Singing the Song of Angry Men!

The following passage is from an email from Stratfor:

Successful revolutions have three phases. First, a strategically located single or limited segment of society begins vocally to express resentment, asserting itself in the streets of a major city, usually the capital. This segment is joined by other segments in the city and by segments elsewhere as the demonstration spreads to other cities and becomes more assertive, disruptive and potentially violent. As resistance to the regime spreads, the regime deploys its military and security forces. These forces, drawn from resisting social segments and isolated from the rest of society, turn on the regime, and stop following the regime’s orders. This is what happened to the Shah of Iran in 1979; it is also what happened in Russia in 1917 or in Romania in 1989.

Revolutions fail when no one joins the initial segment, meaning the initial demonstrators are the ones who find themselves socially isolated. When the demonstrations do not spread to other cities, the demonstrations either peter out or the regime brings in the security and military forces — who remain loyal to the regime and frequently personally hostile to the demonstrators — and use force to suppress the rising to the extent necessary. This is what happened in Tiananmen Square in China: The students who rose up were not joined by others. Military forces who were not only loyal to the regime but hostile to the students were brought in, and the students were crushed.

Will you join in our crusade, Who will be strong and stand with me?  Somewhere beyond the barricade is there a world you long to see?

President Obama has decided to play it safe.  He chooses to opt out of standing up for his liberal counterparts in Iran.  Hope and Change make great campaign slogans in America, but these kinds of ideals can be deadly.  I guess Obama’s vision for the world hits a wall when he actually has to stand for what he believes in.  

They were school boys, never held a gun…

Here are more passages from Stratfor:

The global media, obsessively focused on the initial demonstrators — who were supporters of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s opponents — failed to notice that while large, the demonstrations primarily consisted of the same type of people demonstrating. Amid the breathless reporting on the demonstrations, reporters failed to notice that the uprising was not spreading to other classes and to other areas. In constantly interviewing English-speaking demonstrators, they failed to note just how many of the demonstrators spoke English and had smartphones. The media thus did not recognize these as the signs of a failing revolution.

Later, when Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke Friday and called out the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, they failed to understand that the troops — definitely not drawn from what we might call the “Twittering classes,” would remain loyal to the regime for ideological and social reasons. The troops had about as much sympathy for the demonstrators as a small-town boy from Alabama might have for a Harvard postdoc. Failing to understand the social tensions in Iran, the reporters deluded themselves into thinking they were witnessing a general uprising. But this was not St. Petersburg in 1917 or Bucharest in 1989 — it was Tiananmen Square.

and…

Perhaps the greatest factor in Ahmadinejad’s favor is that Mousavi spoke for the better districts of Tehran — something akin to running a U.S. presidential election as a spokesman for Georgetown and the Lower East Side. Such a base will get you hammered, and Mousavi got hammered. Fraud or not, Ahmadinejad won and he won significantly. That he won is not the mystery; the mystery is why others thought he wouldn’t win.

Will you give all you can give, so that our banner may advance?

Harrison wanted to know what I thought of Iran.  I am pretty sure the recent post-election demonstrations will join the long list of failed revolutions.  These demonstrations might make for a good musical some day, but could they signal a potential shift in atmospherics and policy when it comes to foreign relations with Iran?  Absolutely not.  Should Obama have played a bigger role?  With Iran, Obama only has bad choices.  The fact that Obama’s response has been wishy-washy shows that despite wishing the Iranian people a Happy Nowruz, his understanding of Iran – like most of the West’s understanding of Iran – is limited.  To Iran’s credit, they have used their elections to point out that Obama is a fraud, it would have been nice if our election process could have been so productive.