Ayatollah Khamenei: Saving Face is Never Worth Sacrificing Citizens

Trying to save face, the Iranian government is scrambling to blame the latest post-election unrest on everyone except their own ineptness to count ballots and treat the Iranian people with respect. The current government, fearful of its own survival, undercut the nation's only ounce of democracy at the expense of everyone except themselves.

After days of bloody protests, the regime tried to prove that there was external meddling by forcing the incarcerated and, most likely, tortured population to confess that the international media coerced them to protest. The international media for their part were effectively intimidated into saying they were CIA. Many remain in jail.

For good measure the US is being accused of interfering even though the Obama Administration went out of its way not to disturb the inevitable governmental self-implosion. Then, nine British embassy officials were arrested, because heaven forbid any government hold themselves accountable for their own idiotic actions of denying the people a simple recount and beating the crap out of them instead.

As if this all was not enough, the Iranian government also declared the entire European Union "no longer qualified to take part in talks on Iran's nuclear program" (how people who can't count determined this I'll never know) and now they want to prosecute the opposition candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi. Out of sight, out of mind.

The opposition leader of course is not without blame. He too has been using the people to further his own revolutionary game. He has called on them for silent protests through the display of car lights and fake shopping sprees, telling the people not to give up. He has not however called on the current regime to stop the bloodshed, release the arrested who stood tall for him or protect the people, protesting or not. Many bystanders have been caught in the middle and severely beaten or arrested just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, however Mousavi is not speaking up for them either.

No one knows if the clearly weakened, threatened and rattled regime will survive. It seems that the only answer for continued existence is massacring those who were silly enough to want a voice in their own future. Closing the gates on the obviously large mass in the population who want either more democracy, freedom or regime change, seems to be the choice of these leaders. Leaders who showed they do not even honor their own legitimacy unwittingly airing their internal dirty laundry to the world at large.

I wrote last week that the US should not meddle in the affairs of Iran and I stand by that counsel. This way and this time, the Iranian government will have no one to blame but themselves no matter how hard they try to show this is somehow a conspiracy within the international community. The Iranian people are not stupid; they and others can see right through this nonsensical charade.

The people also have determination and perseverance and unfortunately, like those before them, will bear the unwelcome and often deadly burden of change. Perhaps that change will come in days or years. No one knows, but one thing is for sure, the current Iranian regime has been damaged and, despite their own illusions of grandeur, they have become vulnerable while further isolating themselves and ensuing added mistrust by enemies, allies and their very own people.

Any government that is so brutal is showing that they feel threatened. Violence and domination is an archaic way of dealing with situations that we all must deal with not dismiss. It is the easy way out.

What is hard is stepping back and recognizing grievances and dealing with them with respect, dignity and understanding, finding common ground. The world is no longer one of empires. They, my friends, are extinct. This is a world of people who are interconnected and looking for equality, inclusion and voice.

The current Iranian "revolution" is a perfect example that the systems so entrenched in our past are no longer of value; they are of destruction. The current social establishment where some get rich, some benefit and all others serve is over. The Iranian government and so many others continue haphazardly to hang on, trying to save face when they instinctively know that the days of sacrificing thousands of their own citizens for the gains of a few is long gone.

Comments

[AbstractImp]

The current Iranian "revolution" is a perfect example that the systems so entrenched in our past are no longer of value; they are of destruction. The current social establishment where some get rich, some benefit and all others serve is over.

Hear! Hear!
Can the world begin to accept this?

[Melody Moezzi - Huffpost Blogger]

Indeed the Iranian people are not stupid. We can and do see through the games the government is playing. We as Iranians have had enough of the government's constant intervention in our daily lives over the past 30 years. We were just waiting for the right moment to step up. And we ARE stepping up.

The last thing we need is a country that staged a coup to overthrow our democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953, then supported Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war as
Iraq killed upwards of half-a-million Iranians and even used biological weapons on us and even on its own people in the process. And, let's not forget how the American government was toying with the idea of bombing Iran (sang about it for God's sake) less than a year ago. No one in Iran has forgotten this history, and Iranians are far from paranoid to question the lily white intentions of the US in "supporting freedom and democracy in Iran." That kind of American "support" has created disasters around the world in the past while making the US rich in oil, sugar, coffee, cocoa...the list goes on. Thank you for sticking by your position on the danger of meddling Patricia and for writing this cogent piece. It's nice to see someone who understands the bigger picture here.