FG

Dear BacheShirazi & FG

I have had similar experience as  BacheShirazi from Muslims in America. Mostly those from ME and Pakistan and interestingly Republic of Azarbayjan. The only ones who do not like IRI were from Lebanon. Maybe they saw IRI first hand.

Basically those who have dealt with IRI hate it. Others who just hear its anti-Western rhetoric support it. But I agree as people figure out what IRI is really about they hate it. Therefore it is a matter of time before they will reject it all around.

The Iranian people already know it very well and hate it. No wonder they are going to be the first to dump it. The other factor is that to Iranians Islam is a foreign ideology. To many Arabs it has been a source of pride. Hence it is harder for them to dump it.

Response to BacheS

RE: "think that if they see someone who spouts off anti Israel and anti
America slogans they are willing to completly turn a blind eye to how
his regime treats its own people."  

I agree that has been true but I think it is STARTING to change.   Once people start demanding rights at home, they tend to focus on that primarily I think.  Notice how often Iranians have complained of money going to Hezbollah and Israel used as an issue to prop up dictatorship at home.

The Arabs hadn't put the emphasis on human rights until now.  They did focus primarily on Israel.  In some ways, the Arab Spring has shifted them a bit onto the same road as Iranians though they have far to go before arriving at similar conclusions. 

Islamist parties, even democratic ones, would not do well if Iran had free elections tomorrow--unlike Arab countries--because Iranians have learned the dangers of trusting "holy men" to do good if given power.

FG

1. Can't you find politicians you admire who have a legitimate (see
below) "anti-western stance" without having to stomp their own people,
and destroy their country's economy and exploit it for their own
benefit?   To support or admire Khamenei is to support/ admire his
crimes against his own people and economic incompetence and thievery.

Don't get me wrong, I hate Khamenei. I don't admie anything about him. The views I expressed in that post are what I believ to be the views of the middle eastern people  (excluding Iran). I think that if they see someone who spouts off anti Israel and anti America slogans they are willing to completly turn a blind eye to how his regime treats its own people.  

Russia makes $1 billion deal to prop up Iran's dictatorship

I hope Iranians remembrer when the Islamic Republic is gone.

From Enduring America:

 he Associated Press is now running the weekend story from Iran State media of a $1 billion preliminary deal between Russia's Tatneft and the National Iranian Oil Company to develop the Zagheh oil field in southern Iran.

Minister of Oil Rustam Qassemi said the field will produce 7,000
barrels per day of heavy crude in the first phase of its development
within two years, adding, "The field has the capacity to increase its
crude oil production to 55,000 barrels a day in the second phase within
54 months."

Iranian media claimed a final contract will be signed within three
months on a "buyback" basis, meaning the Russians will build the
facilities but will not own them, and will receive their costs plus a
pre-agreed profit in return. Moscow rejected US-led demands for new
sanctions, including a possible cut-off of links with Iran's oil sector.

WHILE WE ARE ON AN ECONOMIC NOTE:

 --Three months after the Iranian rial broke the 13000:1 level vs. the US
dollar, which had been the "red line" set by the Central Bank, it has fallen to 14000:1. There is now a gap of almost 30% between the open-market rate and the official rate of under 11000:1.

COMMENT: And if the Saudis agree to increase output, oil sactions on Iran will make it worse.

--Prominent MP Ahmad Tavakoli has used a speech to take aim at the Ahmadinejad Government, "How does corruption affect national security?"

Tavakoli claimed that the corruption is costing the Iranian economy $34 billion each year.

-- In an interview with Fars, Minister of Energy Majid Namjoo has declared the Government's intention to carry out a second phase of subsidy cuts.

 --Ahmadinejadn has once again accused the Revolutionary Guards of smuggling goods through unauthorised
docks and wharves. The accusation hit at the larger issue of the
Guards' expanding influence in the Iranian economy, and thus their
political impact.

Sources for all above: Enduring America.

To BacheS:

RE: "His (Khamenei) anti western stance has actually gained him a lot of popularity in the middle east."

1. Can't you find politicians you admire who have a legitimate (see below) "anti-western stance" without having to stomp their own people, and destroy their country's economy and exploit it for their own benefit?   To support or admire Khamenei is to support/ admire his crimes against his own people and economic incompetence and thievery.

2. If you favor "anti-western" in the sense of opposing the seeming unlimited support for Israel, I'd say its justified so long as you don't blame all westerners.  Blame the governments and rapid Christian fundamentalists (Tea Party types) who ally with ultra-conservative Jews.  Don't blame all Jews either because many support Israel's right to exist but not its West Bank occupation and its ethnic cleansing.

3. If you favor being "anti-western" meaning against western-style political and social liberites, than you favor using xenophobism as a tool mainly for defending dictatorships, whether by hard-line Islamists a la Iran, or by communists (the Soviets used it) or by the Shah (some of his supporter here exploit xenophobia FOR THEIR OWN PURPOSES, often but not inclusively domestic. 

That's what makes the difference.  If you don't support xenophobia of that sort, why would you be conned by the SELF-INTERESTED way Khamenei uses it.  He'd sell the Israelis out in a heartbeat if he saw potential benefits to his regime.

4. I'm against ALL dictatorships that brutalize the people, aren't you  That means--communists, extreme Islamists, authoritarian governments, absolute monarchies and pseudo-democracies. 

I'm also against democratic governments in which the proportional representation electoral system makes it so easy for extremists to take control, as in Israel (Likud), or Serbia (Milosevic) or 1933 Germany.

Hitler got only 8 percent of the vote which would get him nowhere in a plurality electoral system based on each position elected separately, candidate with most votes gets the seat, loser is out of luck regardless of how close he comes. I'd recommend the latter system to any new nation with good reasons to fear ethnic, tribal or sectarian divisions and seeking a way to tamper them down.

WHY MIDDLE EASTERN DEMOCRACIES WOULD  BE A GREATER THREAT TO ISRAEL THAN KHAMENEI CAN EVER BE

The rise of democratic states, including those led by moderate Islamist parties, has the potential to be ten times more effective in bringing pressure on the West (the USA especially) than Khomenini ever has been.  

Such democratic governments can't be portrayed (Israel does this at present with great success) as extremists hungering to massacre everyJew in Israel.  Democratic governments demanding changes in western policy can be smeared so easily or written off as foaming-at-the-mouth nut cases.   Israel's political position is actually strengthened by opponents like Iran in that one sense.  Israel's hard liners may want Khamenei gone as much as human rights campaigners but--but afterwards they'll grasp they need someone like him to "make their case" with western opinion.

If democratic Arab regimes and a democratic Iran demanded sanctions on Israel as strong as those that were leveled on Saddam until ethnic cleansing stops and all such settlements are yielded up, and if they threatened an oil boycott against the west until such sanctions are instituted, they'd get lots of sympathy because Israel would be put in a far more indefensible position.  

Arabs and other muslims have been terrible at public relations which Israel does well because it understands how to appeal to westerns.  If I were an Arab and threatened such an embargo, I'd ask Americans: "Why to you sacrifice your own national security and self-interests not to defend Israel's right to exist (which many Arabs are willing to concede though Americans don't know that they are so conned) but to defend ethnic cleansing by hard line settles who hate your guts?"

 Obama/ Maliki

 Obama/ Maliki Conflicts on the Future of Iraq

 //www.juancole.com/2011/12/obama-maliki-conflicts-on-the-future-of-iraq.html

Iraq’s al-Maliki Seeks Arrest of Sunni VP as Terrorist, Parliament in Uproar

//www.juancole.com/2011/12/iraqs-al-maliki-seeks-arrest-of-sunni-vp-as-terrorist-parliament-in-uproar.html

A state of war only serves
as an excuse for domestic tyranny.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Born December 11, 1918

Excluding Syria

My post below is of course excluding Syria. But ask people in Bahrain, ask people in Pakistan, Palestine or Iraq. I am sure they will have a much more favourable view. I even saw a poll where a lot of Iraqi people supported attacks on U.S troops.

Irans popularity in the middle east

today almost all Arabs scoff at Iran’s Supreme Leader

Really? Khamenei might be unpopular at home, but saying that almost every Arab  dislikes him is ridiculous in my opinion. His anti western stance has actually gained him a lot of popularity in the middle east. This is the same for Ahmadinejad, who I guess you could call the face of the I.R. Almost every middle easterner I have ever met has said positive things about Ahmadinejad when I said I was Iranian. 

AMAZING VIDEO: Egyptian troops imitate Khamenei-style behavior

AMAZING VIDEO OF KHAMENEI-STYLE TROOP BEHAVIOR WILL BE REPLAYED ALL OVER EGYPT FOR DAYS:

(And any would-be tourist to Egypt should watch it)

Egyptian troops engaged in Khamenei-style behavior strip a female protestor of her clothes and club her repeatedly.  (Actually several women were deliberately stripped of all clothes and some photos show Khamenei-style troops laughing).

//www.youtube.com/verify_controversy?next_url...

OBAMA MUST RESPOND

1. Cut off all subsidies to Egypt's military now.

2. Urge Americans and other westerns to watch the video and then boycott travel to Egypt indefinitely.

Both measures shpould continue until government officials who ordered this crime--starting with the interim prime minister and including those who carried it out are arrested and punished.

An Associated Press report captures the essence of the troops Khamenei-style behavior:

EXCERPTS:

Troops pulled women across the pavement by their hair, knocking off their Muslim headscarves. Young activists were kicked in the head until they lay motionless in Cairo's Tahrir Square.

Unfazed by TV cameras catching every move, Egypt's military took a dramatically heavier hand Saturday to crush protests against its rule in nearly 48 hours of continuous fighting in Egypt's capital that has left more than 300 injured and nine dead, many of them shot to death.

The most sustained crackdown yet is likely a sign that the generals who took power after the February ouster of Hosni Mubarak are confident that the Egyptian public is on its side after two rounds of widely acclaimed parliament elections, that Islamist parties winning the vote will stay out of the fight while pro-democracy protesters become more isolated.

//news.yahoo.com/egypt-military-uses-heavy-ha...

EGYPT'S PRIME MINISTER IS AS BIG A LIAR AS KHAMENEI

As the military police were charging the square, Mr. Ganzouri, the military-appointed prime minister and a former prime minister under the ousted president, Hosni Mubarak, was declaring at his televised news conference that the only acts of violence were arson and vandalism committed by the protesters. Contradicting the accounts of civilian witnesses, he said that soldiers had come out on Friday only to protect the Parliament and cabinet buildings.--From the NY Times.

OBSERVATION: You know a guy who lies this bad had to be in it up to his neck, just like Khamenei when he claimed the 2009 elections were "honest."

SAFE PREDICTIONS

RE: The generals' assumption that the public is on their side.

1. If so, not for long once this video and related stories circulate.    

2. The Muslim Brotherhood which did not support the demonstration and who tepidly condemned the attacks will come under increasing pressure to change its position or expose its pledge of Erdogan-style moderation as phony.