01-13-2020, 10:43 PM
(01-13-2020, 01:37 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote:(01-13-2020, 12:48 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: > I once saw an interview of the son of the late Reza Shah Pahlavi
> II, and he said that he would function much like Juan Carlos of
> Spain... promoting a liberal and largely-secular Iran that
> respects the religious sensibilities of the People. Whatever that
> means...
Just promise the people whatever nonsense they want to hear, and then
forget about it when you get elected.
The last Shah of Iran was almost as violent and repressive as
Khomeini, so I don't expect much change.
---- Related:
** 9-Nov-15 World View -- Political crisis in Iran grows over nuclear agreement
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e151109
True about Reza Shah Pahlavi. Healthy social orders do not implode as did the absolutist-totalitarian hybrid of the Pahlavi monarchy. Would I trust his son? Not on his word alone. If the Crown Prince has around him the same sorts of people who are close to the ideology of his father and a desire to settle old scores more than to establish a Constitutional democracy* -- and there would be scores to settle -- then his claims to be a democrat are a fraud. Any Iranian democracy will need to repudiate both the tyranny of the Ayatollahs and of Reza Shah Pahlavi II, and perhaps Marxism and Islamofascism in any form.
Because the regime has resorted to shooting at peaceful protesters (that is a big difference between the Velvet Revolution of Czechoslovakia and the short civil war in Romania just a few days later) there will be no possibility of a peaceful transition of power. Note well that the United States warned the late Shah to not fire upon peaceful protesters.
* I would expect any Iranian democracy to have an Islamic tinge.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
