The Middle East Explodes...

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 6:15 am

mean liar wrote:with possible implications for the actually-democratic Hezbollah-ruled Lebanon

You do know that Lebanon has no government right now because the Hezbollah members of the cabinet walked out (along with a Druze ally), thus causing the government to fall apart? And this was all because Hezbollah demanded that the PM tell the UN Tribunal investigating the death of his father (and former PM) to go screw itself because they didn't want any of their members arrested.

Of all countries, the Hezbollah dominated Lebanon is the one I see least likely to come out OK from all of this. I think the Shiite backers from Iran and Syria are going to take it over hard.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 6:31 am

In general, if you inspect a graph closer, you should read the axes, not just look at the pretty colored lines.

-Username17

In general, you should link an actual article, rather than some vague graph that says "Years before crisis" on the X axis, without saying that "crisis" actually refers to 3 different years, and does not bother to say what these 3 different years actually are.

Especially when the "crisis" year is actually one of the key variables to be considered. Assuming Year 0 for Egypt is 2010 (the election year), then there should really be no dip in the GDP - the elections happened in DECEMBER 2010 and thus would have little effect on the economy.

In contrast, Suharto resigned in May 2008. That's the middle of the year and plenty of time for the economy to get fucked up by the crisis.

This frankly looks to be a very, very wrong analysis on many levels.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 6:52 am

Zinegata wrote:
In general, if you inspect a graph closer, you should read the axes, not just look at the pretty colored lines.

-Username17
In general, you should link an actual article, rather than some vague graph that says "Years before crisis" on the X axis, without saying that "crisis" actually refers to 3 different years, and does not bother to say what these 3 different years actually are.

Especially when the "crisis" year is actually one of the key variables to be considered. Assuming Year 0 for Egypt is 2010 (the election year), then there should really be no dip in the GDP - the elections happened in DECEMBER 2010 and thus would have little effect on the economy.

In contrast, Suharto resigned in May 2008. That's the middle of the year and plenty of time for the economy to get fucked up by the crisis.

This frankly looks to be a very, very wrong analysis on many levels.

WTF? Can you just admit that your original criticism was based on misreading the graph and move on with your life? The time of year that riots began is completely meaningless, because the graph is set to actual amounts of time before the riots. So if riots started in May, then "one year before" is May of the previous year to May of that year. The beginnings and endings of calendars are completely irrelevant.

Also, you're displaying a marked lack of understanding of the situations. Suharto died in 2008. That was the end of his life, not the time he resigned. He resigned in 1998 during the Asian Financial Crisis. Seriously, do you not remember that? You're so confused about this issue that you actually thought that the Indonesian Fuel Crisis happened during the runup to Barack Obama's election? Seriously? You couldn't get all the way through the first sentence in his wikipedia article before you started spinning a contrived scenario where you could have been right the whole time?

You're just digging yourself deeper and deeper. You misread the graph and started spouting irrelevant nonsense. Admit that and move on. The point is merely that the economic catastrophes that preceded the removal of Marcos and Suharto are not present in Egypt and that the comparisons between these situations are thin. That is all.

-Username17

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 7:37 am

FrankTrollman wrote: WTF? Can you just admit that your original criticism was based on misreading the graph and move on with your life?

I asked, rather reasonably, for the link to the article containing this graph. As the graph is pretty ambigious.

But no.... Frank Trollman's trying to make this about him being ALPHA DOG again. That we should just "take his word for it" and accept his wisdom and get on with our lives.

Sheesh, grow up.

The time of year that riots began is completely meaningless, because the graph is set to actual amounts of time before the riots. So if riots started in May, then "one year before" is May of the previous year to May of that year. The beginnings and endings of calendars are completely irrelevant.

Your graph seriously does not say that. Link the actual fucking article so I can take a look at how this works. What year and MONTH are year zero for all three cases?

Because again, the data looks suspiciously like year start-to-end figures, and not based on particular month/year. The GDP growth for Egypt in 2009 is 4.7%. That's about where the graph is at Egypt's Year -1.

As for the Philippines? Here are our start-to-end year GDP growth figures:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Economy

1986 (Year Zero): 3.41
1985 (Year -1): -7.3
1984 (Year -2): -7.32
1983 (Year -3): 1.8

The graph, by contrast, shows:

Year 0: Around 3% growth
Year -1: Around -7%
Year -2: Around -7%
Year -3: Around 1-2%

Notice the similarity? They are almost exactly the January-December GDP figures, NOT the midyear to midyear figures as Frank claims.

Note that Ferdinand Marcos left office in February 1986. That means Year Zero should cover Feb 1985, to Feb 1986. That's only a few months off from Jan-Dec 1985, but we posted -7% in that year.

Instead, the Year 0 figures show 3% growth - which is the Jan-Dec figures for 1986.

In fact, fuck it. I'm gonna say it straight out: Frank made shit up because he posted an ambiguous graph that's so wrong on many levels. Why? Scroll down to the next part.

------

Picking 1986 as the "start" (Year Zero) of the crisis in the Philippines is wrong. Because that year was actually the END of the crisis.

The start of the crisis was August 1983 when Benigno Aquino was assassinated. The Philippines then experienced several years of turmoil until Marcos gave up and left in '86.

And guess what? The chart dips for the Philippines starting Year -3, or 1983. And it starts going back up again in '86, or Year 0.

In short, whoever made this graph picked the wrong start date for at least one of the countries. Instead of showing what happened before a crisis in the Philippines, it instead showed the entirety of a crisis from start to finish.

In fact, all the graph seems to be saying is "Your economy will dip when people are rioting in the streets and there is political uncertainty!", as the periods of economic dips ALL correspond to times in the Philippines and Indonesia were experiencing a lot of rioting and civil disobedience. Egypt, obviously would show ZERO economic downturn because the riots have barely started.

D'uh!

This totally does NOT prove Frank's contention that "there was no downturn before the crisis".

-----

A lesson for everyone: Any chart that puts economic data side by side, but when the X-axis is actually meant to represent different years for each data set, is questionable. Because it readily falls prey to apples vs oranges comparison.

You're just digging yourself deeper and deeper. You misread the graph and started spouting irrelevant nonsense. Admit that and move on. The point is merely that the economic catastrophes that preceded the removal of Marcos and Suharto are not present in Egypt and that the comparisons between these situations are thin. That is all.

-Username17

No, I'm pointing out the graph is ambigious and possibly on a prety shitty premise, and I asked for a the article that contains it so I can have all the fact and figures about the graph.

Instead, you keep "trumping" me based on "facts" that seriously are NOT written on the graph and you keep pulling out of thin air.

Again. What did I suggest you to do? Link an actual fucking article that explains the whole thing. That is a reasonable request.

But no... You go "I AM THE KING OF THE DEN HOW DARE YOU DEFY ME" again like the fucking baby that you are.

Grow up.

-----

tl;dr: Frank's graph is comparing apples and oranges. I'd like to see the whole article to be sure, but he'd rather shout at me and pull facts out of thin air than provide a link.

Editted for brevity

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 11:07 am

Zinegata wrote:But no... You go "I AM THE KING OF THE DEN HOW DARE YOU DEFY ME"

No, Zine. Koumei is King of the Den, Frank is a Serious Badass.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 11:40 am

Starmaker wrote:No, Zine. Koumei is King of the Den

And let nobody forget it!

(Next step: Overlord, so I can rule over my own Netherworld)

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 1:59 pm

Zinegata wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:Iran started as a socialist revolution. Americans decided that they'd rather deal with religious fanatics than potential Soviet sympathizers, and here we are.
Uh, what?

Frank's position is, again, blatant revisionism that is only being peddled by biased sites like www.socialist.net. Which is barely an improvement from his "Turkish Missile Crisis" wherein he's the only one using the term outside of alternate history speculators.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution

.. snip...

You cannot fake several million people showing up on the streets in support of Khomenei. This was not the CIA orchestrating some coup to replace a noble socialist revolution with an Islamic fundamentalist regime. Nor could the US really have done a whole lot when 3 million people show up and demand Khomenei become king.

From start to finish, religious figures played a major part of the Iranian revolution - and they're the ones who eventually won not because they were supported by the US, but because they had enormous support on the ground.

... snip ...

Heck, even the Marxist writers back in '79 admit that Khomenei was gonna win, and not because of US support or lack of support for the opposition:

http://www.marxist.com/iranian-revoluti ... 090279.htm

At best, you can make the case that the Iranian revolution was initially secular-socialist in nature, and that it morphed on its own into a fundamentalist regime after an internal power struggle. But even that would already be a hard sell, because again you've got 3 million people coming out for Khomenei alone.

And either way, Iran's fundamentalist government is a product of their own society. There was little anyone outside of Iran could have done about it.

Stuff that happened between the US and Iran later - such as Iran-Contra - was based on the reality of Iran being fundamentalist and no one being able to do anything about it. Not because of the US's unwillingness to deal with socialist regimes in favor of Islamic ones.

You conveniently forgot how the Shah of Iran got put into power in the first place.

The 1953 Iranian coup d'état, on August 19, 1953 (known as the 28 Mordad coup[1] in Iran), was the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh orchestrated by the intelligence agencies of the United Kingdom and the United States.[2] The coup launched 26 years of dictatorship under Mohammad-Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, who relied heavily on U.S. support to hold on to power until the Shah himself was overthrown in February 1979.[3]

During his time as prime minister, a wide range of progressive social reforms were carried out. Unemployment compensation was introduced, factory owners were ordered to pay benefits to sick and injured workers, and peasants were freed from forced labor in their landlords' estates. Twenty percent of the money landlords received in rent was placed in a fund to pay for development projects such as public baths, rural housing, and pest control.

He is most famous as the architect of the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry, which had been under British control since 1913 through the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) (later British Petroleum or BP).

For that, the CIA organized a Coup and put the FUCKING SHAH in power.
SO, Frank is completely right, and correct, he just left out some steps.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 2:05 pm

sabs->

You do realize we're talking about the revolution in 1979, yes? The one that deposed the Shah - the very guy you're talking about who was put into power by the CIA?

We're not talking about the '53 coup. So unless you can show evidence that the CIA was paying Khomenei to shout "Death to America" to prevent a socialist government Iran, I'm gonna have to just stare at you blankly and wonder what you're smoking.

Because this isn't just "missing some steps". This is talking about a completely different regime change.

Starmaker wrote:
Zinegata wrote:But no... You go "I AM THE KING OF THE DEN HOW DARE YOU DEFY ME"
No, Zine. Koumei is King of the Den, Frank is a Serious Badass.

Pffft. I didn't vote for either of them!

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 2:06 pm

You're missing a closing quote tag, Koumei.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 2:10 pm

I do know we're talking about the 1979 Revolution.

The 1979 revolution happened because the US got rid of Iran's Democratically elected Government and replaced it with a brutal dictatorship. All because the US was getting it's dick sucked by Big Oil.

That is the root cause of the 1979 Revolution.

The US obviously didn't WANT the Islamic Revolution, they put the Shah in power in the first place.

Re-reading Frank's quote.. okay.. the 1979 revolution didn't start as a Socialist one, and got morphed into a fundemental islamic one.

The US decided they didn't want to deal with Socialists in 1953.
But you can't talk about the 1979 revolution without talking about the 1953 coup. Because they are completely inter-related.
You said that the 1979 revolution was all internal issues and nothing from the outside could have affected it. And I'm calling bullshit on that.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 2:22 pm

sabs wrote:Re-reading Frank's quote.. okay.. the 1979 revolution didn't start as a Socialist one, and got morphed into a fundemental islamic one.

The US decided they didn't want to deal with Socialists in 1953.
But you can't talk about the 1979 revolution without talking about the 1953 coup. Because they are completely inter-related.
You said that the 1979 revolution was all internal issues and nothing from the outside could have affected it. And I'm calling bullshit on that.

Uh, hello? Notice the 26 year gap between 1953 and 1979? Do you want Jimmy Carter to go back in time and tell Eisenhower "Don't coup Iran! They will turn fundamentalist instead in 26 years!"

The best that you can do is to say "The fundamentalist movement in Iran is partly the West's doing, because they supported the Shah who repressed his own people." Which is okay. What I said certainly doesn't deny the West's complicity in the '53 coup.

But again, that's completely different from what Frank actually said, and completely tangential from what I (and mean_liar) both find to be a travesty of historical facts:

Iran started as a socialist revolution. Americans decided that they'd rather deal with religious fanatics than potential Soviet sympathizers, and here we are.

The historical record is very clear: America wanted to deal with the Shah, not religious fanatics OR socialists. Claiming that America wanted to support Khomenie rather than socialists is crazy - even assuming the West could have done anything in 1979.

So sorry, but you're wasting your time trying to counter an argument that I'm not even trying to make.

Feel free spitting bullshit at empty space.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 2:57 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:Tzor, you just killed your own argument. The theory you linked to was that American monetary policy was driving up the cost of commodities and that higher commodity prices were squeezing the Egyptian people.

Really? I thought he was making a "tipping point" argument.

To be fair, not all of the food inflation can be blamed on the Fed. A good part of this problem can also be placed at the doorstep of bipartisan U.S. policies to subsidize ethanol.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 3:48 pm

Tzor, the guy you are quoting is claiming that US policies are causing unrest in Egypt. The mechanism he is suggesting for this is one where US policy pushes commodity prices up, and this destabilizes the economy in Egypt.

There is a lot wrong with this argument. Let's count them:

Kudlow Claims:

US Dollar devaluations drive the prices of commodities up in Egypt.
Reality: Not all commodity prices are going up. And those that are (Rubber, Iron, Wheat) have perfectly reasonable Supply/Demand reasons to be going up.
Theory: Devaluations of the dollar drive the prices of things up in dollars. But this isn't just the price of rubber, gold, and cheese, it's also foreign currency. The dollar getting weaker doesn't make the price of anything denominated in Egyptian Pounds change. They are a different country and have their own monetary policy. If people lacked confidence in the dollar, there would be a small rush into Egyptian Pounds, meaning that their purchasing power of iron and salt would improve in dollar denominated markets.
Rising wheat prices hurt Egypt's economy by making it hard to buy food.
Reality: Egypt has had huge heat waves that have destroyed large amounts of their wheat crop. While nowhere near as important to the world wheat economy as the fires in Russia, the real causality is the other direction entirely. Egypt has less money because they are putting less wheat on the market, because they have less wheat.
Theory: Egypt has price controls on domestic wheat and is a major exporter of wheat. A rising wheat price sends more money into Egypt and has no effect at all on the price of food inside the country.
Rising commodity prices are causing unrest in Egypt.
Reality: Egypt had less unrest two years ago when commodity prices were higher. There are no food riots in Egypt. They weathered the 2008 World Food Crisis unscathed because the Egyptian government has automatic subsidies to keep the price of food down. The growth rate in Egypt is decent and fairly stable over the last couple of years. There is no evidence at all of commodity price driven hardship in Egypt.
Theory: Egypt is an exporting nation. An "emerging market" if you want to use those terms. With price controls on key items. When the world commodity prices rise, Egypt's economy benefits and its people don't pay higher prices at the grocery store. Rising commodity prices in abstract are good for Egypt.
US economic policy is making things difficult for democracy movements around the world.
Reality: WTF? No it isn't.
Theory: If we were to grant that US economic policy had any measurable effect on the price of wheat in Egypt and we pretended that these effects were leading to the unrest, then the opposite would be true. US Economic policy would be helping democracy movements, because the democracy movement is stronger now than it has been in decades.

So... the guy is wrong. No, he's not even wrong, he is a liar. Because it is not possible to look up that many factoids and still get the correlations and causations that wrong on accident.

-Username17

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 3:55 pm

EDIT - Well,

Code: Select all

&#91;/quote&#93;&#91;/quote&#93;&#91;/quote&#93;&#91;/quote&#93;&#91;/quote&#93;&#91;/quote&#93;

didn't do anything.

You're missing a closing quote tag, Koumei.

Maj wrote:
mean liar wrote:with possible implications for the actually-democratic Hezbollah-ruled Lebanon
You do know that Lebanon has no government right now because the Hezbollah members of the cabinet walked out (along with a Druze ally), thus causing the government to fall apart? And this was all because Hezbollah demanded that the PM tell the UN Tribunal investigating the death of his father (and former PM) to go screw itself because they didn't want any of their members arrested.

Of all countries, the Hezbollah dominated Lebanon is the one I see least likely to come out OK from all of this. I think the Shiite backers from Iran and Syria are going to take it over hard.

This is exactly what I was referring to. "Not having a government" is a lot more stark to the US, but its a parliamentary system and occasionally the government collapses. Hezbollah IS the Shi'ite-backed Iranian-funded party, and I would be very surprised if they didn't come to rule Lebanon's next government as the populist choice.

sabs wrote: SO, Frank is completely right, and correct, he just left out some steps.

sabs, you are a complete idiot. Zinegata hit all the high points on the facts at hand, so I'll just add this: Frank can say all kinds of shit and be right and be wrong and have opinions in agreement or at odds with the majority just like anyone, but desperate rationalization enacted to prevent cognitive dissonance is always going to be fucking pathetic.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 4:59 pm

I thought Frank was referring to the US not being happy with the slightly Socialist Government of Iran from 51-53. Which dovetailed into the US setting up the Shah, whose rule lead to the Islamic Revolution.

Apparently, he was instead smoking some crack about the US backing the Islamic Revolution in 79, because that was better than a Socialist Revolution. Which I admit, is pretty cracksmoking.

Zinega wrote:

And either way, Iran's fundamentalist government is a product of their own society. There was little anyone outside of Iran could have done about it.

And that's what I was arguing against. That's crap. By the time you get to 1979, that's probably true. But there was /plenty/ of time in the 20 years before that to have done something to stop it. The US has time and time again supported BAD regimes, in order to further Corporate interests. And then Americans act all surprised when 15-20 years later it comes back to bite them in the ass.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 6:38 pm

The Shah is a pretty clear example of the US official policy being that repressive fascists were better than democratic socialists. But yes, I was talking about the 1979 revolution.

The 1979 revolution is fairly complex, with a lot of betrayals. Not the smallest betrayal is the whole "October Surprise" angle where Reagan's people shipped weaponry to the Ayatollah's goons. It is by no means settled as to why they did that, but I'm certainly not alone in believing that it was an agreement between the hard right in the US and Persia to give the weapons the Ayatollah's goon squad needed to squeeze the leftists out of the revolutionary government in exchange for embarrassing Carter with the hostage embassy just before the election.

The illegal gun shipments themselves, as well as the Ayatollah using them to murder members of democratic socialist factions in the revolution are part of the historical record. The reason why those things happened is pure speculation. But it's also only tangentially related to the task at hand. I mean, we could go on connecting dots between Reagan illegally shipping weapons to Khomeini and every president since completely legally shipping weapons to Mubarak - but neither event is especially related to the events in Egypt and Yemen today.

The US government has not been arming islamist terror cells since the early 90s. Unless you count Pakistan as an islamist terror cell, in which case we're still doing it.

-Username17

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 12:09 am

sabs wrote:Zinega wrote:
And either way, Iran's fundamentalist government is a product of their own society. There was little anyone outside of Iran could have done about it.
And that's what I was arguing against. That's crap. By the time you get to 1979, that's probably true.

For the last time...

I'm talking about the events of 1979. You admit straight out that it's true by 1979. So why are you still arguing it's crap when I'm not even arguing they couldn't have done something in 1953? Are you impervious to clarifications?

---------

Also, re Frank's "October Surprise" being a matter of historical record... he's looney. Let's take a look at where the wiki puts it, shall we?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_su ... acy_theory

Yeah. Wiki seriously files that under "conspiracy theory".

And regardless, I actually already mentioned this in my post too. Shipping arms to Iran as part of the hostage-freeing deal happened. But it happened after a fundamentalist government had already been set up.

So again, no matter how people try to spin it, no, the thesis falls apart.

If the US hadn't sent them guns (which they actually didn't. A quick look at the Iran-Contra manifest reveals most of the arms were heavy weapons for use against tanks and planes, not dissidents), the regime would have simply killed its opponents using knives and machetes. Or the huge piles of existing rifles, tanks, and planes that the Iranian army already had.

Eliminating political opponents does not require superpower arms support. Just enough viciousness on the part of the Iranian fundamentalist. Just look at Rwanda.

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 2:05 am

The October Surprise, such that it did happen, occurred in 1980-81. By the time it was supposedly underway, the Revolutionary Guard (and Hezbollah) under control of Khomeini was already conducting counter-revolutionary activities, the Guardian Council in place making Iran a theocracy, US hostages had been already taken, and most opposition parties were outlawed.

The October Surprise was, at best (worst?), a cynical attempt to make certain that the hostages weren't released before the US election.

I subscribe to the belief that the October Surprise was entirely real, but I don't think it was done to bolster Khomeini. I mean, at the same damn time the US is aiding Iraq to bolster their attack on Iran they're giving the Iranians satellite imagery. The US wasn't interested in bolstering Khomeini to spite the leftists - he'd already done that - they were interested in Iran and Iraq slitting each other's throats in a pyrrhic war.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 4:52 am

There are times when I generally accept the mantle of wacko crazy nutjob. Then Frank has to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is the king of the conspiracy theories.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 5:27 am

Do you guys do all your "research" on wikipedia, or do you ever read any primary sources at all? Like say, Persepolis? The idea that the 1979 revolution started as a socialist revolution comes from Iranian revolutionaries, not from me.

But seriously, it's a pretty damn minor point. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, the republicans were willing to make deals to secretly arm islamist goon squads. From Iran-Contra to Afghanistan, that is a matter of public record. I think the Republicans are a bunch of liars, but I don't think even they are willing to arm Islamic terrorist groups today. That was the complete point I was making earlier. Does anyone here seriously want to challenge any part of that idea?

If so, which is the part you are having issues with:

Premise: The Republicans shipped weapons to Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups in th 70s and 80s.
Premise: In the post 9/11 world, Republicans will not ship weapons to Islamic fundamentalist groups.
Conclusion: Islamic fundamentalist groups in Egypt will have a harder time taking over than fundamentalist groups had in Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Iran.

-Username17

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 6:19 am

FrankTrollman wrote:Do you guys do all your "research" on wikipedia, or do you ever read any primary sources at all? Like say, Persepolis? The idea that the 1979 revolution started as a socialist revolution comes from Iranian revolutionaries, not from me.

Uh, again, HELLO?

Aside from wikipedia, I've quoted to other sites - both with socialist leanings. One was an article from 1979, providing the Marxist take on the 1979 revolution.

http://www.marxist.com/iranian-revoluti ... 090279.htm

So attempting to portray your opponents as being unable to get "primary sources" is pretty dishonest. Especially when you're the one who has yet to post a single link or cite a single source.

This isn't even a pot calling a kettle black. This is Frank Trollman being a liar with his pants on fire.

But seriously, it's a pretty damn minor point. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, the republicans were willing to make deals to secretly arm islamist goon squads. From Iran-Contra to Afghanistan, that is a matter of public record. I think the Republicans are a bunch of liars, but I don't think even they are willing to arm Islamic terrorist groups today. That was the complete point I was making earlier. Does anyone here seriously want to challenge any part of that idea?

Do a search of this entire thread, and you'll find that Iran-Contra was actually first mentioned by me. And I explained exactly what the deal was, instead of your conspiracy theory fantasies.

And no, your point is still wrong. Because "making deals to release hostages" (Iran-Contra) is different from "arming Khomenei so that he can shoot up socialists" (the Frank Trollman version).

The only controversy that remains of Iran-Contra - which mean_liar pointed out - is whether they really timed the release of the hostages to spite Carter. Not whether or not it was the US wanting to squash socialists.

If so, which is the part you are having issues with:Premise: The Republicans shipped weapons to Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups in th 70s and 80s.

That's not what you said. This is what you said:

Iran started as a socialist revolution. Americans decided that they'd rather deal with religious fanatics than potential Soviet sympathizers, and here we are.

Republicans? Not in the original statement. You said "Americans".

"Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups"? Not in the original statement either. You were referring to Iran.

So again: We were talking about the US reponse to the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

Only now are you arbitrarily expanding the scope to cover the '53 Iranian revolution or the Afghan-Soviet war. And again, you can make a case that in both of those situations that the US intervened to counter pro-Soviet forces by funding religious extremists. I already told sab in the case of the '53 revolution that yes, the West fucked up a socialist government in favor of the Shah.

The existence of both of these events however, do NOT change the fact that your statement that the US supported Khomenei in favor of socialists during the 1979 revolution was a stupid assertion. Just because the US supported the Afghans doesn't mean they would support Khomenei, when again their man in Tehran was the Shah.

The only time the US "supported" Khomenei was Iran-Contra - yet I had already covered AND debunked as early as my first post. Iran-Contra happened AFTER the revolution was already over, and it was done mainly to save the hostages.

So right back at you: Just admit you were fucking wrong and shut the hell up.

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 6:23 am

Persepolis, written by a woman (who was something like eight years old at the time of the revolution, if I remember correctly) fascinated with socialism and connected to socialists and surrounded by middle class folk and with a real sad face for the religious fundamentalists, is full of socialists in the revolution. So, yes, Iranian socialists figure large in Persepolis.

The Iranian Revolution involved pretty much everyone, the middle class and socialists included. Just because they too thought the Shah needed to GTFO does not mean that the revolution itself was socialist. The Revolution started with religious fundamentalists (in '63 or '78, take your pick), was fueled by religious fundamentalists, was almost entirely led and organized by the religious fundamentalists, and was ultimately corralled by the religious fundamentalists to the extent that they were elected in a referendum. Just because a shitload of workers were involved and striking does not mean that the socialists get to say, "see, look: poor people, therefore this is a socialist revolution". The only widely-disseminated post-Shah plan for governance was Khomeini's, and the general populace widely thought it was fucking fantastic even before the serious counter-revolution started.

When you say shit like:

FrankTrollman wrote:Iran started as a socialist revolution. Americans decided that they'd rather deal with religious fanatics than potential Soviet sympathizers, and here we are.

FrankTrollman wrote:... I'm certainly not alone in believing that it was an agreement between the hard right in the US and Persia to give the weapons the Ayatollah's goon squad needed to squeeze the leftists out of the revolutionary government...

...you are wrong a few times over and deliberately spreading misinformed, unsupportable opinion as facts, and the idea that a well-established timeline showing that Khomeini was firmly in control by the time the US (possibly) got involved with the October Surprise is irrelevant in the face of Persepolis is just laughable.

You make a habit of calling people on this kind of shit all the time. Do you have any facts to support your opinion?

As for Egypt, I actually don't think there's much to discuss. The fundamentalists aren't coming to power there for a few reasons: Egypt probably isn't going to go full-bore democracy, the Muslim Brotherhood is generally conservative but not fundamentalist, and the army is still going to hold most of the cards. Its still a recipe for trouble, depending on how things go as far as their border patrols at Gaza, but they're not going to be able to throw down sharia or anything. I imagine that it'll probably look towards Turkey and their split-personality state.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 6:27 am

Egypt isn't turning fundamentalist simply because one in five Egyptians are Christians. That's simply too many people to gas without pissing off the rest of the population.

And the fact that Egyptians are PISSED at the Muslim Brotherhood in general for doing severe damage to the Egyptian tourism industry after a massacre in the late 90s (Can't recall if they call it the Giza massacre, I'll bring up a link when I have more time).

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 7:35 am

mean liar wrote:Hezbollah IS the Shi'ite-backed Iranian-funded party, and I would be very surprised if they didn't come to rule Lebanon's next government as the populist choice.

Populist choice? Hardly. Things in Lebanon have been surprisingly peaceful given what's been happening, but if Hezbollah actually dominates the government (Lebanon has a kinda cool power-sharing structure to combat sectarian bias), I'm betting civil war happens all over again.

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 7:59 am

I don't know how you don't figure them as the populist choice. They offer social benefits to the masses to rival the government and are considered by their supporters to be the pro-people anti-Western anti-elite anti-Israeli choice. Civil war might come to pass, but that's not an indicator that Hezbollah isn't populist or a heavyweight in their coalition, that's an indicator that a significant minority is willing to fight a war to combat Iranian and Syrian influence (and assassinations) in Lebanon.

Right now the March 14 coalition is spending a lot of effort trying to box in Miqati on the STL and Hezbollah weapons before announcing they quit (for reals this time). The fact that they're still dialoging after being fed an unceremonious boot AND are facing off against what are probably a bunch of goon-squad assassins and their irregular-army-larger-than-the-regular-army is a sign that there's at least a chance of reconciliation, since no one wants to go back to the bad old days, Hezbollah included.