Iran Redux

For the next few days (barring some large news event), I'm going to be taking a look at Iran and the changing dynamics in that country. There have been a flurry of interesting articles out about Iran and it is quite clear that the country is going through some major changes.

We begin with this article from last Friday's New York Times. I had actually heard about this from Pastor Eric at the gym well before the article came out. Eric, if you don't know, has become a dear friend over the last few years and is, without a doubt, the most conservative person I have ever met. Surprisingly, we agree on many things and have much fun debating politics and religion on a regular basis.

I didn't get around to reading the article until the evening and was quite shocked that most of what Eric had told me was true. The people of Iran are fucking pissed off and they're not going to take it anymore. At a demonstration, last Monday in Tehran things became very interesting.

During Monday’s demonstrations, the civil tone of many earlier rallies was noticeably absent...

Instead, the protesters, most of them young people, took direct aim at Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, chanting, “Khamenei knows his time is up!” They held up flags from which the “Allah” symbol — added after Iran’s 1979 revolution — had been removed. Most shocking of all, some burned an image of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the father of the revolution.

I read this and I couldn't believe it. It's clear to me that many people in Iran are willing to risk their lives for a new revolution. The old one, as most totalitarian theocracies tend to do, did not deliver. The question is this: what should the US do?

One thing we shouldn't do is increase the threat of military action. The people of Iran are ready for change and the last thing to do is find a cause to unite them again. They need to remain fractured and unstable. Of course, this is especially tricky given the information out today about Iran possibly working on a neutron trigger which I will be talking about later in the week.

Just because we shouldn't increase the threat of military action doesn't mean that Israel shouldn't ratchet up their dialogue. Considering that some Iranians are nauseated by Ahmadinejad's "wipe Israel off the map" comment, I think Israel should run some extra military preparedness exercises.

Given this new information regarding the state of the protests, we have to do everything we can to encourage this disunity...even if that means doing nothing save for the little diplomacy dance we do with the current government. There are going to be tougher sanctions and, since we gave up the missile defense shield over Europe, the Russians are on board. How do we get the Chinese on board, though? That's another question.

The next few weeks are going to be very interesting, folks and I would be interested in your thoughts. Tomorrow, I will be looking at the fall off of support for Iran in the Muslim world.