New Protests in Iran
Former US Embassy in Tehran
Looks like the Iranian government isn’t quite out of the woods yet:
Police firing tear gas and wielding batons clashed Wednesday with anti-government demonstrators in Tehran who sought to turn a rally commemorating the 30th anniversary of the takeover of the American Embassy into a renewed protest against the disputed June 30 election, news reports said.
The protesters had turned out to display opposition to the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose victory in Iran’s disputed elections last June provoked Iran’s biggest political crisis since the Islamic revolution in 1979.
Note that this comes at exactly the time the American right is trying to argue that anti-regime Iranian-Americans and Iranian-American political organizations are somehow tools of the Iranian regime simply because they—like all sensible people everywhere—reject neoconservative foreign policy. But it’s all the same to Michael Goldfarb and Jeffrey Goldberg.
24 Responses to “New Protests in Iran”
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November 4th, 2009 at 10:23 am
I think instead it’s useful to ponder the studied silence on the part of the administration. Unlike the right, they are supposedly in charge.
November 4th, 2009 at 10:33 am
What I don’t get about Goldberg–who, to his credit, is not always reliably tendentious–is his tone. Where does it come from? On Parsi, he walks back his insinuation that the guy’s a toy of the regime by saying “my bad.” Is that schoolyard phrase really respectful or adequate? It’s a shame, because Goldberg seems like a well-meaning guy who does not, in fact, harbor Peretz-like animosity toward light brown people. But, somewhat paradoxically, he undermines himself when he lets his political self-confidence get the better of him.
November 4th, 2009 at 10:51 am
James Robertson: By “studied silence” do you mean issued a statement yestderday? I’m guessing you haven’t read the statement.
November 4th, 2009 at 10:58 am
#3 – yes, I read the fairly pathetic statement. The shorter version:
“Can all those protesters get out of my way so I can conduct the sure to be pointless talks with the current government of Iran?”
November 4th, 2009 at 11:05 am
[...] Matthew Yglesias: Note that this comes at exactly the time the American right is trying to argue that anti-regime Iranian-Americans and Iranian-American political organizations are somehow tools of the Iranian regime simply because they—like all sensible people everywhere—reject neoconservative foreign policy. But it’s all the same to Michael Goldfarb and Jeffrey Goldberg. [...]
November 4th, 2009 at 11:07 am
My take on Jeffrey Goldberg is that, apart from being an Israel cheerleader, he’s also one of these odd Jewish writers who, as far as I can tell, gets offended for a living. Everything even remotely critical of Israel or some Jewish political or media figure he likes is anti-semitic. As a non-Jew, I can only say that gets old really, really quick. Surely you can win an argument without calling someone you disagree with a Jew-hater. Right?
November 4th, 2009 at 11:26 am
N,
I’m Jewish and I find Goldberg irritating too. He seems to occupy a weird zone between journalism and commentary in the hope that he can enjoy the advantages of both while holding himself up to the standards of neither. I think that’s why his tone is so important: it’s his way of inflecting facts without actually making challengeable claims. From an intellectual and even professional standpoint, it’s really quite cowardly.
November 4th, 2009 at 11:33 am
@N#6
I don’t think that’s a fair criticism og Goldberg. Among other things, my impression is that he takes much greater umbrage when anyone Jewish criticizes Israel than when the goyem do.
But his fundamental value proposition as a columnist is his Jewishness, which I find uninteresting, essentially the [less bombastic] journalistic equivalent of Al Sharpton-type identity politics. I can’t figure out why the Atalantic thinks it’s worth publishing.
November 4th, 2009 at 11:36 am
This protest movement is and always has been a joke. It accomplishes nothing but getting young people killed. Given that they are the children of the Iranian elite, I don’t actually care because I hate all self-proclaimed elite, but the rest of you pretend you care so maybe you should actually take that into consideration.
November 4th, 2009 at 11:40 am
Die in a car fire.
November 4th, 2009 at 11:43 am
“This protest movement is and always has been a joke. It accomplishes nothing but getting young people killed. Given that they are the children of the Iranian elite, I don’t actually care because I hate all self-proclaimed elite, but the rest of you pretend you care so maybe you should actually take that into consideration.”
Oh, I see! Mr. Radical Fight the Power doesn’t care about protests, no. He only cares about being contrarian and yanking the chain of people who care about getting things accomplished and taking a stand in the real world! Bonus for simultaneously getting the shock value of saying you don’t care about people getting shot to death, and accusing us of being heartless for not caring about people getting shot to death! You are such an exciting iconoclast!! Everyone is so interested in your online persona!!!!
November 4th, 2009 at 11:44 am
DaveNYC put it better than me.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Yo tomemos and daveNYC, if you wanna take a real “stand” as keyboard kommandos, try Palestine. Yeah, there’s no twitter parties or protest babes or Christine Amanpour special reports, so it’s a decidedly less glamorous affair, but unlike the Iranian situation–which you have absolutely nothing to do with–it’s your lovely congressmen that effectively sign the checks that buy the white phosphorus and clusterbombs. Try putting your outrage somewhere it belongs. You know, to “get things accomplished.”
November 4th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
This is “studied silence” for Jim Bob:
Iran must choose. We have heard for thirty years what the Iranian government is against; the question, now, is what kind of future it is for. The American people have great respect for the people of Iran and their rich history. The world continues to bear witness to their powerful calls for justice, and their courageous pursuit of universal rights. It is time for the Iranian government to decide whether it wants to focus on the past, or whether it will make the choices that will open the door to greater opportunity, prosperity, and justice for its people.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Yo tomemos and daveNYC, if you wanna take a real “stand” as keyboard kommandos, try Palestine.
I don’t even understand what this means. First, “keyboard kommandos”? We’re not advocating anything; we’re objecting yet again to soullite being an obnoxious asshole. (In this case, for bragging about how cool he is for not caring when people get shot to death.)
Second, go to any of the bazillion Israel/Palestine threads here and I think you’ll find both me and Dave attacking the occupation, so what’s your point?
November 4th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
That well-crafted snark resonates because it is so true.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Sorry, tomemos, I just happen to agree with soullite, not for any stylistic reasons, but because I can’t look at the Iranian protests without also noticing this or this. It’s not like expressing solidarity with protesters anywhere else in the world–the U.S./Israel are gunning for regime change in Iran, if you haven’t noticed.
And good for you for being against the occupation! I mean that. Do you mean the one that started in 1882 or 1967?
November 4th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Goldberg does a lot of leg work for the nefarious genocidal apartheid state of Israel.
I am in favor of deporting his fat ass to Israel so that he can serve the IDF more efficiently.
November 4th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
So you’re in favor of dead Iranian university students? Do you think that all the protests in Iran are somehow being organized by a Israeli and/or American cabal? Or that just because some neocon wankers are against the current Iranian government, that anyone who happens to be against the Iranian government is also a wanker? For all the blood on their hands, at least the ‘keyboard kommando’ types weren’t actively hoping for the deaths of teenagers.
November 4th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Dave, We’re not in favor of dead university students. You are. You’re the one who thinks filling the heads of college aged kids full of magical thinking and sending them to do battle against thugs with guns is going to work out well. You may not want them to die, you just want to them to go marching gleefully into a situation that will get them killed. You know it will get them killed.
The reason people compare you to the keyboard commandos is fairly obvious. Both groups like to get off watching other people fight their brave revolutions. It’s so easy to have a pet cause when other people are the ones dying for it.
I don’t care, over-all. These kids are essentially dying in the hopes of turning a totalitarian socialist state into a totalitarian fascist state. That is, in my book, a small but noticeable net negative for most of the people living in Iran. It would be better for these children of the wealthy, but for most it would be worse. That’s the reality here.
November 4th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
“You’re the one who thinks filling the heads of college aged kids full of magical thinking and sending them to do battle against thugs with guns is going to work out well.”
Pardon me, who is “filling the heads” of these protesters? It’s not me or Dave, or any other American. This is such a disgustingly patronizing attitude, the idea that Iranians could never organize a protest on their own! No, they’d all be perfectly happy without Northern agitators Western liberals stirring up trouble.
Oh, and can we please not have any more comments suggesting that the protesters are all or even mostly kids, or all or even mostly privileged? The base of support is much wider than that, and you know it but it doesn’t fit your handy worldview.
“These kids are essentially dying in the hopes of turning a totalitarian socialist state into a totalitarian fascist state.”
This is so wrong about what Iran is like now and what the protesters are fighting for that it’s hard to know where to begin. Iran is not socialist; in fact, socialists and communists were the first ones put in the political prisons by the Islamic regime. Nor are the protesters trying to dismantle any social programs, let alone set up a “fascist state” by any stretch of the imagination (who is the charismatic leader? what are the reactionary tenets?). In fact, they’re not trying to change the Islamic regime at all. They’re protesting against a particular government which stole an election. You should stop talking so arrogantly, or indeed at all, until you know what you’re talking about.
November 4th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
That should have read, “No, they’d all be perfectly happy without
Northern agitatorsWestern liberals stirring up trouble.” The point being that Soullite is basically taking the segregationist’s view of Iran, that it ain’t none of our business because people in Iran like it how it is, except fer a few bad apples and a bunch of meddling liberals.November 4th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
I’m sorry, you’re actually neutral on dead college students. My bad.
Thanks for making up words to put in my mouth there. Though if you want someone to blame for making the kids think that sending college kids up against armed troops might change the government, I think the Iranian public school system is a good place to start.
Do you even have the slightest idea what those words mean, or what the issues of the Iranian election were?
November 5th, 2009 at 12:15 am
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