Iran Analysis: How Mohareb Death Threats May Hurt the Regime
Enduring America / Scott Lucas
18-Jan-2010 (one comment)

Former Iranian president Abolhassan Bani Sadr, who now lives in exile in Paris, argues the use of the term “mohareb” by the Iranian government is excessive. He says the regime is not respecting its own laws, because the term “enemy of God” means someone who takes up arms against a just regime, and people did not take up arms against the regime, they were merely demonstrating to protest against dictatorship, a right which the law of the Islamic Republic gives them. Secondly, he argues, in the case of an unjust regime, the Koran says a muslim has not only the right, but the obligation to revolt against it. Thirdly, he adds, it was the government that fired on the people during Ashoura, when they were exercising their legitimate right to demonstrate.

Scott Lucas of the University of Birmingham in Britain, who is behind the popular Iran blog “Enduring America,” says government tactics such as charging protesters with being “enemies of God” are starting to cause a rift within the government itself. “If you look at what Dr. Etaat said during that extraordinary (Iranian TV) interview this week, this is a very telling point, which he said: when you use the term “velvet revolution” and the terms “enemy of God,” what you are pointing to is a revolution against an unjust system. You are highlighting how unjust the system is by using the terms. So, “mohareb,” rather than unifying people behind the Islamic Republic just risks causing more splits a... >>>

FG

Signs you can expect after the Mohareb trials

by FG on Mon Jan 18, 2010 08:41 AM PST

1. "We are all Mohareb!" (true)

2. "Khamenei isn't Allah and Ahmadinejad isn't his Prophet."  ( so bitingly apt)

3. "Why not execute all of us?" 

(A logical question for which there is an obvious answer.   Moral qualms don't restrain Khamenei since he had repeatedly demonstrated he has none.  If the regime could trust rank and file members of the security forces to go along, Khamenei would agree to slaughter millions.   You can bet that many retired or cashiered former IRCG officers are in contact with former colleagues)

TO MR. KHAMENEI: ARE YOU THE WORLD'S SLOWEST LEARNER?

A. Intimdation  is failing to intimidate,

B. The harsher the get, the more people you drive into the opposition.  That includes many conservativers in the regime's ranks.   

ONE DOWNFALL SCENARIO--AN UPCOMING STAMPEDE OF HARDLINE DEFECTORS?

Not every hardliner is totally stupid.  Sensing the uncoming tide, one of the most criminal--unable to join the opposition--will grab a suitcase and join his family on a one-way trip to Venuzuela.    One such defection might do the job.  The regime will try to conceal that defection but fail, thanks to too many opposition sympathizers within its ranks.  As news of the defection spreads, other major criminals will The news will panic other major criminalswill decide to "get while the going is good."  No one wants to be the last man standing in an empty trench.  

A SIGN THE OPPOSITION SURELY DOESN'T NEED

 "This is a regime without scruples or morality!"  

Anyone opposition protestor carrying such a sign would be targeted immediately.   The funny thing is the regime--by its own dishonesty and brutality--has created such a sign that everyone in Iran can see.   The upcoming executions will dispel any remaining doubts.Even the threat of "Mohareb trials" has backfired  already.  Now the regime offers the opposition more Nedas.

This "undermine yourself" strategy reflects the extremely narrow education of those who rule the Islamic Republic and its coup government.  Thsese are men who spent their formative years in memorization-based, Yadzi-style religious schools where history and the social sciences are verboten.  Better educated types, familiar with history, would not even attempt such crude tactics against a sophisticated and education people totally aware of the freedoms enjoyed by millions a few hundred miles away.    

Whatever Khamenei. the Yadzis and Ahmadinejad may believe, they cannot turn Iran into Burma, Zimbabwe, North Korea or South Waziristan.  Nor can the regime simultaneous hope for respect while attempting to induce fear.  

I suspect some insiders have finally figured al this out.  However, anyone that sophisticated would also greasp that too many bridges have been burned for any reform or unity government to work now.   Such men now have only two choices--stay on a sinking ship and continue on a fatal courese or flee while there is still time.  



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