Roozbeh_Gilani

Dear Mammad

Thank you for the comment, and right of the bat, I have to say that I am sorry for offending you, if that is how you interpreted my comment.  The reason why I didn't respond to your comment on my blog was because I was avoiding a "pile on" situation.  Other were responding to you, and I just left it at that.  

The above being said, though, I absolutely disagree with you that the Islamic government happened because Shah did not provide the proper atmosphere for the growth of political parties.  There was much greater political freedom under Shah that that has been under any period of IR's rule for the past 32 years.  The reason why an Islamic government was established in Iran in 1979 was becuase the Iranian population was (and still is to some extent) extremely (some may even say fanatically) religious.  That's just the bottom line.  I will be writing a blog on that issue soon.

Finally, there is another fundamental difference between you and I.  The IR executed my cousing back in the 1980's.  I wrote a blog about it as well some time ago:

//iranian.com/main/blog/anonymous-observer/how-iri-murdered-my-cousin

Since that event, I have been consistent in my position, which is this: the IR is a murderous regime that must be toppled, no ifs, buts or reforms about it.  You, on the other hand, lost your brother and your cousin to the IR.  But (and please correct me if I'm wrong) you still harbor more hatred for the Shah than you do for the IR (when Shah haden't really done anything to you and perhaps 99% of the Iranian people), and are still hoping that some good may come out of the IR, and that it will somehow turn into a democracy with the help of the very people who were in charge during its darkest periods.   

the tighter, the better

 از اضهار لطف شما ممنون ولی همانطور که مستحضر هستید تعدادی زیاد تله در تنگه هرمز کار گذاشته شده و موشه ممکنه به عاقپت همان پرستو سفید پدون سرتشین صلح دچار شود.

I wear an Omega watch

Knowing The "Facts" Alone Is Not Sufficient!

Knowing The "Facts" Alone Is Not Sufficient! It is the final analysis that counts. It is what results from such analysis that is most important. Those who sided with Khomeini were not making a decision with regards to their personal lives. Their decision brought to power the most destructive forces in our recent history. People can say they made mistakes with regards to their buying a car or a home, but they cannot call siding with Khomeini a mere "mistake." With regards to Iran and Iranians that decision was/is tantamount to treachery. That was not a decision pertaining to their personal lives. Bazargan having spent all his adult life with the mullahs must have known better than that. Again, one may claim to know the "facts," but he may not arrive at correct conclusions and make correct decisions. And one's "facts" may not necessarily coincide with another person's "facts!"

مأمور مذور جون، موش بخورتت!

Masoud aziz: thanks for the comment. In the final analysis, war would be the least desireable option, in my opinion.

Mammad Gerami: I understand your perspective on reform which is indeed shared by much larger proportion of Iranian society, probably perceived by  by iranian.com readewrship. I do not believe the system is reformable however. That could indeed be subject of another discussion. I hope you and AO can resolve any misunderstandings. Thanks for your comment too.  

"Personal business must yield to collective interest."

Great Blog

and comments all around.

They make it as if we LOVE war and bloodshed.   Where were these peace loving SOB's when the green was getting raped in Iran.   Where was the 100 signature petitions then? 

Why you AO?

While we, as human beings, like to be popular and respected, lack of respect by anyone towards me is not going to deter me from expressing my opinion, or to force me to change it to become "popular." To hell with such "popularity." Participating in a political debate is not the same as participating in a popularity contest.

You say you respect me, but when I comment on your blogs, you ignore it [let me make it clear that I do not care; I am only pointing out your contradictory behavior], but then you come here and refer to me [which, if I had not read RG's blog that I liked, I would not have known about it] and make extremely uninformed comments - let alone unfair - on what I believe. This is neither fair, nor a sign of respect [I am only taking about your own words; otherwise, I could not care less]. Now, if this is done by the usual suspect here on this website, it would not be surprising. That blogger knows nothing but lies, misrepresentation, innuendoes, and insinuation. It is not surprising either, because that is what he was assigned for to do here. But, you?

Your comment is extremely uninformed, to say the least, because,

1. What I defend is not the consequences of the 1979 Revolution. I reject the root cause of the revolution, namely, the fascist dictatorship of the Shah, coupled with the corruption, and therefore I support the revolution itself. Yes, the dictatorship of the VF regime and its corruption are in many ways far worse than than those of the Shah's regime. But,

first of all, this view is one in hindsight, and hindsight is always 100 percent correct, and

secondly why is it that when it comes to the VF regime we say we always are given, or were given [before 2009], a choice between worse and worst [like, for example, Khatami and Nategh] and thus we should reject it, but the same, when applied to the Shah and VF regime is totally acceptable?

2. Those of us with my line of thinking, namely, nationalist-religious people [as well as the seculars and secular left], supported the revolution because we thought that it will lead to a democratic republic, not because we wanted the clerics in politics. And, the nationalist-religious groups have been in opposition since November 1979, less than a year after the revolution, when the U.S. embassy was overran. Aside from MEK, due to the treasons of its leaders, no group in Iran has suffered more at the hands of the VF regime more than the N-R groups, by far even the MEK was at some point a N-R group].

But, what you and people like you do not recognize is that, the reason, or at least one very important reason, that the revolution was hijacked was precisely because of the political vacuum that the Shah had created by eliminating all the opposition. It is well-known that the Shah respected highly Mehdi Bazargan. But, why did he not allow him and his group to be active?

Look at the letter that Bazargan wrote to the Shah in the Spring of 1977, to see the high respect that he expresses in the letter toward him [in fact, Bazargan was always respectful toward the Shah, which is why the army always was in contact with him during the revolution]. The Shah never responded.

Do you think that if Bazargan and his group [and other non-clerical groups] had been allowed to be active freely, they would have worked with Khomeini? Absolutely not. In fact, we would not have had a revolution in the first place.

Look at the letter that Bazargan wrote to Khomeini in which he says that talking about an Islamic government is premature. Look at all of his efforts to control the revolution. Bazargan said explicitly that Khomeini does not know anything about the current world, and Taleghani, his commrade of decades and a cleric himself, said that the clerics should not be trusted.These are what the N-R people tried to do.

I am almost certain that that the Shah himself eventually recognized what he has done, because at the end he was begging practically every one in the opposition to accept the post of the premiership, and all, but one, turned him down.

The difference between you and me is that, wrong or right, when I speak about such issues I do so based on what has happened and based on knowledge, not based on imagination, hand-waving arguments, etc.

3. The Anglophile response was neither "eloquent," as you claim, nor informed, which is why I did not bother to respond, and I am a person who never turnms down the opportunity for a debate, if I feel it helps the readers and me to learn more. First, he came forward claiming that I was making statement without any basis. I knew where that would go, but I responded anyway, and then he came back with the typical response of such people, namely, that I have a guilty conscience and that is why I insist on my beliefs. No, I have a clear conscience, because what I supported is NOT what has happened. And, his response has nothing to do with what I had said, anyway!

4. Finally, you misrepresent my opinion about what to do about the VF regime, which is nothing but a criminal enterprise. I explained this in the past here, and I repeated it exactly on VOA last week. I say it again for "tanvir-e afkaar-e omoomi:"

What people like me oppose are, (1) foreign intervention in Iran, including the so-called humanitarian intervention which is nothing but naked military aggression, as I put that explicitly on a recent article, and (2) a bloody revolution that may lead to Iran's disintegration, although if eventually people decide to do that, WITHOUT foreign intervention, I will support it, but I do not see it coming. Other than these two, everything is wide open. I support any action that will lead to the establishment of a truly secular democratic republic, and I am a practicing Muslim - as opposed to the fake one that is claimed by some here, when they demonize Muslims and Islam all the time, but say they are secular; a true secular does not demonize people and their religion, but only wants religion out of governance. If that means people should go on strike, so be it. If that means they should go on total civil disobedience of any form, so be it.

So, AO, next time when you try to blindside me, at least speak factual. Is that too much to ask?

Mammad

 He is briefing the

 He is briefing the president on my recent report on how desterctive and determental the bloggers  in IC have become to his presidency.

u r doing a fine job, just need to replace that sovetic style red star with a nice omega ltrade mark.

I wear an Omega watch

.

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مأمور و معذور جون، چشم..

دفعه دیگه ساعت امگا رو هم اشاره می‌کنم. ولی‌ حالا که اینجا هستی‌ و عکسش‌ رو هم گذاشتی‌، بگو ببینم، این مشایی داره چیکار میکنه به مموت جون از عقب؟؟

AO, my friend.

You are making a very good point. My blog was however not targetted at mammad and alike , who actualy agree with us on criminality of the Islamic republic, but unlike I and you believe that this regime can be reformed. No, the target of my blog is the regimi folks who enjoy living the good life in the democratic west, expenses paid ( by you know who...), yet deny the same democratic system to the Iranians back home. The ones who actualy defend the criminal acts of the islamic regime and constantly boast about it's "military power" and it's "undeniable right" to nuclear bomb and destruction of israel, yet shit their pants at first site of a US boat.....

Take care.

"Personal business must yield to collective interest."

اپوزیسیون میجنگد اپوزیسون میمیرد اما ساعت امگا نمی پوشد

 از شلوار کلوئن کلائن گفتی ولئ حرفی از ساعت اومگا نزدی

I wear an Omega watch

Good one RG jaan

I really can't add much to what Faramarz has written below.  I think that he encapsulated the whole thing pretty well there.  

But look my good friend, this is not about the U.S., UK, France or anyone else.  This is all about saving their disastrous devolution of 32 years ago.  For most of these fossils, that event was the single most important event in their otherwise worthless lives, and they will fight for its survival even if means the death of every man, woman and child in Iran.  Khamenei and co. can rape their mothers in front of them, and they will still claim that the IR is still better than the Shah.  It's the proverbial "tof-e-sar bala" that is their beloved "revolution" that they are defending.

For example, as much as I like and respect Mammad, for God's sake, the IR murdered his brother and his cousin, and he still defends the 1979 devolution, badmouths the Shah and claims that the IR should just be reformed.  And what did the Shah do to him?  Brought him in for a "chat' at a posh Savak office!!!  Oh, and he sent him here and paid for his studies!  Here, read his comment(s) on this thread and Anglophile's very eloquent response:

//iranian.com/main/blog/anonymous-observer/lets-give-chimp-some-credit

Faramarz aziz and GR gerami.

Thanks for the great comments.

There are lots of people inside and outside Iran who genuinly oppose war. I am one of them. But I am no peace and love kind of a person. I believe that the islamist regime would never go peacefully and need to be kicked out by force, by force of Iranian people. I see two major problesm with military attack on iran. One is the civilian casualties (regime supporters are already here in the west and will be joined by the rest before the attack). the second is , that there would be no guarantee  of a representative government being put in place after the attack by foreign forces (Iraq is a very good example). I do hawever have to admit that I have been quite enjoying watching the panic striken regime leadership and their west residing rent a keyboard crowd over the past few weeks :)  

"Personal business must yield to collective interest."

Roozbeh Jaan!

I was just trying to be cute there, for once! The number 12 had to be something outrageous. Of course, nothing is as outrageous as what our beloved country has been held hostage to for decades, if not for centuries! And that's where the magical powers of that number lie!

Thanks Roozbeh

This last petition was very amusing and revealing.

It talked about the horror of war and provided several examples like the poor Yugoslavian children getting killed by NATO or poor Iraqi soldiers getting killed in their barracks.

These people have no shame. Don’t they remember the massacre and ethnic cleansing at Srebrenica; 8,000 men and boys rounded up and killed, Serbs raping women and proudly talking about impregnating them? These atrocities somehow don’t resonate with the petition signing crowd. You know why? Because as long people kill people in their own country, it’s their business. But god forbid if someone comes to their rescue. We can’t have that.

And the Saddam episode was also interesting. Saddam attacked Iran, used chemical weapons, and put thousands of Iraqis in mass graves. But, to these people, Saddam is not to blame. It is the west that encouraged him and should be held accountable, not him and his sons Udai and Kusai.

They extend the same logic and line of reasoning to the current situation in Iran. The Regime can detain, torture and kill Iranians at will and to them that’s just an internal family matter, like incest and child abuse. But heaven forbid if someone offers to step in and try to stop the violence.

Keep signing those petitions!

No signatures required for this blog!

GR aziz, just to be clear, no signatures are required for this blog. just an online, electronic, virtual, anonymous  "halva khordam" per person on behalf of all his/her user ID'swould suffice :)

"Personal business must yield to collective interest."

آژیرهای جنگ را چه کسانی به صدا در می آورند؟ 

1. Those mullahs and their goons who interfered in Iraq's internal affairs right after the failed revolution of '79 and openly called on Iraqis to overthrow Saddam. 2. Those who continued the war with Iraq for eight long years. 3. Those who were/are talking about liberating Jerusalem. 4. Those who are dreaming of exporting their revolution. 5. Those mullahs and their goons who want to manage the world. 6. Those IR officials who have been talking about and trying to acquire nuclear weapons for decades. 7. Those IR leaders who want to wipe another sovereign state off the face of the earth! 8. Those IR mullahs and goons who have financed and orchestrated countless terrorist acts throughout the world against Iranians and foreigners. 9. Those who have forced millions of Iranians into exile. 10. Those who attack foreign embassies instead of simply telling foreign diplomats to leave. 11. Those whose hostage-taking habits never seem to die. 12. Please sign!!! P. S. I was kind of worried I wouldn't get to the magical number "12."