Ever since the Iranian revolution stunned the world in 1979, the Arab world, or at least the Arab regimes and their allies in the West, have been obsessing over Iran's "exporting of the revolution" and the implications it would have on the Arab world. Eventually, this obsession manifested itself into a Sunni-Shi'a divide. Rumors and speculations quickly spread across the Arab world about the Islamic Republic's plans to spread Shi'ism across the Middle East, hence terminologies such as, "Shi'a Revival" and "Shi'a Crescent" have emerged, fueling fear and suspicion amongst Arabs across the region.
Arab rulers feared Iran's governance system, known as wilayat al-faqih (guardianship by a jurist) would appeal to their populations. Wilayat al-faqih holds that in an Islamic state, a divinely anointed scholar of Islamic law must exercise unquestioned authority over elected officials and the rest of the government. This has not materialized; however, something more powerful may have: the powerful images of popular demonstrations against the Iranian government serving as a reminder to Arab rulers of their vulnerability.
During a recent visit to France, the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani has praised "Iranian democracy" and said that Iran has "witnessed four presidents since the Iranian revolution thirty years ago" while in contrast "during this [same period] the presidents in some Arab countries have not changed, and so this shows that Iran practices democracy."
The Libyan President Mu'amar el-Qaddafi has been in power since 1969, the current Yemeni's president Ali Abdallah Saleh since 1978, and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak ranks third, ruling The Land of the Nile River since 1981, earning him the title "pharaoh" amongst those who dare to speak out on the streets of Cairo. As we say in Arabic: Allah Yutawal Omerhom, may God grant them longevity.
Those leaders and others may have a lot to worry about as Iran's demonstrations have caused many in the Arab world ask to themselves why they cannot do the same. This might not be evident in the media, but all you have to do is talk privately to some of the youth and read the blogs. Although Iran failed to penetrate the Arab world with its 1979 revolution, it may have succeeded with the recent popular uprising.
While watching news clips from a variety of television networks, the images of smoke, tear gas, small fires, protesters being beaten up by the police and military remind me of another situation that has been going on for decades. Can you guess where?
Now here is a question to all those "brave, fair and balanced" journalists, pundits, bloggers and analysts in the U.S. who have been using strong terms to condemn the Basij and the Iranian government's crackdown on demonstrations, such terms as brutality, murder and horror: why can't you use the same language when you watch and film Israeli soldiers beating Palestinian children in the town of Bil'in, or when they evict a helpless widow from her ancestral home and throw her out to the cold? Why?
Jamal Dajani produces the Mosaic Intelligence Report on Link TV.
Follow Jamal Dajani on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jamaldajani
Every now and then God sends a prophet to His children then waits to see what will happen. We humans want and expect too much of ourselves and of others. It begins as a small family dispute sometimes. The first branch. Two new paths. Centuries later it is as an ingrown, cultural necessity, this schism between brothers and sisters. We humans define our parameters then work to defend them sometimes to the exclusion of all else but so often in the name of God. Shia and Sunni the children are, with others yes. With such seeming facility they fail to understand that God allows us to squabble amongst ourselves in the hope that we will someday achieve wisdom. They neither know nor care that God has no preference as to the matter of temporal succession. The fires of desire burn brighter than the voice of any angel no matter how close to the ear he may be.
http://www.juancole.com/
Chatham House Study Definitively Shows Massive Ballot Fraud in Iran's Reported Results
An authoritative study from Chatham House (pdf) , the renowned UK think tank, finds that with regard to the official statistics on the recent presidential election in Iran released by the Interior Ministry, something is rotten in Tehran.]
As I had noted earlier, the official results ask us to believe that rural ethnic minorities (some of them Sunni!) who had long voted reformist or for candidates of their ethnicity or region, had switched over to Ahmadinejad. We have to believe that Mehdi Karroubi's support fell from over 6 million to 330,000 over all, and that he, an ethnic Lur, was defeated in Luristan by a hard line Persian Shiite. Or that Ahmadinejad went from having 22,000 votes in largely Sunni Kurdistan to about half a million! What, is there a new organization, "Naqshbandi Sunni Sufis for Hard Line Shiism?" It never made any sense.
The numbers do not add up. You can't have more voters than there are people. You can't have a complete liberal and pragmatic-conservative swing behind hard liners who make their lives miserable.
The election was stolen. It is there in black and white. Those of us who know Iran, could see it plain as the nose on our faces, even if we could not quantify our reasons as elegantly as Chatham House.
The US always has to blame election results on fraud when they are not happy with the victor!
Boo-hoo poor US!
A poster on this thread, ModernTimes1, has mentioned "the opium of Muslims." , and in another post he says: "And this precisely what Mr. Dajani wants to do. To deflect attention from the paymaster of Hamas, Iran, And to the usual bete noir all Muslims feel comfortable bashing. And many Muslims posters here happily oblige."
I wonder how he classifies Oxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim who served in the Israeli army and has never questionedIsrael's legitimacy.
He was pulished in the Guardian: How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine
Why can they agree to a recount of an election in their own country?!
LOL
Every claim about vote rigging has a perfectly reasonable and rational counter-claim. See IranAffairs.com
Only to a fundamentalist.
http://lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com/news/2006/07/everything_you_.html
But, hey, the cannard has worked so well, cannot blame you for keeping on trying.
Ahamdienjad claims Holocaust is a myth, therefore he's not denying Holocaust?
What shameless nonsense.
Does anyone out there know the answer to this?
"While watching news clips from a variety of television networks, the images of smoke, tear gas, small fires, protesters being beaten up by the police and military"
Thanks for posing the question about the double standard on news about Palestine at the end of your article. It could not be more true to anyone who was comparing CNN, MSNBC, ABC et al coverage of the war on Gaza to how the international & alternative, non-corporate media was covering the same series of events: Euro News, DW, Al Jazeera English, as well as your excellent Link TV newscast "Mosaic." The voices of citizen journalists in Gaza were being just as articulate & resourceful as the Iranians, but you had to be outside the corporate media of the USA to hear them.
"Now here is a question to all those "brave, fair and balanced" journalists, pundits, bloggers and analysts in the U.S. who have been using strong terms to condemn the Basij and the Iranian government's crackdown on demonstrations, such terms as brutality, murder and horror; why can't you use the same language when you watch and film Israeli soldiers beating Palestinian children in the town of Bil'in, or when they evict a helpless widow from her ancestral home and throw her out to the cold? Why?"
Why is Israel always blamed for anything that goes wrong in someone elses country?
I'm tired of journalists and the media always using Israel as a scapegoat!
Momentary lapse.
Of course every world crisis or event should correctly always be tied to Iran.
Indeed the entire blog was most likely put together as an excuse for the last sentence.
Gotta love the adulation of Iranian democracy (?) thrown in. Such statements are unique to Hamas supporters, an Iranian proxy.
Don't believe what you're told. THINK: WHY WOULD THEY RESORT TO FRAUD when the opposition leader, Mousavi, is very much a regime insider and hardly a threat to the system?
Check this out:
http://www.bibijon.org/iranimage/articles/Iran-election.htm
What about our own elections...why don't we start looking inward instead of outward?
Thank you Jamal for being honest as usual!
And yes, we tend to criticize Iran, a SELF-DESCRIBED enemy of U.S. with a stronger language. So what.