All the more reasons to pay attention to when the end of the Musharraf regime will come, who are likely to come into power next, and so on. Unlike Iran, Pakistan has nuclear weapons, though few on the Left seem to be even curious about who might inherit them.
As for foreign cheerleaders, there's a reason why Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro favor Iran rather than Pakistan or any other country as the chief ally in the Middle East. It's the only country in the Middle East whose government is the result of social revolution and is not in the pocket of Washington. They, unlike a common run of Western leftists, think strategically and can act globally.
> Subsidizing gasoline when you have little domestic refining capacity
> is a rather stupid economic strategy. Promising things you can't
> possibly deliver on - like cheaper housing in four or five months -
> is a rather stupid political strategy. And while I think Iran has
> every right to a nuclear weapon, it may not be the wisest way to
> spend limited resources; certainly most of the Iranian leftists I've
> interviewed agree.
>
> You argue that recent inflation isn't so bad in Iran. Well, the
> latest figure the IMF reports in International Financial Statistics
> is for Oct 2006, and that was 15.1%, above the 2000-2006 average of
> 13.8%. Press accounts have it rising since, no?
On 7/3/07, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> According to the Iranian central bank, the latest inflation figure
> for February was 17.6% for the year, and 1.5% for the month. A
> monthly rate of 1.5% compounds to 19.6%.
> <http://www.cbi.ir/page/3582.aspx>
Tell that to Chavez. Many of Iran's problems, to which Iranian and Western leftists have no solution -- inflation,* gasoline subsidies, populist promises larger than the ability to deliver quickly, etc. -- are also Venezuela's, and in some ways Venezuela's structural economic problems -- because the government of Venezuela has yet to gain an ability to subordinate capital to the state as much as that of Iran, Venezuela is more prone to the Dutch disease than Iran, economic inequality is severer in Venezuela than Iran, and so on -- are more difficult to solve than Iran's.
Why don't leftists have any practical alternative? Because in reality it's as difficult to run a heavily statist mixed economy as a market-dominated liberal capitalist one or a traditional state socialist one, though problems of one are different from the others.
Lastly, why defend Iran's "right to nuclear weapons" when neither Iran's government nor its populace have asked us to defend it? I'd defend it if either or both wanted it defended, but at present neither say they do.
* Inflation in Iran and Venezuela, moreover, should be evaluated in the context of global economy where three problems to watch are rising inflation, rising interest rates, and troubled real estate markets -- the latter two especially in the USA.
And both Iran and Venezuela have seen much worse in terms of inflation and anything else.
<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/3fc3dbae-23fd-11dc-8ee2-000b5df10621.html> Venezuela oil boom raises inflation spectre By Benedict Mander in Caracas Published: June 26 2007 17:22 | Last updated: June 26 2007 17:22
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
"Inflation continues to be a problem," he [Armando León, a director of the central bank of Venezuela] says, particularly because it is much higher than Venezuela's trade partners. At almost 20 per cent, it is close to double the next highest rate in Latin America.
On 7/3/07, ravi <ravi at platosbeard.org> wrote:
> The good Mr. Henwood asked me on PEN-L what the proper attitude /
> correct line should be for Western leftists, when it comes to Iran. I
> now am in a position to answer that question:
>
> <http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html#070531>
>
> Listen to the second part of the above podcast where Kourosh
> Shemirani and Saadia Toor provide an excellent analysis of the
> matter, which coherently and intelligently (especially on the part of
> Kourosh) puts what I have been stammering about.
If only Doug actually listened to good people whom he had interviewed. :->
You can also see Kourosh Shemirani here: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4g7maLw354> and <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlDFDEvm1FI>. [The sound quality is not very good, but if you are curious, as I was, what he looks like. . . .]
On 7/3/07, andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com>
> As I said to Carrol, who asserted of list that
> liberalism is as dead as Marxism-Leninism, I fear that
> liberalism may be dying.
Minus habeas corpus, the corpus of liberalism is living dead. In the end, we cannot forever enjoy in the North what the empire of capitalism has made it impossible in the South. The South has become incorporated into the North, as the North has invaded the South -- that's the meaning of globalization.
<http://www.monthlyreview.org/1106tigar.htm> The Twilight of Personal Liberty: Introduction to 'A Permanent State of Emergency' by Michael E. Tigar
<http://www.monthlyreview.org/1106paye.htm> A Permanent State of Emergency by Jean-Claude Paye
On 6/28/07, BklynMagus <magcomm at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> > He's not for democratic centralism, sure.
>
> Looked that concept up and if wikipedia is accurate, real
> horrorshow.
It's probably impossible for people to engage in armed struggle* without democratic centralism if they want to avoid becoming terrorists with no mass bases. Outside a context that demands it, though, democratic centralism makes no sense. Nowadays, however, leftists reject it not because they are truly critical of centralism but because they can't stand democracy, so they go build their own individual cults of personality without any organization. :->
* <http://www.lemonde.fr/web/chat/0,46-0@2-734511,55-800660,0.html> Chat Le Hezbollah, ses ressources, sa stratégie LEMONDE.FR | 03.08.06 | 12h43 • Mis à jour le 30.01.07 | 15h29
L'intégralité du débat du mercredi 9 août avec Walid Charara, coauteur avec Frédéric Domont du livre "Le Hezbollah, un mouvement islamo-nationaliste" (Fayard, 2004).
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Sumatra : Comment est structuré le Hezbollah ?
Walid Charara : Le Hezbollah est un parti politique dont l'organisation interne ressemble fortement aux organisations politiques où prévaut le centralisme démocratique. Sur le plan organisationnel, il ressemble aux organisations marxistes. Ce qui le distingue par ailleurs, c'est l'étendue de son réseau d'associations sociales. C'est un parti qui fonctionne sur le principe du centralisme démocratique, la direction est élue et les décisions sont prises collectivement. -- Yoshie