Iran

Iran and Prognosticators

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One of my favorite quotes (I don’t even know if it’s true) is supposedly from Jack Welch and it is about how he got rid of his forecasting department:

We might be surprised, but we won’t be surprised we’re surprised

Businesses are often surprised by changes to the environment, even while they tout their ability to master the situation. One company I used to work with had a joint venture with CISCO in the dot.com era – at the time CISCO was touting their advanced financial capabilities, their ability to close the books a few days after quarter end, and most importantly their supply chain mastery that allowed them to accurately forecast demand. Almost immediately after that period of boasting, CISCO had a big inventory write down since they built too far ahead of demand and had to scrap the unsold goods and materials.

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Obama, Liberty, and Iran

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Joshua Muravchik, writing in Commentary:

The most surprising thing about the first half-year of Barack Obama’s presidency, at least in the realm of foreign policy, has been its indifference to the issues of human rights and democracy. No administration has ever made these its primary, much less its exclusive, goals overseas. But ever since Jimmy Carter spoke about human rights in his 1977 inaugural address and created a new infrastructure to give bureaucratic meaning to his words, the advancement of human rights has been one of the consistent objectives of America’s diplomats and an occasional one of its soldiers.

This tradition has been ruptured by the Obama administration. The new president signaled his intent on the eve of his inauguration, when he told editors of the Washington Post that democracy was less important than “freedom from want and freedom from fear. If people aren’t secure, if people are starving, then elections may or may not address those issues, but they are not a perfect overlay.”

There is, of course, some truth in Obama’s point. If people are starving, they are likely to care more about their next meal than about what may seem to them as the relatively abstract rights to voting, free speech, etc. But what Obama is missing here is that the cause-and-effect flows in both directions. Societies that have economic and political freedom are far more likely to develop economically–up to a point where people can think about things other than basic survival–than those that do not.

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Where Is Everyone?

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An article in the Israeli publication Ma’ariv wonders: Where are all those demonstrators who so loudly denounced Israel during its Gaza operation? Why aren’t they out there protesting the beatings and killings of Iranians at the hands of the Iranian government?

All the peace-loving and justice-loving Europeans, British professors in search of freedom and equality, the friends filling the newspapers, magazines and various academic journals with various demands for boycotting Israel, defaming Zionism and blaming us and it for all the ills and woes of the world—could it be that they have taken a long summer vacation? Now of all times, when the Basij hooligans have begun to slaughter innocent civilians in the city squares of Tehran? Aren’t they connected to the Internet? Don’t they have YouTube? Has a terrible virus struck down their computer? Have their justice glands been removed in a complicated surgical procedure (to be re-implanted successfully for the next confrontation in Gaza)?

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A source who is connected to the Iranian and security situation, said yesterday that if Obama had shown on the Iranian matter a quarter of the determination with which he assaulted the settlements in the territories, everything would have looked different. “The demonstrators in Iran are desperate for help,” said the man, who served in very senior positions for many years, “they need to know that they have backing, that there is an entire world that supports them, but instead they see indifference. And this is happening at such a critical stage of this battle for the soul of Iran and the freedom of the Iranian people. It’s sad.”

via Robert Avrech and Soccer Dad.

A Significant Sign in Iran?

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There are reports coming from Twitter that the Iranian  regime  is using Arabic-speaking paramilitary troops to put down the demonstrations over the latest election.  

If true, this report is a  significant  sign that the regime’s power has grown shaky. Using foreign troops with no native loyalties save to the leader that employs them is an age old practice of  threatened leaders. The use of foreign troops would indicate that the Iranian regime no longer trusts it’s own native forces to suppress the people.  

The current election squabble is clearly a power struggle within the ruling oligarchy. The people of Iran have grown increasingly dissatisfied with the oligarchy’s regime. One faction in the oligarchy has decided to deploy that dissatisfaction against its opposing faction.  Regardless  of who wins, the oligarchy will have lost membership. Once-powerful insiders will find themselves as outsiders.

Such a  contracting  oligarchy has fewer and fewer people it can trust within the military and security forces, so they resort to importing troops they can trust.  

Things might be looking up.