My Thoughts on Iran

Ok, so I want to begin by saying that I'm all for the protests and such, showing defiance and believing in democracy. However, there's a caveat: You have a person called the "Supreme Leader" of Iran. It's kinda hard to give any credence to an democratic ideal in that country when the Supreme Leader holds almost all the power in the country. The only way to get rid of the Supreme Leader is by the Assembly of Experts voting him out or death/resignation.

He appoints the military leaders, the heads of all the state-run media outlets, and other important posts. Sure, the President of Iran is elected by the people, or "universal suffrage", but when the Supreme Leader likes the current President, and directs his officials to disregard the election results, then what you have is no democracy. You have a theocracy with some figureheads that really don't hold any power. It's almost as if the whole election is a distraction for the people of Iran to make them think they live in a democracy, when in fact it's not really that different from other countries in the Middle East.

There is a disconnect if Iranians truly believe their democratic rights have been violated. How would we feel if President Obama decided to change the title of that office to the Supreme Leader of the United States and says he gets to serve as long as he wants, while he changes the Constitution to make it so we only elect the Speaker of the House every election. We'd be like, "Fuck you, impeach that motherfucker, so he can't harm our democratic union." That is exactly the situation in Iran. If they truly want a democracy, they need to shed the theocracy from the government, and model their government on a parliamentary system.

I think they should continue to be defiant, especially to Ayatollah Khamenei, because he embodies their plight of "where's my vote?". It's too bad, because I don't think anything will change, but the fact that Iranians are continuing to protest is a good sign. It is also a good sign that the chickenhawk Ahmadinejad ran scared to Russia and is now changing his tune about the election. However, I do not think Mousavi is going to much different from him.

It seems to me that Iranians are trying to "party-switch" like we did here in 2008. Change presidents, maybe it will get better, even they maybe closely similar in their policies. I can't blame them.

However, it seems that both guys don't like to wear ties.