[lbo-talk] Juan Cole: preliminary reactions to the Iranian vote totals

KJ kjinkhoo at gmail.com
Sun Jun 14 02:18:51 PDT 2009


2009/6/14 Bhaskar Sunkara <bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com>:
> Regardless of who really won the elections the surge of protests and
> activities is politicization in a depoliticized “post-revolutionary” society
> and thus should be applauded. As we saw in similar circumstances in Eastern
> Europe if some sort of oppositional core is formed in civil society, the
> ruling class of Iran is in trouble.  Hopefully this isn't just a flair-up.

agreed. although i do think that iran has always been more politicised, with an oppositional core. what happens will likely depend on the extent to which the results are seen as illegitimate. and if cole is right, that the "culture wars" have been the central issue of the past decade, then the results are likely to be seen as illegitimate.


> Also I think this “win” is an excellent thing for Israel, Egypt and the
> other US-backed forces in the region. An election of a moderate would’ve
> allowed Obama to engage with Iran more, maybe deferred their nuclear
> ambitions and thus comparatively weaken the power of US-backed client
> regimes in the Middle-East.

can't claim expertise of any sort, but doubt if it's as straightforward as that. if the iranian opposition is sustained, that would be the "best" way of weakening the client regimes, since there appears to have been a wider range of debate in iran than under those client regimes. for israel, it may just add to the conundrum.



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