General Middle East & North Africa Thread

Iran has been remarkably stable since the war with Saddam. I'm still impressed at how modernized, relatively speaking, it is. If you remove the sanctions, their productivity will expand dramatically.

Rouhani wants that productivity back. He wants Iran back on its feet and ready to stabilize Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Afghanistan. Man, I want to see an age where Americans and Iranians go to Tehran and New York City without anybody saying "Terrorist!" or "Imperialist!"

I doubt it'll happen, though. The Shah was the friendliest America and Iran ever were, and that was... problematic.

Indeed, they are. For the Middle East, Iran has a remarkably well-developed society.

It'll require more than sanction-removal, though. The power elites have been using Western goods and control over the country's sexuality^note It's an open secret that Iran's been wooing a lot of Iraqi officials and powerbrokers by arranging temporary marriages for them with Iranian girls, among other tricks, as means of keeping their people controlled and bribed and expanding their influence regionally, and that will have to be addressed somehow. Sanction removal will help, but not if it just increases the flow of Western goods into the hands of the people with the oil.

That is the problem with a theocracy. Before Khomeini, Iran with Mossadegh was very much like America - a secularist state with fundamentalists having some influence, but not much authority. The ouster of Mossadegh and the reinstalling of the Shah screwed that over royally.

Most of Iran's population (like, 60%) is under 40. Most of them don't really give a damn about going to the mosque. Several women wear the hijab, sure, but with different colors and twirled to expose parts of their hair. Stuff like that, along with guys like Khatami, makes me wonder if an internal regime change could turn Iran back into a secularist state.

I thought that the Shah wasn't that religious? It certainly wasn't a theocracy.

edited 31st Jan '14 3:24:10 AM by Greenmantle

He wasn't religious. Which is exactly why Khomeini started the Islamic Revolution to begin with.

Rouhani plans to implement universal healthcare for all Iranians by 2018. He said it'll be funded by cuts to government subsidies. This was in response to the confusion borne from citizens getting the wrong types of medical assistance, not finding accurate directions to hospitals, or different doctors than they were told (some of this happens, but wasn't mentioned in the article). http://www.theguardian.com/world/iran-blog/2014/feb/06/iran-president-hassan-rouhani-healthcare-obamacare

In addition, Rouhani's government is giving out food packages for millions of lower income Iranian citizens. It's his way of solving a food rationing issue that's been going on since Ahmadinejad. Inflation for food, meaning taxes on food, has been reduced from 42 to 37 percent under Rouhani due to this decision. http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/02/04/world/middleeast/irans-government-begins-handing-out-food-packages.html?_r=0&referrer=

In more Iran news, Rouhani is looking to reduce the military capabilities of one of his nuclear reactors. He was the head of the Arak nuclear program under Khatami, after all, so he has the most knowledge regarding it. http://world.time.com/2014/02/06/iran-reducing-military-potential-arak-reactor/

edited 6th Feb '14 10:44:45 PM by Sledgesaul

Apparently, our esteemed government has decreed that anyone who raises the Rabia flag or overtly declares support of or sympathy with the Anti-Coup movement in Egypt is a "terrorist" and/or "seditionist" who will be spared no quarter. -_-

Your schadenfreude for today.

...That's almost straight out of Four Lions. :|

There's a video on liveleak of two Taliban killing themselves with their own roadside bomb, whilst a circling US Apache pilot laughs at them. It's more common than you think.

Reminds me of Billy Connolly's great sketch: "Suicide fuckin' bombing, there's a bright idea! I want tae see the instructor: "'Pay attention lads, I'm only gonna show you this once!'"

edited 11th Feb '14 2:25:25 AM by Achaemenid

It was so common there was a term for this from The Troubles — an "Own Goal".

Two Iranian Naval Vessels are set to sail near US Waters Oh how scary./Scarcasm

Too bad it's not hurricane season...

They're a green water navy at best (at 1500 tons their one warship in that flotilla is smaller than the USN's Fletcher class destroyers from WW 2, and it's not exactly a spring chicken given it was originally an RN ship from that same conflict IIRC), they don't need much stronger than a stiff breeze to cause them trouble, especially if their gear wasn't well-maintained in the first place... which isn't exactly a common trait for militaries fielded by dictatorships with delusions of adequacy.

edited 11th Feb '14 11:49:23 PM by Nohbody

Not quite. Some of the most capable vessels in the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy are the Moudge-class frigate; descendants of 1970s-built British light frigates.

It's probably good to note that no way in hell is Iran actually going to try a sea war against America. I mean, capital ship naval combat? That's the definitive example of pure conventional war, the kind of conflict America could trivially defeat nearly any nation in the world in. Iran's leaders are not complete fruitcakes.

Iran's fleet construction program is targeted towards threatening the Gulf states and, if worse comes to worst, a throw-down with the Royal Saudi Navy. As it stands, the latter are just looking into acquiring destroyers, so it stands to reason that Iran might want some excessively-phallic battle craft of their own.

I've noticed that naval exercises in front of a hostile country are sometimes used as a particularly expensive type of middle finger. That's probably what this is about.

Gunboat Diplomacy?

Only really when the other country is an ant you could squish with your middle finger, most of the time it's just a rude gesture.

Also X5 I'd question the idea of referring to Iran as a dictatorship, it's more a slow changing semi-democracy with many authoritarian elements. While the country's democracy is limited by things like the Guardian Council it does have genuinely democratic parts.

edited 12th Feb '14 1:47:30 AM by SilasW

Hadn't you heard? They're the Axis of Evol and thus cannot possibly be anything other than incompetant tyrant wannabes.

That said, Iran's probably trying to say they're all blue water now and stuff. Which is probably not true now, but is perhaps a goal for the near future. Neighboring Pakistan has been doing the same, making ado of sending a ship all the way to Turkey and back and possibly buying new(er) submarines. Add to it RSN ambitions, and it makes sense.

Axis of Evol?

I'd question the idea of referring to Iran as a dictatorship, it's more a slow changing semi-democracy with many authoritarian elements. While the country's democracy is limited by things like the Guardian Council it does have genuinely democratic parts.

Those "genuinely democratic parts" are primarily window dressing or things that don't matter that much outside Iran's borders (and not that much within them for important stuff). The Soviet Union had a parliament and a constitution as well, both of which were also readily ignored when it suited the needs of The Party.

My characterizing Iran as a dictatorship has nothing to do with "Axis of evol" [sic] or other strawman representations of my positions, and everything to do with calling a spade a fucking shovel.

That said, I will grant that in general they at least grasp the concept that "insh'allah" (or however you want to transliterate it) is a really lousy maintenance plan, and they have been keeping at least some of the F-14s from before the fall of the Shah up and running in spite of a parts embargo, and not all of it from cannibalizing some to keep others flying.

I wouldn't suggest to others to hold much hope for their little promenade being something more than the punchline to a badly told joke, however.

edited 12th Feb '14 5:05:06 AM by Nohbody

Wasn't strawmanning you in particular, but the general notion that just because they're a little more honest about their balance of powers, their democracy means less. Compare and contrast to the US and the rest of the West, stripping away rhetoric, and they're not too different in practice, to the point where to call out their democratic traditions would be akin to being the pot to their kettle.

Then of course, compare them to the Arab republics or Iran's fellow Islamic republics in neighboring Afghanistan and Pakistan, and they're downright liberal by comparison.

So forgive my sarcasm, but the West really needs to stop with the high horse schtick.

The parliament of Iran has real power when it comes to checking the executive, which is run by a elected president. The Supreme Leader is the really undemocratic one (though he is actually appointed and 'checked' by an elected group) and he is actually limited by his need to be always seen as above politics.

As for the Guardian Council, while it's bad with the limits it puts on who can run in elections it is in many ways just a worse and formal version of what both the US and UK do via their voting systems. The forcing of people towards a general idealogical trend is done by making only candidates from the mainstream parties viable, both with First Past The Post voting and (in the US) the massive need for backing by big business.

Now neither the US or UK informal systems are as bad as Iran's formal one, but I don't think there is as much in it as we'd like to think.

Libya's a hellhole now. The prime minister was kidnapped by militants recently,