ElRazur:


More diversion and irrelevant post.
Your previous statement acknowledges that you haven't answered any of the questions posed at you so far. Questions that actually addresses the issues at hand, instead of the constant bickering you are making. You then turn around to ask me what questions again. Nice logic.

Time would tell if you can rise to the occassion and challenge those questions directed at you. So far, you clearly ain't up to the task at hand.

You have finally followed that same thing I was pointing at, to prove you wrong. Logic

The fact still remains that when the managers of twitter wanted to shut there site down for updates they were clearly informed by the state department not to, as this was clearly the tool of the Iranian protesters. If the US could go that far what stops us from thinking they did'nt do more.

The BBC during the period of protest quickly launched a persian session on its website. What more facts do you need to show that the - so called west - was not well biased.

Honestly ElRazur wat is your question. Facts? Okay, what facts have you got to say the so called west had no hand in the protest?

ElRazur:


More diversion and irrelevant post.
Your previous statement acknowledges that you haven't answered any of the questions posed at you so far. Questions that actually addresses the issues at hand, instead of the constant bickering you are making. You then turn around to ask me what questions again. Nice logic.

Time would tell if you can rise to the occassion and challenge those questions directed at you. So far, you clearly ain't up to the task at hand.

Eyaaaa!!! Kpele.

Unfortunately for you, what is irrelevant to you may make sense to others. It all depends on your level of comprehension chikena.

Ikomi:

You have finally followed that same thing I was pointing at, to prove you wrong. Logic

The fact still remains that when the managers of twitter wanted to shut there site down for updates they were clearly informed by the state department not to, as this was clearly the tool of the Iranian protesters. If the US could go that far what stops us from thinking they did'nt do more.

The BBC during the period of protest quickly launched a persian session on its website. What more facts do you need to show that the - so called west - was not well biased.

Honestly ElRazur wat is your question. Facts? Okay, what facts have you got to say the so called west had no hand in the protest?

These are "facts" to prove that the West was actively trying to destabilise Iran? BBC and Twitter?

What amuses me about articles peddled by these arabs is their penchant for blaming just about ALL their problems on these phantom west.

Attention seekers are out, or they hide under different names.

What are we talking about propanganda, bbc, twitter - no they are not facts, they are just dormant information mediums. It takes your ugly teeth to spread propaganda.

Ikomi:

Attention seekers are out, or they hide under different names.

What are we talking about propanganda, bbc, twitter - no they are not facts, they are just dormant information mediums. It takes your ugly teeth to spread propaganda.

you cant help but shake your head at these dumb dudes . . . twitter and bbc must be a western conspiracy to destroy the arabs.

davidylan:

you cant help but shake your head at these dumb dudes . . . twitter and bbc must be a western conspiracy to destroy the arabs.

You see that you did not even read the whole story or conversation you jumped at the topic cause you heard arabs. When your next of kin smells that name too, am sure he would be here, anything arabs attract you guys, its like light to insects.

Ikomi:

You see that you did not even read the whole story or conversation you jumped at the topic cause you heard arabs. When your next of kin smells that name too, am sure he would be here, anything arabs attract you guys, its like light to insects.

I didnt need to read the story, neither you nor afam where making any comments remotely related to the story. Just cooking up conspiracy theories just like the author of the opinion piece falsely presented as "facts".

Ikomi,

With all due respect, I think you and I are speaking diffferent language and discussing different things. The point I am making is this - If the view presented in the original post by afam claims to be facts, yet these so called facts won't even face up to scrutiny when taken apart. I have raised many observational questions and direct question at Afam, all which he evaded and having no clue about.

Facts are something one cant argue. For example saying Obama is the president of USA is a fact. No one can argue that. Period. The basis of what forms part of the article posted by Afam are not facts. These I pointed at zillion times. That is my point.


As for you saying claiming persian version of website launched, I think you will find that a few major sites already have a Persian version running and as such, it have nothing to do with wanting to destabilize iran like you are suggesting.

davidylan:

I didnt need to read the story, neither you nor afam where making any comments remotely related to the story. Just cooking up conspiracy theories just like the author of the opinion piece falsely presented as "facts".

Then your contribution must be inaccurate, go and play outside with your mates then. Let those who can read contribute.

ElRazur:

Ikomi,

With all due respect, I think you and I are speaking diffferent language and discussing different things. The point I am making is this - If the view presented in the original post by afam claims to be facts, yet these so called facts won't even face up to scrutiny when taken apart. I have raised many observational questions and direct question at Afam, all which he evaded and having no clue about.

Facts are something one cant argue. For example saying Obama is the president of USA is a fact. No one can argue that. Period. The basis of what forms part of the article posted by Afam are not facts. These I pointed at zillion times. That is my point.


As for you saying claiming persian version of website launched, I think you will find that a few major sites already have a Persian version running and as such, it have nothing to do with wanting to destabilize iran like you are suggesting.

You have a point and if you read my very first response to the post as the third respondent, I made it clear to the poster that although we all know from history that the west meddles in other nations politics but other nations are not perfect either, if they were in the position of power there is a chance they would do the same.

Then I concluded with the idea that our basic responsibility is to speak out against injustice.

Yes we could blame the west for many things but the Iranian leadership has its own problems.

I enjoyed your discussion with Afam I read it all, I just wanted to poke you on the side a bit with your 1+1=2 fact

All am saying is that the write up might not have facts to substantiate its claims, we equally dont have facts to disproof it.

Thanks ElRazur

Very interesting conversation despite the back and forth bickering.

It is not secret that the US and many other socioeconomic and politically powerful countries meddle in the affairs of other countries. The US often claims a moral high ground and superiority of ideals, but has historically had hypocritical and inconsistent international policies. However, one thing that remains consistent, is the overall goal/aim of the US government to protect the interests of Americans. You may think this a silly or very simplistic statement, but keeping that general idea in mind when analyzing the US dealing with other countries brings some perspectives. I am not claiming that the US govt is always successful at this goal; but I am saying the a priori intention is promoting the interest of its citizens.

That said, the US relations with Iran over the decades have been fraught with disingenuous motives. Many of the historical claims in the original article including pre WWII meddling, installation of the Shah in place of a democratically elected government are very well known and historically accurate. I think it a fools errand attempting to prove those facts as they aren't, in my mind, historically controversial.

The current situation in the country is far less clear-cut. Despite hypocrisy in/by the West, Iran also has its own demons to contend with. I don't think it is clear whether or not the government of Iran has as its intention to promote the interest of its citizens. I know we can spend all day debating the nebulous idea of 'interests'. In my mind intentionally limiting the access to media other that to government sponsored stations, resistance to allowing people air dissatisfaction about the government, employment of religious "police men" with poorly defined power limits and other nefarious practices, all show that the Iranian government have more important agenda than preserving and promoting its citizen's interests. It is a much easier path to blame the West of meddling and hypocrisy than it is to address the glaring inconsistencies and problems with the Iranian government; doing the latter is an unfortunate decision the Iranian government is making.

http://www.sundayherald.com/oped/opinion/display.var.2516867.0.0.php

Demonising Iran conveniently hides uncomfortable truths for the West
Robin Yassin-Kassab

THE MAINSTREAM media narrative of events unfolding in Iran has been set out for us as clear as a fairytale: an evil dictatorship has rigged elections and now violently suppresses its country's democrats, hysterically blaming foreign saboteurs the while. But the Twitter generation is on the right side of history (in Obama's words), and could bring Iran back within the regional circle of moderation. If only Iran becomes moderate, a whole set of regional conflicts will be solved.

I don't mean to minimise the importance of the Iranian protests or the brutality of their suppression, but I take issue with the West's selective blindness when it gazes at the Middle East. The "Iran narrative" contains a dangerous set of simplicities which bode ill for Obama's promised engagement, and which will be recognised beyond the West as rotten with hypocrisy.

Iran's claims of Western incitement for the protests are roundly scorned in our media, and of course Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei's scapegoating of foreigners and "terrorist groups" demonstrates an unhealthy denial of the very real polarisation within Iranian society.

Yet Iranians still have good reason to fear outside interference. It was, after all, British and American-orchestrated riots that brought down the elected Mossadeq government in 1953. And in 2007, Bush administration neocon John Bolton told the Telegraph that a US attack on Iran would be "a last option after economic sanctions and attempts to foment a popular revolution had failed".

According to veteran journalist Seymour Hersh, ongoing US special operations in Iran include funding ethnic-separatist terrorist groups such as the al-Qaeda-linked Jundallah in Baluchistan. With some honourable exceptions, this dimension has not been touched by the mainstream media.

And Mir Hossein Mousavi's vote-rigging allegations are accepted without scrutiny, despite there not yet being any hard evidence of organised cheating. The official result is similar to that in the second round of the 2005 elections, when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad received 61.7 % to former president Rafsanjani's 35.9%.

Iran is troublesome not because it’s any more dictatorial than its neighbours but because it’s less submissive

A few weeks before the latest elections, a poll commissioned by the BBC and ABC News predicted a nationwide advantage of two-to-one for Ahmadinejad over Mousavi. Even Israel's Mossad chief Meir Dagan reported that there were no more irregularities in the Iranian vote than in elections in liberal democracies.

I visited Iran in 2006, with a backpack and guidebook-standard Farsi. I noticed two things. First, Iran is far freer, fairer, less littered, and more literate than any of its neighbours. Second, very many Iranians are unhappy with their corrupt rulers and, unlike people in nearby Arab states, they are not afraid to say so openly. To an extent, the revolution has been a victim of its own success, having transformed a largely feudal land into a highly educated urban society, creating along the way a swollen middle class and an idealistic youth which chafes against the petty oppression of dress codes and state-enforced morality. But everyone I spoke to favoured evolution of the existing system over counter-revolution.

The Islamic Republic has been a great - if seriously flawed - experiment in economic and strategic independence, its engines oiled by class consciousness and national pride as much as by religion. Iran is at least a semi-democracy, and has held 10 presidential elections in 30 years. Iranian women are obliged to cover their hair, true, but women in US-client Saudi Arabia are obliged to cover their faces. In Saudi Arabia of course there are never any elections to dispute - but there are US military bases, so we don't dwell on the issue.

Here's the nub of it. Iran opposes the US military presence in the region, and vigorously supports resistance to Israeli expansionism. On these two points, the Iranian regime is closer than any other to the true sentiments of Middle Easterners.

And this, fundamentally, is why Iran is imagined to be such a problem in the West: because it's a Venezuela or a Cuba of a country. Iran is troublesome not because it's any more obscurantist or dictatorial than its neighbours, but because it is less submissive.

The world worries about Iran's nuclear energy programme while keeping quiet about Israel's 200 nuclear weapons. Israel occupies Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian territory. Iran has not attacked another country in its modern history.

Iran is accused of backing terrorism because it helps to arm Hizbullah and Hamas, grassroots anti-occupation groups with a legitimate, even legal, cause. Both groups have targeted civilians (rarely, in Hizbullah's case) but not on as grand a scale as Israel, which is armed and funded by the United States. And Iran doesn't export Wahhabi-nihilist terrorists of the Taliban or al-Qaeda-in-Iraq variety. Again, that would be our ally Saudi Arabia.

President Obama recently chose to address the Muslim world from Cairo, seat of a client regime which has "pre-emptively" arrested hundreds of democrats in recent months, fearing they may demonstrate.

Commenting on Iran, Obama called the "democratic process" a "universal value". But obviously not quite universal enough to cover Egypt, or the elected Hamas government, what remains of it, in besieged Palestine.

Silences can be more significant than words. Is Obama also "deeply troubled" when Israel shoots unarmed protesters or arrests children as young as 12? Does he mourn "each and every innocent life that is lost" in Gaza as well as in the plusher streets of Tehran? If so, he still hasn't told us.

At present our opinion-formers are blithely simplifying and demonising a complex culture, allowing illusions and half-truths to become shining certainties in our minds. This is how we arrived in Iraq.

Robin Yassin-Kassab was born in Britain to a Syrian father and English mother. He worked as a journalist in Pakistan before moving to Oman where he taught English. He now lives in Scotland. His novel, The Road From Damascus, is published by Penguin, £8.99

WHY WAS THIS POST MADE INVISIBLE FROM YESTERDAY?

Demonising Iran conveniently hides uncomfortable truths for the West
Robin Yassin-Kassab

THE MAINSTREAM media narrative of events unfolding in Iran has been set out for us as clear as a fairytale: an evil dictatorship has rigged elections and now violently suppresses its country's democrats, hysterically blaming foreign saboteurs the while. But the Twitter generation is on the right side of history (in Obama's words), and could bring Iran back within the regional circle of moderation. If only Iran becomes moderate, a whole set of regional conflicts will be solved.

I don't mean to minimise the importance of the Iranian protests or the brutality of their suppression, but I take issue with the West's selective blindness when it gazes at the Middle East. The "Iran narrative" contains a dangerous set of simplicities which bode ill for Obama's promised engagement, and which will be recognised beyond the West as rotten with hypocrisy.

Iran's claims of Western incitement for the protests are roundly scorned in our media, and of course Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei's scapegoating of foreigners and "terrorist groups" demonstrates an unhealthy denial of the very real polarisation within Iranian society.

Yet Iranians still have good reason to fear outside interference. It was, after all, British and American-orchestrated riots that brought down the elected Mossadeq government in 1953. And in 2007, Bush administration neocon John Bolton told the Telegraph that a US attack on Iran would be "a last option after economic sanctions and attempts to foment a popular revolution had failed".

According to veteran journalist Seymour Hersh, ongoing US special operations in Iran include funding ethnic-separatist terrorist groups such as the al-Qaeda-linked Jundallah in Baluchistan. With some honourable exceptions, this dimension has not been touched by the mainstream media.

And Mir Hossein Mousavi's vote-rigging allegations are accepted without scrutiny, despite there not yet being any hard evidence of organised cheating. The official result is similar to that in the second round of the 2005 elections, when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad received 61.7 % to former president Rafsanjani's 35.9%.

Iran is troublesome not because it’s any more dictatorial than its neighbours but because it’s less submissive

A few weeks before the latest elections, a poll commissioned by the BBC and ABC News predicted a nationwide advantage of two-to-one for Ahmadinejad over Mousavi. Even Israel's Mossad chief Meir Dagan reported that there were no more irregularities in the Iranian vote than in elections in liberal democracies.

I visited Iran in 2006, with a backpack and guidebook-standard Farsi. I noticed two things. First, Iran is far freer, fairer, less littered, and more literate than any of its neighbours. Second, very many Iranians are unhappy with their corrupt rulers and, unlike people in nearby Arab states, they are not afraid to say so openly. To an extent, the revolution has been a victim of its own success, having transformed a largely feudal land into a highly educated urban society, creating along the way a swollen middle class and an idealistic youth which chafes against the petty oppression of dress codes and state-enforced morality. But everyone I spoke to favoured evolution of the existing system over counter-revolution.

The Islamic Republic has been a great - if seriously flawed - experiment in economic and strategic independence, its engines oiled by class consciousness and national pride as much as by religion. Iran is at least a semi-democracy, and has held 10 presidential elections in 30 years. Iranian women are obliged to cover their hair, true, but women in US-client Saudi Arabia are obliged to cover their faces. In Saudi Arabia of course there are never any elections to dispute - but there are US military bases, so we don't dwell on the issue.

Here's the nub of it. Iran opposes the US military presence in the region, and vigorously supports resistance to Israeli expansionism. On these two points, the Iranian regime is closer than any other to the true sentiments of Middle Easterners.

And this, fundamentally, is why Iran is imagined to be such a problem in the West: because it's a Venezuela or a Cuba of a country. Iran is troublesome not because it's any more obscurantist or dictatorial than its neighbours, but because it is less submissive.

The world worries about Iran's nuclear energy programme while keeping quiet about Israel's 200 nuclear weapons. Israel occupies Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian territory. Iran has not attacked another country in its modern history.

Iran is accused of backing terrorism because it helps to arm Hizbullah and Hamas, grassroots anti-occupation groups with a legitimate, even legal, cause. Both groups have targeted civilians (rarely, in Hizbullah's case) but not on as grand a scale as Israel, which is armed and funded by the United States. And Iran doesn't export Wahhabi-nihilist terrorists of the Taliban or al-Qaeda-in-Iraq variety. Again, that would be our ally Saudi Arabia.

President Obama recently chose to address the Muslim world from Cairo, seat of a client regime which has "pre-emptively" arrested hundreds of democrats in recent months, fearing they may demonstrate.

Commenting on Iran, Obama called the "democratic process" a "universal value". But obviously not quite universal enough to cover Egypt, or the elected Hamas government, what remains of it, in besieged Palestine.

Silences can be more significant than words. Is Obama also "deeply troubled" when Israel shoots unarmed protesters or arrests children as young as 12? Does he mourn "each and every innocent life that is lost" in Gaza as well as in the plusher streets of Tehran? If so, he still hasn't told us.

At present our opinion-formers are blithely simplifying and demonising a complex culture, allowing illusions and half-truths to become shining certainties in our minds. This is how we arrived in Iraq.

Robin Yassin-Kassab was born in Britain to a Syrian father and English mother. He worked as a journalist in Pakistan before moving to Oman where he taught English. He now lives in Scotland. His novel, The Road From Damascus, is published by Penguin, £8.99

Wonderful writeup.

Needless to say, I agree completely with the author.

Surprise! Surprise!! Surprise!!!

Another emotionally charged write up, that seem to over look the complicated issues surrounding ME. But, opted to present a biased view and simplified version for the purpose of supporting a prejudiced stance.

You guys are reservoirs of information. I like it.

As a matter of fact and serious, I never decline the fact that Western countries are the orchestrators and master-minders of all the upheavals and unrest occurring in Iran. They only know how to their game discreetly, thats all.

@Dr D-Welz

However, one thing that remains consistent, is the overall goal/aim of the US government to protect the interests of Americans.

You got it all in the above sentence.

Even if it means killing innocent children, men and women in the process?

Even if it means lying about a nation just to wage war?

Is this a justification or just a statement of fact that we all know is 100% wrong?

Its very true that the only thing that drives the US government is the protection of its people and its economy. one cant begrudge them that!

We all need to be able to see that and stop swallowing the lies. Its all about creating enough clouds to blind those who are easily blinded.

JustGood:

Its very true that the only thing that drives the US government is the protection of its people and its economy. one cant begrudge them that!

We all need to be able to see that and stop swallowing the lies. Its all about creating enough clouds to blind those who are easily blinded.

Gbam!

Commenting on Iran, Obama called the "democratic process" a "universal value". But obviously not quite universal enough to cover Egypt, or the elected Hamas government, what remains of it, in besieged Palestine.

Silences can be more significant than words. Is Obama also "deeply troubled" when Israel shoots unarmed protesters or arrests children as young as 12? Does he mourn "each and every innocent life that is lost" in Gaza as well as in the plusher streets of Tehran? If so, he still hasn't told us.

Gbam! Obama indeed.