Game On in Iraq: Iranian Quds and Militias Suffer a, um, Setback

You don’t even have to be a citizen of a country to play on their team in the Olympics.

I'm not vouching for the qualifications of the writer or the organization, but I did find this piece of interest. Make of it what you will.

Not something that you’d see in North Korea.

The official Islamic Republic News Agency published a searing statement from the Tehran Association of Journalists on Monday decrying the state of media in Iran.

"What endangers this society right now is not only missiles or military attacks but a lack of free media," the association said.

"Hiding the truth and spreading lies traumatized the public," the statement continued. "What happened was a catastrophe for media in Iran."

https://a.msn.com/r/2/BBYU7OE?m=en-us&referrerID=InAppShare

NK is going to be the hardest one to transition because it's been so long since they've had shared history.

Except they were not, by and large, theocratic regimes, nor did their upper caste have the degree of absolute control we see in this case, nor were they active and powerful players in a region of the world whose politics are based in no small part around the role of religious fanaticism. More accurate analogies might be Egypt, the debacle that is Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan.

Not sure, by the way, what you mean by Eastern Europe. I assume you aren't claiming the Balkans haven't faced years of upheaval and humanitarian crises?

South Africa? Surely you jest?

Mexico? They have no power vacuum being exploited by criminal gangs?

I can't help but feel you're using a very liberal interpretation of the phrase "relatively peaceful".

More importantly I'd say you're making an artificial distinction between the road and the change. One is part and parcel of the other, they cannot be accurately considered without that interdependence being taken into account.

There will be violence if Iran sees a change in system or regime. That will happen whether we as a collective referred to as "the West" intervene overtly, covertly or not at all. Keeping our hands clean would at least allow us legitimate credibility in claiming neutrality.

Looks like someone is getting an invite by the saudi government from a strangulation and dismemberment party. I wonder if they print those on trump brand paper?

No the Balkans aren’t in Eastern or Central Europe but instead Southern Europe.

Do you think Mexico’s current problems are due to the PRI losing one party control over government and not America’s appetite for drugs combined with NAFTA/American Ag subsidies decimating the rural economy?

You don’t think the actual transition in S. Africa went relatively bloodless and orderly?

Afghanistan isn’t a good example as there wasn’t really a state or regime there. What state they had after the fall of the communist regime quickly fell apart in their civil war. When the American/NATO led coalition entered in on the side of the Northern Alliance it was Nation Building and Counter Insurgency not regime change.

Funny you should mention Egypt, Syria and Iraq. Syria wasn’t really regime change as the Assad regime is still in power, but I’ll run with it as it shares a similar history/system with Iraq and Egypt.

See, unlike Iran all three were (is in the case of Syria) Baathist regimes. Nasserism is a form of Baathism and in fact Egypt and Syria were unified into a single state, the United Arab Republic for a bit. Iraq was supposed to join but the egos of three leaders got in the way. Look at the flags of all three countries. Compare the flags (pre Gulf War Saddam era for Iraq) and notice how they are all the same except for central emblem and in fact the only difference between Syria and Iraq’s was two green stars and three.

Anyway, all three had/have the same Baathist system. Baathism is an Arab Socialist Unity philosophy and a single party command economy autocracy in terms of civic society/economics/government. Basically the strongman controls the party which is the state which controls civic society and the economy.

This is pretty much the opposite of the situation in Iran. It is basically a semi-mature parliamentary democracy with an autocratic theocracy spliced onto the top. The Supreme Leader, the clerics and the IRGC ultimately control the system, but more subtly than most Americans understand. Through the Council of Guardians the Supreme Leader does get to restrict who can and can't run for president but the guy he personally backs within those folks doesn't always win. There are multiple parties and regular transitions of power after elections. So in other words this wouldn't a situation where once you kick out the 'bad guys' everything goes to shit because the people have no experience with democracy and civic/political life in general.

It is really quite interesting the system they put in place. The mullahs wanted to be as a-political as possible so 95% of the running of the state has nothing to do with them. They don't even have a party (although some parties are quite supportive/sympathetic) much less is Iran some kind of one party state. The religious layer of government could dissappear tomorrow and practically speaking nothing would need immediate action. Only real things to do would be to select justices for a new Supreme/Constitutional Court and some kind of election commission to replace the Guardians Council. Scrap the Chamber of Experts and have the Majlis (parliament) be a unicameral legislature (already a defacto one since the Chamber of Experts only selects/dismisses the Supreme Leader).

Their economy is mixed market, not dominated by the state. It is also reasonably diversified. Especially compared to the other Gulf States. While Iran certainly has a lot of oil, it isn't a petrokingdom like many of its neighbors. It even has some pretty high tech manufacturing. I mean it is now building knock off versions (with upgrades) of 1960's era US jets. That might not sound like much but right now the only other countries capable of that kind of stuff are NATO countries, Russia, China, Japan, S. Korea, Taiwan and Brazil.

It has a fairly young, educated population. As mentioned the public is techsavy and plugged into the world. They already operate in the modern economy and in fact, the biggest hindrance currently is the sanctions on Iran. Regime change would HELP the economy in other words, not turn it upside down.

Now practically speaking regime change won’t be easy as the Supreme Leader/Islamic System does have its supporters, including some large political parties. Also, over the last 15 years or so the IRGC has increased its control over large segments of the economy. So even if you got them to lay down arms, they would still have significant influence. And considering their role is to safeguard the revolution, not the country/people or government (that is the regular Armed Forces' role, of which the IRGC is separate from) I don't see them going away without a fight. I don't expect the next revolution to be as (relatively) bloodless as the last. Will probably require some regular Armed Forces v IRGC confrontations.

So basically, any disruption from regime change wouldn’t come from the actual changing of the regime but from the regime fighting said change. If there isn’t much fighting then there won’t be much disruption and the people will be better off than before.

Also, not super germane to the discussion but just FYI Egypt, Syria and Baathist Iraq were most definitely NOT theocratic. The founder of Baathism, Michel Aflaq was in fact Christian. And Christians and other religious minority groups had outsized political influence in the party/state.

This is in a large part why the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria and Egypt and Shia clerics in Iraq formed the main opposition groups to the regimes. The state was secular and controlled everything but religion so religion was the only place opposition could organize.

Fun fact, in the 70s Iraq had more liberal abortion laws than most of Western Europe.

Saudi Arabia has more liberal abortion laws than what shitheads are pushing for in Alabama, etc.

Barr and Pompeo shift justification for Iran strike from 'imminent' threat to deterrence

Are we all good with them lying about their motive for the assassination? Other sources are saying it was planned months in advance.

With the senate the way it is I don't see what can presently be done. I am all for throwing out some opposition for the sake of doing the right thing, but really this has to be put upon the voters, and we have to start making a case to eliminate the patriot act, war powers act, and reign in the warpowers of the US government via voting. That would include going after democrat warhawks and corruption on their side too. The republicans are completely lock step except for one or two of them. However, if we thin them out only to have someone like Obama who continued lots of aggression over the years and have dem warhawks voting for legislation in line with what republicans survive it will only go back to what it has been up until trump started bragging about everything.

This is why I am turning totally to bernie and the progressive dems like AOC. I would like to think people like warren would do the right thing, but when push comes to shove she has the backbone of jello.

concur that the hit was planned months in advance, but plans are tweaked as variables change. The time line could have been moved up due to new intel about Sadsalami's intentions, but of course the general public will never really know.

The Balkans are in the South East of Europe and are very much referred to as Eastern Europe in common parlance across the continent. I don't imagine many Slovenians tend to think of themselves as being "Southern European" whereas "Eastern European" is in everyday usage as the normal mode, including by people I know from the region (bear in mind we have an awful lot of them here). Might be splitting hairs but you might want to consider that in future when you refer to "Eastern Europe", it doesn't stop at the Polish border.

Mexico? Hard to really differentiate there but there's always more than one cause for violence and instability. I see no immediate reason to suspect the regime change helped, but not going to quibble there. Certainly the drugs and the associated distribution are a major factor and one I've often posted about in the past.

As for South Africa, no it did not go bloodlessly at all. Not in the slightest.

Mandela was legitimised as a political player by the rising tide of violence and the hope he could stem it by drawing public influence away from Winnie, her ANC and her "Football Club". It was accept a populist black leader or face total breakdown and he was by far the best option from everyone's perspective. Note that Winnie herself subsequently served as an MP despite her role in some truly horrific human rights abuses against her own people which, I would argue, were necessary for the process to be possible. Again, you're making a false distinction between a transition and the events leading to it. The reality is they can't so easily be disentangled and Mandela would be very unlikely to have been able to serve as a moderating figurehead had it not been for the threat of even worse violence or even a bloody civil war.

I take your point about the Baathist system and how Iran is governed less directly by the theocratic elements, but we aren't talking here about a change of administration. We are talking about removing that theocratic element altogether and where you refer to it as spliced on I suspect you'll find many view it as being the source of legitimacy for the democratic processes underneath it. The top down process may be abstracted but I don't see there being a secular government or even system of government come into being without violent resistance. It's just not going to happen.

The main question from the West's point of view is do we want our fingerprints on such a transition and my feeling is that experience tells us we don't. Not only does it make us complicit in the deaths and instability which will almost certainly happen, but it also undermines the legitimacy of any stable government which results if it is seen as a puppet of Western powers.

Though I do npt wish any of our present problematic capitalist bullshit system to fuck Iran up, I think that the world community would do well to reach out to the people of Iran who seem to want peace and an end to the hostilities that ravage their world. When you look at why khashoggi was killed by the saudis we see that the powerful regimes that make these wars fear the people being exposed to each other and seeing similarities in opposition to the power paradigm present in society. From what I hear of Iran their people have been exposed to other cultures through technology and that is where exposure and influence should come from.

The people of Iran should know that the average american does not hold them ill will and want them killed. They should know that we are not the enemy and the power structure is what is killing them. They should know that if we rose up and tried to assault our government over the trouble they cause their country we would be labelled terrorists and killed by the state also. That sort of lowest class unity and communication has never been available before and in order to change things we need to realize our enemy is not the people of other countries, but rather their war machine.

I hope that picture and others like it where the population refuses to desecrate the Great Satan and the Little Satan's flags has them sweating like crazy and starting to get worried. Iran is already a tinderbox and they have to know that. Now it appears they can no longer rely on blaming the US and Israel for various issues to deflect from their incompetence.

And if we just stand back and watch what happens, it’ll be better for everybody.

On a podcast I listen to, a guy made an interesting comment. He pointed out that there was an Iraqi militia leader and a Hezbollah leader in the car with dude. If we had announced that either of those two were the intended target the Iranians might not have been so pissed over the incident.

I made a brief visit to see my parents in Iran the Christmas before the Shah got thrown out. The people were damn nice to me and my parents, especially my folks' landlord. They had at least one lovely young daughter who spoke a bit of English. I'm sure they were just the kind of people who would have been targeted by the Mullahs. The landlord knew the shit was hitting the fan and offered to drive my parents to the airport when the time came to bail out, which would have been damn risky. As it turned out Lockheed had made "arrangements" to evacuate their personnel (long after they should have IMHO) so it wasn't necessary. After they got back to the U.S. my mother showed me a letter to my father that the landlord had dictated to an English speaking friend. In it, he complimented my father in flowery language and said that he considered my father as close as a brother. I'm sure some of that language is common in polite communications, but looking back I doubt if Mr. Ali Akbar Azari would have said so many nice things if he hadn't liked my parents. I doubt if he could have survived the revolution The thought of that nice, decent man being stood up in front of a wall and shot or hung along with wondering what happened to that charming daughter who would have fit right in on an American college campus haunts me to this day. There are plenty of Iranians who I hope will roast in Hell...Soleimani among them. But there are an awful lot of Iranians who deserve better and I hope they will be able to bring change on their own.

I'm fairly sure that nobody would have believed that.

True, but it still gives you cover. Need I point out that lying is generally what this administration does?

That would arguably have been worse, killing a high-ranking member of a foreign government as a supposedly innocent collateral casualty.

Followed by an immediate apology and feigned ignorance that we knew he was in the car.

Sure, transparent bullshit, but the situation would have a different dynamic. Because the Iranians would have to pushback against the lie. Most people would probably just shrug their shoulders and scream about how stupid the CIA is in not knowing ahead of time who else was in the car. You know, the same CIA that claimed Iraq had WMDs.

What the hell do you think Assad was using to gas his people? Saddam gassed the Kurds with the very same shit as well, if you remember.

Adversaries wouldn't believe it, critics would scream "incompetence."

IOW, Tuesday.