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June 17, 2009 9:57am by David Farrar

The mouse that roared

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International Politics
Iran

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Murray

Yeah funny.

Only not so much. Clearly not a happy time for democracy in Iran. Disturbing the far left here seem comfortable defending it or trying moral equivalence game.
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June 17, 2009 10:10am
Brian Smaller

How could the election have been anything but fair. I mean who cannot count 40 million paper ballots in two hours and come out with a definitive result?
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June 17, 2009 10:36am
Neil

Murray this is not a matter of the far left. The clerics of Iran run a theocracy based on medieval beliefs like the unequality of women and the blocking of new ideas. They are like Kampuchea,China of the Cultural Revolution and Germany during the Nazi days.
Ironically the photo above reveals why eventually the clerics will lose out – that PC mouse on the floor will open up the world to Iran much like what happened in Eastern Europe.
Iran’s regime is far from a friend of left wing supporters. Iran’s regime would garner little support world wide – perhaps their greatest friend would be Russia with Putin’s fascist like tendencies
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June 17, 2009 10:41am
TimG_Oz

Yeah it’s a pity the Left are so dumb. They apply the concept of “My enemy’s enemy is my friend” – and because America is their enemy … well you know the rest.

Double standards, anyone?
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June 17, 2009 10:45am
stephen

Does he normally wear fabulous white suits?
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June 17, 2009 10:47am
Brian Smaller

Well his other name is Imadinnerjacket.
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June 17, 2009 10:49am
Murray

Neil, pay attention. I said the left HERE. As always their default setting is that if DPF is for it must be wrong. Billy bonkers has already gone down this path on Iran.
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June 17, 2009 10:50am
Gosman

I have just come from Tumeke where I have had great difficulty getting my views on the Iranian election accepted my Mr Bradbury. It seems that hard core leftists have some problem condemning outright the abuses of a totalitarian theocracies when said Theorcracies are anti-American.

The funniest bit was when a leftist poster called Brewerstroupe tried to claim that Islamist views on governemnt were somehow tied up with the racial makeup of people and that we should be more understanding.
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June 17, 2009 11:04am
Neil

Sorry Murray. I went for a walk and during that walk realized I had “ballsed” up my reply.
Apologies !
Like you I cannot understand the liberal left “full of freedom and free thinking” don’t speak out.
Maybe it’s because tghat might indicate some support for Israel or the USA.
Obama is useless, nothing will emanate from his administration. Oh gor George W.Bush
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June 17, 2009 12:26pm
Phil

I’m with Stephen – anyone who waers a white suit that f**king awesome can’t be a bad guy.
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June 17, 2009 12:49pm
Murray

It happens Neil.

The lefties here would be the first against the wall in the countries they support.
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June 17, 2009 12:51pm
sonic

I wonder where these imaginary leftists are who are supporting the regime?

All of the international left press are supporting the protests, for example

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=18229

Always sad when your argument is a figment of your own imagination eh lads?
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June 17, 2009 12:59pm
Gosman

Sonic,

Take a look at this reply on the Tumeke blog.

” 16/6/09 6:56 PM
Blogger Brewerstroupe said…

The very premise you begin with is suspect:

“a brutal Islamic theocracy where ultimate power resides in unelected Religious leaders.”

What do you know of this society?

Do you not understand that other races, informed by a different epistemology might have developed different responses to societal ills?

Is it difficult for you to understand that, in a country where 98% of the people belong, or at least confess to belonging to one faith, religion and politics might take a bigger part in the scheme of things.
No doubt it is more difficult for you to understand that, to a Muslim, the Mosque does not represent what the Church represents to you. To a Muslim, the Mosque also represents the Town Hall, the political forum.

Step outside your cultural identity Gosman and smell the air.”

I think it is quite clear from this reply that that particular leftist believes that the Iranian regime has a certain amount of legitimacy and ‘deserves’ our understanding. LOL.

On top of that many views expressed are suggesting that the abortion of an election in Iran approaches what we in the West would equate to Democracy.
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June 17, 2009 1:17pm
stephen

Not quite what I said Phil but while we’re at it http://jezebel.com/5221313/hillary-clinton-welcome-to-the-chocolate-city . Was on Kiwiblog once but can’t find it.
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June 17, 2009 1:19pm
Sam Buchanan

“that particular leftist believes that the Iranian regime has a certain amount of legitimacy and ‘deserves’ our understanding. LOL.”

I think when people on this site refer to “the left” they mean two or three blog posters or maybe just something they vaguely recall from the 1960s. The last anti-Iranian regime action I can recall happening in NZ was when trade unionists and others protested outside the Iranian Embassy last year in support of striking bus drivers. I’m sure RedBaiter will be along in a minute to tell me this was somehow a complex gesture of support for totalitarianism.

This was an obviously corrupt election, and all power to the protestors, but Mousavi doesn’t appear to offer much hope. He’s still one of the old fogies from the repressive establishment and there seems no real hope that he would, or could, tinker with the structure of government in Iran. Nothing much can be done by a reformist president while the bureaucracy and security forces are under the thumb of the Council of Guardians. It appears the establishment will block reform until the whole thing crumbles – or in other words, the military and police refuse to back the curent regime, as happened in 1979.
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June 17, 2009 1:55pm
sonic

“It appears the establishment will block reform until the whole thing crumbles – or in other words, the military and police refuse to back the curent regime, as happened in 1979.”

Fisk has seen some sign of that happen.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-fear-has-gone-in-a-land-that-has-tasted-freedom-1706912.html
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June 17, 2009 1:58pm
Gosman

“…but Mousavi doesn’t appear to offer much hope. He’s still one of the old fogies from the repressive establishment and there seems no real hope that he would, or could, tinker with the structure of government in Iran. ”

I completely an utterly agree with you Mr Buchanan but the general impression I get is that many left wing comentators feel that Iran is some sort of flawed democracy and that the election results somehow reflects the will of the people.

It is certainly the impression I got from Mr Bradbury’s posts on the topic at Tumeke and also from Nandor Tanczos’ reply to one of them. The view seems to be that the West should treat Mr Ahmadinejad as though he has some kind of democratic mandate.

Iran is a brutal dictatorial theocratic regime and should be treated as such in my view.
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June 17, 2009 2:06pm
Komata

An alternative title to the above, but somewhat in the same vein:

‘The President of Iran, unnerved at the sight of an Israeli mouse on the floor of his inner-sanctum, could only scream in terror (and wonder why his tame Islamist-cats hadn’t heard his cries or come to his rescue)’.

Just a thought. . .
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June 17, 2009 2:08pm
Murray

W’re imagining you now chroic?

Funny, my imagination usually has less assholes and more intersting people.
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June 17, 2009 2:26pm
Spoff

I am bound to state that I can see little, and then only infantile, humour in the depiction of Ahmadinejad (who has a PHD in engineering and runs his own blog) as frightened of a computer mouse.
Given that many U.S. Congressmen and major political figures are computer illiterate one would think they, including George W. would more appropriately be so lampooned.

This whole brouhaha about the Iranian elections appears to be a massive beat up. Here is an excerpt from a poll taken before the election. It indicates Ahmadinejad pulling more than 2 votes for Mousavi’s 1. In the official result, he actually lost a bit of ground.

“Typically, polls in Iran are either conducted or monitored by the Iranian government and other
affiliated interest groups, and can be untrustworthy. By contrast, our poll—the third in a series over the past two years—was conducted by telephone inside Iran over May 11th to 20th, 2009, with 1,001 interviews proportionally distributed
covering all 30 provinces of Iran, with a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percent. Full survey results and methodology follow. This survey tracks earlier nationwide surveys of Iran also conducted by TFT and KA in March 2008 and June 2007, which was the first to ask similar controversial questions since September 2002.
Funding for the survey was provided by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The survey follows not only two prior polls of Iran, but also more than thirty similar surveys throughout the Muslim world by TFT since 2005.

Iranians Favor President Ahmadinejad’s Re-Election
At the stage of the campaign for President when our poll was taken, 34 percent of Iranians surveyed said they will vote for incumbent President Ahmadinejad. Mr. Ahmadinejad’s closest rival, Mir Hussein Moussavi, was the choice of 14 percent,
with 27 percent stating that they still do not know who they will vote for.
President Ahmadinejad’s other rivals, Mehdi Karroubi and Mohsen Rezai, were the choice of 2 percent and 1 percent, respectively.”

http://www.terrorfreetomorrow.org/upimagestft/TFT%20Iran%20Survey%20Report%200609.pdf
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June 17, 2009 2:38pm
Gosman

Here is a very reasoned analysis of the opinion poll taken that is being used by many leftists to justify why they think the election of Mr Ahmadinejad ireflected the general will of the people (if not entirely democratic)

http://thehill.com/mark-mellman/reading-opinion-polls-in-tehran-2009-06-16.html
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June 17, 2009 2:39pm
Gosman

So spoff even based on your Opinion poll that you quote it looks like some serious fiddling of election results occurred.

I do love it when leftists are shown up trying to justify behaviour they normally wouldn’t be caught dead supporting.
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June 17, 2009 3:11pm
stephen

I am bound to state that I can see little, and then only infantile, humour in the depiction of Ahmadinejad (who has a PHD in engineering and runs his own blog) as frightened of a computer mouse.

As Neil alluded up top, I interpreted the mouse as a symbol, not a literal computer mouse.
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June 17, 2009 3:35pm
tom hunter

Now, now Gosman. We should be grateful that Spoff has arrived on the thread. Without him there would only be figments of our imagination to deal with!

It also presents an opportunity to see if Sonic will cast aside the habits of a lifetime of collective solidarity and get stuck into a fellow leftist. Of course that might result in other lefties building a specialist stalker site focused on him? Best not to rock the boat.
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June 17, 2009 3:42pm
emmess

I think it is fair to say the left is split on this issue

But it is a rather sad state of affairs when they can’t decide whether a fascist theocracy running fraudulent elections is a good or bad thing
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June 17, 2009 3:44pm
Gosman

What is hillarious on this issue is that Leftist have been quoting the results of the TFT poll all over the place saying that this somehow means that Mr Ahmadinejad victory is valid, (even though of course they think it is a bad thing really). The TFT poll does not make that conclusion at all, in fact it states virtually the opposite in that it acknowledges a strong ground swell of support for reformist ideals and suggests a run off is likely.
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June 17, 2009 4:04pm
paradigm

“I wonder where these imaginary leftists are who are supporting the regime?”

Of course there are many people who pay lipservice to deploring such regimes. Then when it comes to an international incident with a democratic country vs said totalitarian regime, we inevitably see them side pro the totalitarian regime.
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June 17, 2009 4:18pm
transmogrifier

sonic and billy and phil are not THE left. They’re just three guys with silly views on some things who enjoy getting a rise out of some of you folk around here.
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June 17, 2009 4:22pm
Gosman

How about Mr Bradbury from Tumeke and Mr Tanczos, formally of the greens then? Are they left enough for you transmogrifier?
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June 17, 2009 4:23pm
sonic

I think that Gosman has this view of “the left” trans

http://decentpedia.blogspot.com/2007/09/far-left.html
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June 17, 2009 4:32pm
transmogrifier

@Gosman. That’s five people. That’s not an overarching ideological trend, that’s a basketball team.
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June 17, 2009 4:36pm
Neil

Mark my words, the internet,twitter,cell phones and Satellite TV will be the driver of this discontent.Just look what these mediums have done to young peoples activities in New Zealand. When they are seeking their rightrs this is huge.
The elderly clerics will react clumsily to this. Trouble ahead, especially with the huge overseas Iranians and the overseas media outlets directing propoganda back to Iran
Within Iran the better educated regard President Ahd as a “prat” and idiot.
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June 17, 2009 5:26pm
Sam Buchanan

“How about Mr Bradbury from Tumeke and Mr Tanczos, formally of the greens then? ”

Well this was in Bradbury’s comment:

“anything that dismantles a theocracy as blunt as brutal as Iran is a plus for those wanting democracy”

Hardly a vote in favour of the regime. Nandor Tanczos just seems to say that Ahmadinejad does have significant support, which seems probable – populist nationalists with a social welfare programme tend to gain support, particularly in places where cynicism regarding the established political system is high. That doesn’t mean the election wasn’t fixed.

Iran isn’t a democracy – there are some quasi-democratic systems in place though, otherwise Khatami wouldn’t have been elected. The religious elite doesn’t exercise complete control by a long shot – too many educated, grumpy people opposing them.
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June 17, 2009 5:47pm
Neil

To Sam, Khatamei was not elected by universal suffrage. Rather by the Electoral College of aged Clerics. Hardly democracy.
Having an unelected Supreme Leader means that the Iranian regime does what it likes !
Think of a person that did that 30 years ago- Rhiza Pahlavi, the Shah.
What happened to him and his illegal dynasty ?
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June 17, 2009 6:01pm
Neil

A quick addition to the post.
The Electoral College has the right to ban candidates from standing if they oppose the Iranian theocracy or have divergent opinions.
Real democracy indeed !
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June 17, 2009 6:06pm
Sam Buchanan

Well, Khatami had to get the Council of Guardians approval to run as a candidate, but he still beat the conservative candidate Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri in the election in 1997 – my point is that he did get elected over the religious establishment’s favoured candidate. Like I said – some elements of the Iranian government are quasi-democratic.
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June 17, 2009 6:13pm
Hurf Durf

Yes, these are part of a series of posters from that organisation. There are two others, featuring Kim Jong-Il and Chavez. Very funny, so long as you’re not an anti-Western leftist.
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June 17, 2009 6:25pm
Neil

Once again there is confusion over similar names.
Sam is correct, Khatami was elected as Iran’s president in about 2 000. He was a liberal(Iranian style) but was a great disappointment because Supreme Leader Khamanei vetoed all his legislation.
The names are so close, there is dreadful confusion.
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June 17, 2009 6:40pm
Gosman

Just for Mr Buchanan who seems to think that Tumeke’s Mr Bradbury’s is posting comments that are decrying the lack of democracy in Iran. Here is my analysis of his original post on the subject here (https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=12465152&postID=5113467743233983320&isPopup=true). Please note how many times he makes some gross assumptions which imply this election was somehow democratic.

“…it is a momentous change in public debate and is a positive event for Iranian democracy that has far reaching implications beyond this result”

Uh… no. It might be a positive event for Iranian politics but as Iran is not a democracy by a long shot it doesn’t affect Iranian democracy much at all.

“…Is it frustrating when the population vote overwhelmingly for the wrong person, sure is, but that’s democracy,”

As Iran isn’t a democracy then trying to equate the ‘win’ by Ahmadinejad to someone you dislike winning an election is quite ridiculous.

“…yes there are claims of voter fraud which need to be investigated but Iran has a recent history of pretty fair elections”

Aside from the fact that Mr Bradbury has no evidence to back this up other than saying he saw someone making this claim on CNN the other day fair elections cannot occur in Iran as it is a brutal totalitarian state. His statement here would be like claiming that the Soviet Union used to hold pretty fair elections when they only put forward Communist party members.

“…and even with voter fraud taken into account it looks like the popular will of the Iranian people has been expressed.”

Jeeze it seems that Iran is now being held up as a paragon of democrativ virtue. I wonder how Mr Bradbury knows that the popular will of the Iranian people has been expressed when they HAVEN”T GOT THE RIGHT TO VOTE for whoever they want to.

“…I think Ahmadinejad is like Bush, ill tempered and stupid”

Except Bush was elected under a democratic system. Sure it might be a flawed democratic system, and his first election was hotly contested, but it wasn’t under a totalitarian theocratic dictatorship such as Iran. Big difference there I think.

“…Change can only happen when you bring the people with you and the majority of Iranians aren’t ready yet to embrace democracy minus total domination of a theocracy.”

Once again it is interesting that Mr Bradbury seems to be able to tap into what the Iranian people really want when they aren’t allowed to express what they want under a totalitarian theocratic dictatorship.

“…Mousavi supporters should take heart that they have played a major role in pushing those reforms forward, the battle for democracy is never an easy one”

Considering Mousavi is a product and tool of the Iranian regime I am unsure why anybody thinks that he stands for a more democratic Iran. Until Iranians are willing to open up the political space for all but a narrow range of views supportive of Islamo-fascism there is no chance of ‘reforem’ in that country.

By my count that is at least seven references to democracy which imply that what happened in Iran over the last weekend somehow approximated to what passes for the democratic process in the West.

It seems clear to me that Mr Bradbury is an apologist for brutal Islamic theocracy and also stolen elections.
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June 17, 2009 7:26pm
Gosman

Have a look at the following post from Tumeke. It is quite clear that Mr Bradbury is trying to imply that Mr Ahmadinejad has some sort of democratic legitimacy.

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=12465152&postID=5113467743233983320&isPopup=true

You might wish to accept this blantant fabrication Mr Buchanan but I prefer not to be an apologist for brutal Islamic dictators.
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June 17, 2009 7:30pm

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