Best Analysis on Iran

From Reza Aslan and Bruce Feiler on Bloggingheads.tv

[Pro-dialogue with regime]. Take regime change off the table. There is no other Revolution coming--"a revolution without blood" as the Iranians say.

Aslan's point about Iran is simple. The US government thinks it needs to impose democracy in Iran but that democracy already exists in Iran although it is weak and suppressed by the unelected autocratic elements in society.


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Whenever we face such autocracies (like Soviet Russia) with a democratic base, we would talk with the regime, contain them, and then let the bubbling come from below. Even with a nuke. We are trying to de-stabilize Iran by for example funding terrorist non-Persian groups (MKK) and the black-ops that the President has authorized inside Iran. Not again Iranian interference outside the country. Not to mention the kidnapping of the Iranian diplomats--if there is proof for them being wrongdoers, show the proof.

Also watch Aslan's take on the recent clampdown in Iran. It's part of a spring cycle that happens every year. And with the President's signing order that the US would use Iranian-Americans to funnel aid to de-stabilize the regime, it is no surprise the Iranian government kidnaps Iranian-American scholars. Though those individuals were innocent.

Also, he discusses how the Iranian democracy groups do not want US aid. They may be pro-democracy in Iran but they are not in large measure pro-American foreign policy in the Middle East.

He makes a haunting point that when he recently visited Iran, people were as he says "literally looking up in the sky waiting for the bombs to drop."

Why? Beause the policy is to still overthrow the regime forcing the regime to have no other option but pursue nuclear weapons, particularly withe recent economic squeeze which I fear gives too much power to the radicals.

According to RA, the Americans are more convinced that there is no military solution to Iran than Iran is---why the expect the bombs any day. I hope against but more than 50% convinced than bombs will drop on Iran this summer or at least before Bush leaves office.

His most important point I think is he puts to bed the idea that Ahmadinejad's election represents a conservatization/radicalization of Iranian populace but rather the militarization of Iranian politics that has never happened before. That the President what Aslan calls "an empty" vessel for the Revolutionary Guard (RG).

Khomenei set up the RG as a parallel security and protection force against the Army and these forces have gone Frankenstein's monster. A shadow gov't Aslan calls them. Ahmadinejad is their guy. And the new political move is an alliance between Reformers and Pragmatist Conservatives and Clerics against the Revolutionary Cadre.

As Aslan says, opening up the country will bring regime change immediately. Others like Barnett have been saying that for a long time.

For the view that the same forces are inevitably leading to Persian expansion, Spengler in AsianTimes.

Spengler cites the still burning fires of Khomeni's Revolution. Although it could be argued that is precisely why the revolts over oil rationing and the youth becoming isolated, party goers, Islamic chic among the girls, secret sexual encounters, and all the rest suggesting the Revolution has failed.

So the question is how to deal with the Revolutionary cadre? Spengler may be right--I hope he is wrong--but I guarantee an American strike automatically gives the store to the Ahmadinejad types.