Do Iranian Privates Care a Whit About Obama?

(bumped up from yesterday)

Remember the laurels being heaped on Obama two weeks ago after the Cairo speech? it was the “Obama effect.” Yep, Messiah boy was transforming the world just by speaking. He was, according to the MSNBC Cheerleading Pom Pom Squad, swinging elections. But the folks at the Daily Show did not see it that way:

Of course now we have the “Obama Ineffect” or maybe it is the Obama “Laissez Faire Effect?”

We have gone from Obama moving the world (but not really) to Obama not moving or changing what some believe he could. So what can and should Barack be doing vis-a-vis Iran? What can he do? Not much.

Let’s debunk the notion that Obama’s speech in Cairo had any relevance in Iran. Iranians are not Arabs and they are not Sunni Muslims. Deluding yourself with the notion that Obama’s speech was outreach to Muslims is akin to believing that an Obama speech at the Vatican would boost his standing among Southern Baptists. Please.

Obama had little influence over the electoral outcome in Iran (no matter what the cable news crazies want to believe) and, by the same token, there is little he/we can do to change the dynamics in Iran.

The old saw, “All Politics is Local” applies just as well in Tehran, Iran and it does in Chicago, Illinois. Let’s also remember what happens when police get called to a domestic disturbance. A big drunken lout is bashing the shit out of his wife or girlfriend. He’s probably raped her too and is using her for a punching bag. Cops roll in and what happens?

a) The distraught woman runs into the arms of the noble police who in turn taser the shit out of the brute

b) The cops try to separate the two and in the process get rough with the wife-beating asshole

c) As the cops start tuning up the drunken fool the abused wife/girlfriend jumps back into the fray and begins attacking the cops.

If you answered C you are a winner. Guess what? The same applies to Iran. We might feel better about ourselves for trying to insert ourselves into this matter but to the extent that outside influence can be portrayed as the source of the unrest and blamed for the violence then the government of Ahmadinejad will have a convenient villain to blame–us (as in USA).

It does not matter what the Privates in the Iranian Army think about Obama. But it does matter what they think about killing Iranian men and women who are roughly their age. Well over 60% of Iran is under the age of 30. Only about 30% of Iranians have living memory of the Iranian revolution of 1979. While neo-cons eager for a war with Iran love to portray Iran as a reincarnation of Hitler’s Germany the fact is that most of the population is not obsessed with Shia fundamentalism. A Shia Muslim Iran is far more open and dynamic than say a Sunni Saudi Arabia.

So where do we go from here? I don’t know. The key remains the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the rest of the military and police forces. If they are willing to use violence to break up demonstrations and imprison the leaders of the protests then game over, at least for now. But if a significant portion of the leadership of the organizations that control the guns and jails start pushing back against the repression then the reign of the conservative mullahs may be coming to an end.

If you want the best view of what is going on in Iran watch the BCC and ignore the US cable news cheerleaders and riot instigators. They really don’t give a shit what is happening in Iran. They just love a fight. It gives them new grist for their version of Fight Club.