al-assad fall imminent: iran next. cj perverse

I don't think anybody can be any doubt that when Bashar Al-Assad falls, the regime in Iran will also be weakened. A few Iranians will criticise their Government for having supported the Syrian regime, and the Iranian regime will have its ability to project power to the "Arab street" somewhat reduced as a result, I expect.

Now Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, says:

'Inevitable end of Assad regime is approaching'

One minute video of him speaking here yesterday:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9442771/Syria-Inevitable-end-of-Assad-regime-is-approaching-says-Turkish-PM.html

The events in Syria should be a wake up call for Mr Jordinson not to dilute us out of Mehdiabad. He is behaving perversely, irrationally and dishonestly (the failure to mention the Mehdiabad dilution in the Quarterly yesterday). At the start Syria (just like Iran now) had no obvious opposition leaders and has been free to use as much violence as it pleases (different from Tunisia and Egypt who were restrained by being allies of the West?). While Iranians have satellite dishes and internet access, events in the region probably do influence things a little in Iran (the other Arab springs are not wholly mutually independent events like coin tosses or interest rate changes?).

Below is part of an article written under a pseudonym by an Iranian based in Teheran about what he thinks Khamenei has to do to survive (he won't do any of the things below in my view so I am confident the regime will be gone by the end of the year). BTW, the enrichment has been speeded up: they now produce 12 kgs of 20% enriched uranium every month.

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Almost everyone in Iran believes that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei holds the key to this complex and perilous situation. He has personally accumulated so much power that no other entity in Iran is in a position to make decisions regarding war and peace. As Iranians have seen before, once again one man's decisions determine the fate of an entire nation. Even within the regime, voices are now raised in alarm at this untenable concentration of authority.

The peaceful path is for the regime to come to terms with its failures and immediately begin the process of transitioning to a democratic system of government based on the rule of law, by allowing a real opposition to re-emerge after the savage crushing of the protests three years ago.

When Abdollah Nouri, a former regime insider suggests holding a referendum on Iran's nuclear activities, it is indicative of the existence of a dammed-up force ready to burst. The regime has enough intelligence and security agents across the country to know how serious the level of discontent and anger is and how close it is to boiling over. It can wait for the dam to burst and flood the nation, or it can play a constructive part in the process of Iranians taking control of their own country and creating the society they want. And this means revising the Constitution to give Iranians the necessary tools to manage their own affairs rather than suffer being told what to think, to wear, to say, and to believe in.

First, a few steps are essential in creating the necessary environment for revising the Constitution. One crucial element is a free press. Without a free press, it is impossible to know what the problems are and where they originate, and in the absence of that knowledge, how can the problems be solved?

There must be the freedom to gather peacefully, create political groups and parties, and hold nonviolent demonstrations, because these are the essential means through which citizens can organize and establish the society they desire.

There must be free and fair elections, conducted transparently and monitored objectively, so that the voting process can not be corrupted and manipulated, and the results rendered a hoax. Even the present Constitution calls or allows for all of the foregoing, but the hardliners have run things very differently.

Most important of all, Khamenei needs to make peace with Iranians. To begin with, he must free all the political prisoners and journalists, and allow the newspapers that have been closed down to reopen. Making peace on the domestic front is essential to make peace on the foreign front.

Iran should not be interfering in issues that do not concern its national security interests, most obviously the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The injustices being inflicted on the Palestinian people by Israel should be left for them. There is no reason for Iran to be supporting Bashar al-Assad or the opposition to him; the problems in Syria are for Syrians to solve.

Unfortunately, such decisions are down to one man who appears to be surrounded by advisors who serve only to help blind and deafen him to reality, just as happened with the Shah and his coterie. When Iranians shouted "Marg bar dictator" (death to the dictator) from the rooftops in 2009, they were referring to Khamenei, not Ahmadinejad. If Khamenei refuses to address Iran's domestic problems at this critical time or makes the wrong move on the foreign front and military confrontation does take place, Iranians will start shouting from the rooftops again, but this time his fate will most likely be similar to the Shah's.

Assuming the Constitution is revised and it is decided that there needs to be a separation of mosque and state, the clerics might want to reflect on where they went wrong. They might ask themselves why Iran's best and brightest, around 200,000 people a year, are leaving the country. They might ask why corruption is rampant throughout every level of government. Why there are so many drug addicts. Why there is so much "parti baazi" (nepotism and bribery) in the judicial system. Why so many of their fellow Iranians have grown to hate them and even regard the highest-ranking clerics as non-Muslims.

Blind obedience and insistence on conformity to centuries-old thinking has not led to an Islamic utopia, which many thought they were voting for back in 1979. It has instead has bought the country to the very precipice of war.

The full article is at:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2012/07/opinion-what-khamenei-must-do-to-save-iran.html