Elind
Philosopher
That would be profound, if it didn't so blatantly ignore what they got; or are you also sympathetic to their pretend democracy that pretends not to be despotic, imprison all objectors, or deny them a voice, and more?
That would be profound, if it didn't so blatantly ignore what they got; or are you also sympathetic to their pretend democracy that pretends not to be despotic, imprison all objectors, or deny them a voice, and more?
SAVAK.
Crossbow
Seeking Honesty and Sanity
Well if that is really the way you think, then I suggest that you reconsider your 'skeptic' ideals.
You were the one who stated that Iran under the Shah was not a totalitarian state.
When I, and others, factually pointed otherwise you still believe that Iran under the Shah was not a totalitarian state.
Now then, it does not matter one whit to me what you do and do not believe, however I still expect you to accept facts if you wish to be known as a 'skeptic'. Believing in something that is contrary to the truth of situation is not something that is done an actual 'skeptic'. And the truth about life in Iran under the Shah has been quite well documented and established for some time now.
In any case, I expected as much from you when you started this thread that which is why I have refused to directly answer the question you first posed. I did not expect you to accept the truth of the situation then, and since you have worked so hard to confirmed my initial expectations since then, I do not expect you to accept the truth now.
Please enjoy your life!
Mycroft
High Priest of Ed
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Okay, I give. He was "totalitarian" in the same sense any monarch is.
I think it's also fair to point out his policies such as land reform, education, economic development, universal suffrage, secularization, and liberalization of Iran were all very positive policies that did great things to improve the lives of Iranians. The revolution, when it came, wasn’t motivated by oppression but by religion.
It seems to me this part demonstrates there is something more personal to your disagreement. I don't know or care what it is, but perhaps you will consider if it's something you really want to parade in a public forum.
Mycroft
High Priest of Ed
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Previously you said Iran was being collectively punished for removing a totalitarian regime and claimed it was only a "few radicals" who kidnapped the embassy staff. Now you espouse the "fundamental right" of people to depose a despot.
Iran is not being “punished” for deposing a despot but for the policies and practices of the government that was created after the Shah was deposed. If it was only a matter of deposing the Shah, certainly friendly and helpful relations could have been established.
Please, please, please open a history book.
Mycroft
High Priest of Ed
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What exactly do you think I'm missing?
You can start with SAVAK and explain how that applies to the monarchy of Denmark.
Crossbow
Seeking Honesty and Sanity
Sorry sir, but you still do not get it.
The Shah was first put onto the throne in 1941.
In 1951 the Shah was forced to flee Iran and when he returned to take power again in 1953 it was after the Iranian military crushed (literally) the opposition.
Then in 1979, the Iranian military was not enough to crush the revolt.
While there were religious elements in both revolts, there was also a great deal popular resentment going on.
As for those reforms you speak so fondly of, you should be aware that they are the sorts of things that should have been done in Iran decades before the Shah came along. Furthermore, he made sure to institute only the reforms that would not take any power from him.
Note 1: you my not know it, but dictators often make small concessions and gestures, and then call them "reforms". Doing so in small doses allows them to show how much they care about their people without causing the ruler to give up any real power.
Note 2: shortly after his second exile, the Shah wrote a book called Answer to History in which he blamed the SAVAK, the failure the White Revolution, and upon Hoveyda administration for the revolution. And note, the Shah himself did NOT list religious fever as a cause of the revolution.
As for me parading around my beliefs, I do sincerely believe that any person who seriously considers himself to be a 'skeptic' would think it to be a valid, albeit quite brief, description. However, if you do not like them, then that is fine by me as I am not trying to convert anyone.
Whoa! Are you actually equating the Shaw's dictatorship with modern, European monarchies??
headscratcher4
Philosopher
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- 7,776
What is missing from your explaination is that the Shah was originally forced to flee because the elected government (in a fair and free election) a) wanted to limit the Shah's powers via its constitution and b) wanted to wrest control of the nation's oil resources from the monopoly control of British Oil. However, the brits, very smartly, called the elected government "communists" for their effort to nationalize the oil industry, scared Harry Truman into allowing Kermit Rosevelt to stage a pro-Shah coup which unseated the elected Prime Minister and resulted in the return of the Shah to a one-man personal rule.
In short, the popular, western orriented secular democracy we strive for today in the middle east might have been possible 60+ years ago had Iranian demcrcacy been allowed to flurish. Instead, the US joined in the old European way of handling the Middle-East -- find a repressive strong man who we can use to keep the oil running.
Elind:
"Everything they do and say suggests it..."
No, it absolutely does not.
Iran's SUPREME leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons, This is extremely pertinent but is largely ignored by the western media.
For example, the BBC mentions it only briefly (yet the fatwa issued against Rushdie was covered extensively and taken as deadly serious - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4260599.stm):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4677114.stm
But the IRNA covers it in depth, here`s an excerpt:
quote:
The Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued the Fatwa that the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam and that Iran shall never acquire these weapons, it added.
The full text of the statement is as follows:
"Madam chair, colleagues,
"We meet when the world is remembering the atomic bombings of the civilians in Hiroshima (Aug 6) and Nagasaki (Aug 9) sixty years ago.
The savagery of the attack, the human suffering it caused, the scale of the civilian loss of life turning individuals, old and young, into ashes in a split second, and maiming indefinitely those who survived should never be removed from our memory. It is the most absurd manifestation of irony that the single state who caused this single nuclear catastrophe in a twin attack on our earth now has assumed the role of the prime preacher in the nuclear field while ever expanding its nuclear weapons capability.
"We as members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) are proud to underline that none of the NPT members of the NAM rely on nuclear weapons in any way for their security. That is not the case of many other states, who either possess nuclear weapons or are member of nuclear-armed alliances and it is such states that have taken on the self-assigned role of denying Iran its legal rights under the NPT to access the peaceful uses of nuclear technology in conformity with the treaty's non-proliferation obligations.
"Indeed, it is not only Iran but also many members of NAM that are denied the peaceful uses of nuclear technology by some of the NPT nuclear-weapon states and their allies through the mechanisms of export controls and other denial arrangements. In 1995, they adopted the so-called "Iran clause" under which they agreed to deny nuclear technology to Iran in any circumstances.
"You can then understand, why Iran after being denied nuclear technology in violation of the NPT, had no other option but to rely on indigenous efforts with precaution on full transparency and we succeeded in developing our nuclear technology. Iran is a nuclear fuel cycle technology holder, a capability which is exclusively for peaceful purposes.
"The Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued the Fatwa that the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam and that the Islamic Republic of Iran shall never acquire these weapons. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who took office just recently, in his inaugural address reiterated that his government is against weapons of mass destruction and will only pursue nuclear activities in the peaceful domain. The leadership of Iran has pledged at the highest level that Iran will remain a non-nuclear-weapon state party to the NPT and has placed the entire scope of its nuclear activities under IAEA safeguards and additional protocol, in addition to undertaking voluntary transparency measures with the agency that have even gone beyond the requirements of the agency's safeguard system.
http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/line-17/0508104135124631.htm
So what, exactly, needs to be done to stop the Iranians from obtaining nuclear weapons as many around here keep whittling on about? What are they being stopped from?
Contrary to the US and the UK (both violators of the NNPT in terms of continuing proliferation and no drive to self-disarmament), Iran stands alone in internationally condemning the use of nuclear weapons. Indeed, the west could learn a thing or two from them in this regard, with bunker busters shipped to Israel, the US' continuing proliferation of nuclear weapons, and Blair's gear up to recommissioning the trident system.
There are too many leading questions when it comes to Iran, but they are not leading in the direction of the truth. Even if you examine such questions to their end goal you are starting from a sophistic beginning; the official line of our government (UK) and the US administration, and ignoring what Iran has to say on the subject. One of the two has been proven to have committed to its people a lie of grand proportions in very recent times. For this reason, people should be a little more skeptical of Blair's and Bush`s government than that of Khamenei.
Iran is not breaking the NNPT and as such it has no need to conform to western demands that make one rule for themselves and another for countries the West doesn't like. I am aware however that the US and the UK do break the NNPT and quite blatantly in fact and gloss over certain elements of the NNPT, particularly the second pillar concerning disarmament. Most people can see the hypocrisy in this.
"Everything they do and say suggests it..."
No, it absolutely does not.
Iran's SUPREME leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons, This is extremely pertinent but is largely ignored by the western media.
For example, the BBC mentions it only briefly (yet the fatwa issued against Rushdie was covered extensively and taken as deadly serious - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4260599.stm):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4677114.stm
But the IRNA covers it in depth, here`s an excerpt:
quote:
The Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued the Fatwa that the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam and that Iran shall never acquire these weapons, it added.
The full text of the statement is as follows:
"Madam chair, colleagues,
"We meet when the world is remembering the atomic bombings of the civilians in Hiroshima (Aug 6) and Nagasaki (Aug 9) sixty years ago.
The savagery of the attack, the human suffering it caused, the scale of the civilian loss of life turning individuals, old and young, into ashes in a split second, and maiming indefinitely those who survived should never be removed from our memory. It is the most absurd manifestation of irony that the single state who caused this single nuclear catastrophe in a twin attack on our earth now has assumed the role of the prime preacher in the nuclear field while ever expanding its nuclear weapons capability.
"We as members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) are proud to underline that none of the NPT members of the NAM rely on nuclear weapons in any way for their security. That is not the case of many other states, who either possess nuclear weapons or are member of nuclear-armed alliances and it is such states that have taken on the self-assigned role of denying Iran its legal rights under the NPT to access the peaceful uses of nuclear technology in conformity with the treaty's non-proliferation obligations.
"Indeed, it is not only Iran but also many members of NAM that are denied the peaceful uses of nuclear technology by some of the NPT nuclear-weapon states and their allies through the mechanisms of export controls and other denial arrangements. In 1995, they adopted the so-called "Iran clause" under which they agreed to deny nuclear technology to Iran in any circumstances.
"You can then understand, why Iran after being denied nuclear technology in violation of the NPT, had no other option but to rely on indigenous efforts with precaution on full transparency and we succeeded in developing our nuclear technology. Iran is a nuclear fuel cycle technology holder, a capability which is exclusively for peaceful purposes.
"The Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued the Fatwa that the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam and that the Islamic Republic of Iran shall never acquire these weapons. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who took office just recently, in his inaugural address reiterated that his government is against weapons of mass destruction and will only pursue nuclear activities in the peaceful domain. The leadership of Iran has pledged at the highest level that Iran will remain a non-nuclear-weapon state party to the NPT and has placed the entire scope of its nuclear activities under IAEA safeguards and additional protocol, in addition to undertaking voluntary transparency measures with the agency that have even gone beyond the requirements of the agency's safeguard system.
http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/line-17/0508104135124631.htm
So what, exactly, needs to be done to stop the Iranians from obtaining nuclear weapons as many around here keep whittling on about? What are they being stopped from?
Contrary to the US and the UK (both violators of the NNPT in terms of continuing proliferation and no drive to self-disarmament), Iran stands alone in internationally condemning the use of nuclear weapons. Indeed, the west could learn a thing or two from them in this regard, with bunker busters shipped to Israel, the US' continuing proliferation of nuclear weapons, and Blair's gear up to recommissioning the trident system.
There are too many leading questions when it comes to Iran, but they are not leading in the direction of the truth. Even if you examine such questions to their end goal you are starting from a sophistic beginning; the official line of our government (UK) and the US administration, and ignoring what Iran has to say on the subject. One of the two has been proven to have committed to its people a lie of grand proportions in very recent times. For this reason, people should be a little more skeptical of Blair's and Bush`s government than that of Khamenei.
Iran is not breaking the NNPT and as such it has no need to conform to western demands that make one rule for themselves and another for countries the West doesn't like. I am aware however that the US and the UK do break the NNPT and quite blatantly in fact and gloss over certain elements of the NNPT, particularly the second pillar concerning disarmament. Most people can see the hypocrisy in this.
Mycroft
High Priest of Ed
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2003
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We've already been over this in this thread. The answer is no.
I was speaking of real monarchies where the monarch actually rules, not symbolic monarchies like we have in Europe where the monarch is only a figurehead.
Crossbow
Seeking Honesty and Sanity
Thanks much headscratcher4!
I was hoping that Mycroft would be able to work that out for himself but it is evident that he is unable to do so himself since he still considers the Shah to be such a great "reformer".
Where does a monarch actually rule? Can you give examples?
ETA: Comparable to the Shah, of course.
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Correa Neto
Philosopher
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2003
- Messages
- 8,548
After reading headscratcher4's post, one can't help but ask why it seems some policy makers have not learned the lesson...
Edited for clarity & correct a poster's name
Edited for clarity & correct a poster's name
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