New York, NY
This is what frightened little men do. At the sign of people exercising their right to live, work, love, and vote in freedom, they shut down the system. The pathetic cabal of “holy men” who run Iran must be apoplectic at the thought that their hand-picked stooge – Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – may have lost last week’s presidential election to the moderate Mir Hossein Moussavi. As a result, they rigged the election in favor of their boy and denied what is likely to have been a majority of Iranians – a great Persian people who are as westward leaning as any in the Middle East – their choice of leader. In quintessential Ahmadinejad fashion, however, their vote-rigging was done so clumsily and awkwardly so as to have blown their cover.
These characters are now predictably resorting to the totalitarian playbook, expelling western journalists and cutting access to websites and cellular networks. People like these in leadership positions – one cannot seriously call them leaders – who fear the freedom to think and communicate openly and seek to block the unrelenting advance of technology are doomed. The only question becomes, how long will they cling to power? No country today can turn a deaf ear much longer to the aspirations of its young people, and 70% of Iran’s population is under age 30. No country today can deny much longer the rights of women who comprise more than 50% of its population and over 60% of its college graduates.
The events now unfolding in Tehran will prove truly historic. Either these frightened little men will be forced to cede power and relax their holy dictatorship over the next several years or, more likely, they will become more brutal and isolated enroute to relinquishing power a decade or more from now. Either way, the deed is done and the deal is sealed. For Iran, quite simply, there is no turning back.
This is what frightened little men do. At the sign of people exercising their right to live, work, love, and vote in freedom, they shut down the system. The pathetic cabal of “holy men” who run Iran must be apoplectic at the thought that their hand-picked stooge – Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – may have lost last week’s presidential election to the moderate Mir Hossein Moussavi. As a result, they rigged the election in favor of their boy and denied what is likely to have been a majority of Iranians – a great Persian people who are as westward leaning as any in the Middle East – their choice of leader. In quintessential Ahmadinejad fashion, however, their vote-rigging was done so clumsily and awkwardly so as to have blown their cover.
These characters are now predictably resorting to the totalitarian playbook, expelling western journalists and cutting access to websites and cellular networks. People like these in leadership positions – one cannot seriously call them leaders – who fear the freedom to think and communicate openly and seek to block the unrelenting advance of technology are doomed. The only question becomes, how long will they cling to power? No country today can turn a deaf ear much longer to the aspirations of its young people, and 70% of Iran’s population is under age 30. No country today can deny much longer the rights of women who comprise more than 50% of its population and over 60% of its college graduates.
The events now unfolding in Tehran will prove truly historic. Either these frightened little men will be forced to cede power and relax their holy dictatorship over the next several years or, more likely, they will become more brutal and isolated enroute to relinquishing power a decade or more from now. Either way, the deed is done and the deal is sealed. For Iran, quite simply, there is no turning back.