude to the negotiations with the Israelis can't help. I notice they sacked the entire West Bank cabinet this morning.

I'd find it really depressing if Abbas lost his job while Hamas remained in power. (Not that my feelings have any connection to what will or won't happen.)

On Monday, the police in Bahrain fired rubber bullets and tear gas into crowds of peaceful protesters from the Shiite majority population. So much tear gas was fired that the officers themselves vomited. In Yemen, hundreds of student protesters clashed with pro-government forces in the fourth straight day of protests.

In the central Iranian city of Isfahan, many demonstrators were arrested after security forces clashed with them, reports said, and sporadic messages from inside Iran indicated that there had also been protests in Shiraz, Mashhad and Rasht.

from the NY Times.

Iranian Parliament calls for execution of Mousavi, opposition leaders

stay classy Iran!

fucking hell

get your handbaskets ready, this is all gonna go to Hell right quick, isn't it. fuck.

Egypt's Constitutional Ghosts

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/02/15/60minutes/main20032070.shtml

don't read the comments

just saw that story. totally gross

my god everyone of those comments are nuts - mustve been directed there by some blogger or w/e

i dont see whats wrong with the comments..

sure sure

That's weird – I don't see any comments. I'm pretty surprised they opened a story like that to comments.

no comments for me either. maybe you don't get them in the UK, like hulu.

I MUST SET UP A PROXY TO SEE VILE COMMENTS ON A SEXUAL ASSAULT

comments have mercifully vanished.

here u go - http://www.cbsnews.com/8601-18560_162-20032070-0.html - theres some push back now but theres a good string of all muslims are animals in there if you care to torture yrself

http://www.mofopolitics.com/2011/02/03/slutty-cbs-reporter-lara-logan-detained-in-egypt/

jesus

MAKE THE WORLD GO AWAY

wow

i managed to get this far w/o knowing that existed

aaaanyway

M White that article on the constitution is super interesting. i got a little nervous when reports said the constitution had been suspended, but, it looks like it sucks.

This analysis of the crisis of Arab pride and leadership is the best - or at least the clearest and most wide-ranging - piece I've read:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/11/AR2011021102617.html

http://www.mofopolitics.com/2011/02/03/slutty-cbs-reporter-lara-logan-detained-in-egypt/

― Matt Armstrong, Tuesday, February 15, 2011 4:49 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

uggghhh

you know who didn't get assaulted while covering egypt?

http://i.imgur.com/wAT2l.gif

Interesting detail from a Fisk article last week:

Mubarak ordered a Tiananmen style massacre but the people in the tanks who got the order (I assume from their army superiors who are now in charge?) refused.

http://www.americablog.com/2011/02/mubarak-ordered-tiananmen-style.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-as-mubarak-clings-on-what-now-for-egypt-2211287.html :

But the critical moment came on the evening of 30 January when, it is now clear, Mubarak ordered the Egyptian Third Army to crush the demonstrators in Tahrir Square with their tanks after flying F-16 fighter bombers at low level over the protesters.

Many of the senior tank commanders could be seen tearing off their headsets – over which they had received the fatal orders – to use their mobile phones. They were, it now transpires, calling their own military families for advice. Fathers who had spent their lives serving the Egyptian army told their sons to disobey, that they must never kill their own people.

that's amazing + really moving

Fisk coming correct

wow, was wondering abt that

Following a series of offensive tweets about the sexual assault of CBS chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan in Cairo Tuesday, New York University has accepted the resignation of Nir Rosen, a fellow at the university’s Center on Law and Security.

Shortly after news about the assault was released, Rosen, a veteran war correspondent, tweeted, “Lara Logan had to outdo Anderson. Where was her buddy McCrystal,” referring to Anderson Cooper’s beating in Cairo at the beginning of the month. He added later, “I’m rolling my eyes at all the attention she’ll get,” citing his view that she is “a major war monger.”

Following a few backlash comments on Twitter, he responded, “Yes yes its (sic) wrong what happened to her. Of course. I don’t support that. But, it would have been funny if it happened to Anderson too,” suggesting that it somehow would have been amusing if Anderson Cooper had also suffered a “brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating.” (Rosen says that, at the time, he was not aware of the severity of the attack.)

Rosen has since deleted both tweets and apologized repeatedly on Twitter. “(I) forgot Twitter is not exactly private,” he tweeted, later saying that he “never meant to heart anyone” and has “brought shame” upon himself and his family.

holy shit

http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2011/02/17/alg_tweet_nir-rosen.jpg

fucking asshole.

Countdown to Ann Coulter's first L.Logan "joke"...

http://www.newsweek.com/2011/02/13/wanted-a-grand-strategy-for-america.html

basically think every sentence in this is either tendentious or outright wrong

cant wait to read more terrific niall ferguson essays in the tunku varadarakan-edited newsweek

fucking people

thank god tina brown saved it from the brink, so that we could all get more niall ferguson in our lives

“never meant to heart anyone”