In Iran an anti-gay religious conservative and anti-elitist* rural populist decisively defeated urban elite liberals who wanted to move their country to the left, especially with respect to squishy leftist ideas like ‘diplomatic engagement’ and ‘rapprochement‘.
Question: why aren’t Republicans happy?
Answer: who said they’re not?
It seems to me that we have underestimated how deeply fringe actors like al Qaeda and the neocons or Ahmadinejad and Bibi need each other for political survival. The relationship isn’t even antagostic, it’s a symbiotic mutualism. Intractable, crazy antagonists legitimize the position of extremists who oppose them.
Think about how easily ordinary muslims could believe that American planned an imperialist, anti-muslim religious crusade when that is exactly how Bush administration officials described their own behavior. Now, less than six months after we elect a black guy with a muslim middle name who believes in squishy crap like cultural understanding and rapprochement, al Qaeda’s messaging is in shambles and its leaders are panicking. Bin Laden and Zawahiri clearly knew for years that their talk of evil and hate only resonates when the other guy hates muslims back.
Maybe I’m completely off-base, but to me the story in Iran looks awfully similar. Why would Iranian conservatives panic about something as non-threatening as a presidential election? They had a relatively liberal president for eight years before Ahmadinejad and somehow the Islamic Republic survived. If Moussavi proposed making prosciutto-wrapped hot dogs the new national dish I clearly missed it.
The problem, I think, is that Obama drives the Iranian conservatives crazy for the same reason that be worries al Qaeda. Remember that Ahmadinejad’s political faction only gained power after the Bush camp coldly snubbed diplomatic approaches from Iran after 9/11. Ahmadinejad’s influence directly depends on how eager ordinary Iranians feel about antagonizing the US. With Bush in charge and Bushies talking about attacking Iran with a bit less nuanced subtlety than an air raid siren, Ahmadinejad could run the country forever. Under a new American regime, with Iranians warming to the new guy disturbingly fast, Ahmadinejad and his extremist constituents in the Revolutionary Guards would be in a lot of trouble.
If Moussavi won, and at this point it looks like he did, the risk exists that Iran and the US could find willing partners on either side of the diplomatic table. Unless something got in the way, the two countries could go so far as to strike up a constructive engagement and Ahmadinejad’s moment in history would be gone forever.
Don’t get me wrong, I know about as much about this as the rest of you. Given the quality of our commenters, probably less. Regardless, it matters that my gut feeling is a testable hypothesis. The key point is how to understand the two factions developing in Iran. The ‘junta’, which I will call Ahmadinejad’s collaborators for lack of a better word, seems to include mostly conservatives, hardliners, Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guard. The ‘resistance’ includes not only Moussavi’s direct supporters but professionals like the leak-happy Interior Ministry workers whom Sullivan keeps quoting, less well-known Ayatollahs and the ‘godfather’ Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
If I’m right then the pro- and anti-Ahmadinejad forces should split cleanly on the question of whether to answer America’s new tone or to double down on confrontation. Alternatively maybe I’m wrong and, as others have argued already, it really isn’t about us.
Discuss.
(*) ‘Anti-elitist’ being the new code word for ‘poorly educated’.
cgp
I guess everyone is too busy watching for the second Iranian revolution.
matoko_chan
Bravo!
That is very good actually.
Also, the Greens are devout muslims AND young students.
Green is the color of al-Islam…Hamas and Hizb’ use it too.
As long as Bush and the axis of idiots (malkin, spencer, steyn) were pushing the idea of a judeo-xian war on al-Islam we couldn’t get any traction.
Now we can.
Islam is a lever. The mullahs were holding the handle but their grip is slipping.
KG
I think this is more about Iran than us. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t effect us, or even that we didn’t effect it. But in this moment, the story is about Iran and whether it’s Islamic Revolution will survive. We should be ready to act if called on, but right now, we need to let Iran have it’s moment.
matoko_chan
ummm….yez.
Sarah Palin.
She is running.
Shouldn’t John put up a thread?
Ked
Oh, wow, that sounds good.
(Sorry, was being serious in the last thread.)
Macsen Mifune
So does this mean that Ahmadinejad and the neocons are Frenemies?
Mike in NC
Fidel Castro would have faded away decades ago if it weren’t for a bunch of exiles in Miami and the politicians who pander to them.
El Cid
I really don’t think it’s a great idea for people to feel like they need to make a capsule declaration about exactly what happened in the Iranian elections, either way, on the basis of a paucity of good arguments.
Contrary to the blog post, I don’t see any good evidence that Moussavi won, nor do I see strong evidence that the election was conducted flawlessly by the government which would remain a religious fundamentalist dictatorship no matter which candidate won. On the other hand it’s easy to see why right wing Israeli and U.S. psycho-hawks (Elliot Abrams and Daniel ‘Crack’ Pipes) were clearly in support of an Ahmadinejad victory. And while I might have generally preferred a Moussavi victory, I also recognize that elections don’t go as I might prefer and that the Islamic Republic’s government will do whatever the hell it wants no matter who actually won.
I’m seeing a peer-encouraged trend of rushing to conclusions and suggestions that only one conclusion is on the ‘progressive’ or ‘liberal’ side. Furthermore the reformist concerns of Iranian dissidents are worthy no matter who ‘actually’ won (or if it would ever be possible to determine that).
matoko_chan
It is riveting to meh that Moussavi was a major player in the 1979 revolution, and now he is revolting against his own revolution, with his reformist supporters mostly made up of people who were unborn or very young children in 1979.
Fascinating.
And it is critically important to NOT see this election as a judgement on al-Islam or the theocratic structure of Iranian government….both sides are intensely devout.
Tim F.
I believe that is called blogging.
El Cid
@Tim F.: No, because blogs often also emphasize when reality is more complicated than might be assumed.
liberal
I don’t recall who was president of Iran at the time, but a few years ago they put forth a very reasonable, comprehensive package for normalizing relations with the US.
Bush et al. rejected it, of course.
Given the history of our relationship, I’d say that by far most of the blame for the current state of our relationship with Iran lies with us, not them.
cosanostradamus
.
It would be nice if we could talk to them. You know, as individuals, face-to-face. Well, avatar to avatar. But the Internet is cut off, censored and only available to the world’s elites. (That’s you.) 5 Billion are not even wired. Well, they’re wired. With explosives. Hey, that’s one way to get heard. Nice if we could provide a better way.
.
liberal
Interesting question of psychological sociology: why are rural populations so often like this?
Charon
@matoko_chan:
While this is certainly true, and Mousavi has used it to his advantage, the reason that Mousavi and his supporters, and no one else, are using green is because it was the color assigned to his campaign by election authorities.
Chuck Butcher
There are things that are very surprising about the election “results” and those back up Tim F’s points. The landslide results and some of the local results look really bad for the idea of an accurate count. As theocracies age they get stupider, it is a natural function of the narrow limits they operate in. The idea that governments use enemies to perpetuate themselves is scarcely new or novel, one need only look at the 2004 election to see its power. Going from something that works to completely over-reaching is a symptom of stupidity in operation.
Considering the structure of their elections and the power of the office contested there was no real need to fake anything or to put up a landslide. Going there shows the level of competence in operation.
One could compare the over-reaching and levels of stupidity occurring in the Theocratic Right in this country as we move forward from the 08 election.
Chuck Butcher
double deleted
Macsen Mifune
I don’t think you need to go to deep in why rural Iranians would support Ahmadinejad, he has been handing out tons of money to them. That coupled with the fact the government was artificially keeping the gases prices low and they could easily keep much of the poor voters on their side.
Ash
@liberal: It’s pretty weird, isn’t it? Or well probably not so weird as annoying. From everything I’ve read, the rural population likes Ahmedinajad so much because he lives in a small house and comes from a humble background and whatnot, despite what’s in their best interest. Which is a direct correlation to all those stupid, “Well, I’d like to have a beer with Bush!” idjits.
Mr. Poppinfresh
“If you experience an election that lasts for more than four hours, seek military attention immediately.”
Brachiator
What makes you think that Al Qaeda represents the fringe? Ahmadinejad, whether he was elected honestly or not, is not the power in Iran, the mullahs are. And to describe the mullahs as a “fringe” would be insufficient.
The last time I checked, Bibi got a large number of votes, even though his party did not gain an outright parliamentary majority. And on the other side, extremist groups like Hamas have won legitimate, though worrisome, victories.
And again, the president of Iran has no legislative authority. He is the head of state, but not the head of government. Ahmadinejad is sent out to give speeches about Iranian policy, and he serves as “the face” of the government, but neither he nor his opponent — had he won — would have the authority to negotiate anything on behalf of the government.
It is difficult to get a read on the situation, especially with the government cutting off cell phones, web sites, and other communication systems, restricting reporters, etc. For example, from a recent NY Times Lede post:
On the other hand, I was listening to techie talk radio host Leo LaPorte talk about how the NY Times blog and Twitter communications from within Iran have been providing amazing eyewitness accounts, while CNN and other mainstream sources have been useless.
I agree with you that Obama’s election has upset the status quo in the Middle East, but I don’t think that the opposition — whether extremist or not — is panicking. The most neutral thing that can be said is that they are seeking to consolidate power and to stifle dissent. And there was clearly a moderate sentiment in Iran, but no one can honestly say whether this sentiment was limited to students and the urban elite, as opposed to being strongly represented throughout the country as a whole.
debit
@Mr. Poppinfresh: You owe me a new Macbook keyboard.
dan robinson
The clergy have power in Iran and will not willing cede it. It took hundreds of years for the civil power of the Catholic church to be broken in Europe; it will take generations in Iran.
I was watching an Iranian movie, “The Lizard”, where a career criminal masquerades as an imam to escape prison. He later riding in a car in a restricted traffic lane when they are pulled over by a police officer. The cop lets them go when it is explained that the imam is hurrying to get to some function or another.
Corruption devalued and ultimately broke the civil power of the Catholic church, but it was after centuries of corruption. What will it take to devalue Islam in Iran?
Tim F.
…and we elected Bush twice. This is what I mean when I said that extremists validate one another.
Hence, in the last Lebanese elections Hezbollah lost ground.
Sirkowski
Either way, so far it looks like the government is going to win this round.
Mr. Poppinfresh
@debit: Sorry, I’m just feeling punchy today. I’m actually following this closely, both via Twitter/Sully/et al, and friends of mine from the Iranian community back in my hometown of Vancouver who are in turn in contact with their relatives (more or less).
I don’t think some people understand just how volatile and serious a situation this is. This could be Tian An Men all over again, or it could be the Berlin Wall…
Cain
I guess one could argue that this is the best outcome having a revolution rather than maintaining status quo. I hope that it doesn’t get too brutal and that maybe, just maybe a new regime will take over.
cain
Mnemosyne
@liberal:
After 9/11, Iran made their first diplomatic contact with the US in over 20 years by sending a message of condolence.
The Bush administration, of course, threw it back in their faces and started talking about how Iran was part of an “axis of evil.” Heckuva job, Bushies!
Charon
@Brachiator:
While this is certainly true of foreign policy, my understanding was that the president actually did have at least some pull when it came to domestic policy. It seems to me, as I look in from the outside, that the reforms that Mousavi was running on, including greater freedom for women, would have been a good thing for the people of Iran.
I also think that those domestic reforms would, in the long run, be good for the U.S. with regards to a nuclear Iran, but then, I subscribe to the Douglas Adams theory that the fall of Communism in Europe traces back to someone smuggling The White Album back into the Warsaw Pact in a ratty Aeroflot bag.
Michael
Demographics are destiny.
1. As it is dominated by the Shiite branch, Iran has a literate population, capable of research and analysis.
2. Culturally, they’ve not stomped their urban women like the Sunni countries; I’d go as far as to say as that their thoughts on women are only slightly less broadminded than secularized Arab areas (Iraq, Jordan, parts of Syria, Beirut, the West Bank.
3. It is a very young country. A lot of the men who would be in their 50s and 60s (and more conservative, presumably) got mowed down in the idiot fight in the 80s. As a result, this wave of domonstrators consisted mainly of people who weren’t even alive during the Revolution.
4. I’m thinking that we’re seeing a Reformation-like crack in Shia Islam. These things do take time, but I note that Iran has always been more Western oriented, and the past 30 years have been more an aberration than anything.
El Cid
@Tim F.: Yeah, but the Hizbullah-backed coalition actually won 55% of the vote in Lebanon, but since seats are assigned to sectarian and regional groups based on a post-civil-war agreement and another recently approved reshuffle and not primarily on electoral results, while Hizbullah lost seats its coalition (of which it is a minority) gained a percentage of votes.
WereBear
Until very recently, rural populations were isolated populations; small, personal, tribal.
There are good sides; break down on the side of the road, and chances are someone will pick you up, maybe even someone you know. No one lacks for covered dishes during a crisis. Depersonalization is a small problem.
The bad side is how it fosters xenophobia. When everyone you know is much like you, it’s harder to conceive of those who aren’t like you.
To me there is a huge, and unacknowledged, factor that explains rural communities’ tendency to NOT embrace the wider world; it will lure their children away.
Such people’s shunning of education, travel, and open-mindedness is a subconscious defense against the fact that when opportunity is not knocking within 30 miles of home, family members will move away.
With there being less and less reason to have the large family of unpaid fieldhands which was once the norm, keeping them “down on the farm” is going to be more difficult, not less.
Dork
Civil War in Iran? So the Shia want slaves, and the Persians dont?
Brachiator
@Tim F.:
Are you seriously suggesting that the people who voted for Bush are extremists?
But I think you may be undercutting your own position. Extremists are ratcheting up their activities in Afghanistan, Pakistan, even Iraq to some extent, even though Bush is no longer on the scene. And there are ominous hints that some Israeli hardliners want to consider going it alone precisely because they fear that Obama may be too “soft.”
(And as an aside, my statement about Israeli hardliners is based not just own my own guesses, but on the statements of Israel based reporter David Gilbert, who regularly appears on the Bill Handel radio show on KFI in Los Angeles).
But again, what I primarily disagree with is your pigeonholing a range of conservative to hard line positions as “extreme.”
Chuck Butcher – As theocracies age they get stupider, it is a natural function of the narrow limits they operate in.
Really? Where? And even if this is the case, this says little about the ability of theocratic governments to retain power.
tavella
I’m not willing to go farther than “it looks awfully suspicious”. What really tings my sensors is — Ahmadinejad/the government isn’t acting like someone who won a fabulous landslide victory. If you were biting your nails, waiting out what looks like a close election, and instead you find you’ve won a fabulous, overwhelming victory, winning in cities and rural areas, every ethnic group, etc… you *want* to show your evidence. You don’t hastily push Khamanei to declare it valid three days early, you are perfectly willing to let election monitors in to see the counting results, you *want* to crush the oppositions spirit by making them realize what a small minority they are.
Instead… they are acting like people who just stole an election.
omen
bush once committed a freudian slip at a press conference when he admitted a destabilized palestine worked to their benefit.
A.Political
This is somewhat of an old theory.
Foe an in depth look at how the two factions rely on each for their very reason to exist please watch/read about Adam Curtis’ documentary called The Power of Nightmares.
http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Nightmares
Curtis’ other docs are also worth a watch, especially the one on consumerism.
tc125231
@El Cid:
wilfred
Muslim clerics fear one thing. It’s called fitna, it means a breaking up, a threat to the community, disunity. It comes from the word for smelting metal.
Anything that causes disrpuption in the umma, the Muslim community, is haram. The worst possibility is any social upheaval that threatens the organic unity of the Muslim community as a whole. Faced with the choices of a still powerful revolutionary Islamic fervor and a Western backed movement towards whatever the fuck it is you think you’re talking about a responsble cleric would ask a) are these things in opposition – Islamic thought is always dialectical (sort of), and b) which is worse, which causes fitna – the disruption and dissolution of the Islamic community.
That’s how Muslims think about these things. They worry less about ‘rapproachment’ with the West, believe me.
Zifnab25
@El Cid: I’m not sure why we’re all that worried about a Hizbollah Lebanese government. It’s not like the militant organization would go away if the political party vanished. And, from what I can tell, the standing army and public infrastructure was subsumed by Hizbollah decades ago.
Giving the militant movement Democratically assigned power offers them a legitimate seat at the table in global affairs, but other than that it doesn’t really offer them more political clout domestically than they already had.
At the very least, it forces the militant movement to conform to the democratic process. If they try to turn the country into a shame Republic dictatorship, they blow their credibility with the populace that elected them. If they run the country haphazardly but honor the democratic system, they’ll get tossed out on their asses in future elections. And if they do a good job of local governance while still maintaining a hostile attitude towards Israel… hell, at least Lebanon comes out ahead domestically.
But Hizbollah will have a hard time keeping its population infuriated at outside forces while it’s own people are running the show at home. Ask the Republicans about that whole transition from minority to majority party and how easy it all looked on paper.
Tim F.
No. I already said what I suggest. Extremists are validated when their antagonists are themselves inflexibly ideological. Their influence increases, as well as their likelihood of getting elected.
The Bush administration, for example, got elected twice, although only in the second election was their extremism obvious.
Violet
I read somewhere today or yesterday, in all the websites, blogs, etc. I’ve been reading about Iran’s election, that the Iranian people seem a lot more sure of what they don’t want than what they do. That makes sense to me. It seems like they know Mousavi isn’t the greatest progressive out there. But he’s a heck of a lot better than the other choice(s).
I’m utterly riveted to the events unfolding in Iran. It’s history in the making. I just hope it turns out okay for everyone involved.
MikeJ
Imagine living on a country where a bunch of guys in robes pick the president, where the president can have any citizen scooped up off the street and tortured and detained forever, where foreign policy consists solely of macho dickwaving designed to appease a fundamentalist religious base.
It must be hellish.
El Cid
By the way, last week people were joking about the Chavez government of Venezuela ordering a halt to production and distribution of Coke Zero in Venezuela.
Ha, ha, crazy Chavez again.
Well, I can’t vouch for the veracity of the claim below based on Venezuelan government claims of laboratory sample testing, but the Venezuelan government claims that while the U.S. version of Coke Zero gets primarily aspartame as an artificial sweetener they discovered the presence of sodium cyclamate in Venezuelan Coke Zero, another artificial sweetener which used to be considered carcinogenic and was banned as an ordinary consumer sweetener in the U.S. and UK (but which may not be), and the claim is that Coca Cola failed to list it as an ingredient.
Maybe Chavez’ government is wrong, and maybe they’re just making up lab test data. But I saw this story repeated as a joke here over and over without once mentioning the cyclamate charge.
No matter what happens, anywhere on the planet, real issues are obscured and fake issues are highlighted in our punditariat.
********************************************
Venezuela: Coca-Cola Zero has harmful sweetener
By FABIOLA SANCHEZ – 1 day ago
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela’s Health Ministry said Friday it banned sales of Coca-Cola Zero because the company failed to declare that the no-calorie soft drink uses an artificial sweetener allegedly harmful to health.
Health officials said tests show the cola contains sodium cyclamate. Coca-Cola Co. disputes that, saying the product sold in Venezuela uses different artificial sweeteners, Acesulfame-K and Aspartame.
Cyclamate is not prohibited in Venezuela. But the ministry said the company failed to report sodium cyclamate as an ingredient in Coca-Cola Zero when it received its initial health permit to begin selling the drink in April.
Coca-Cola is “failing to comply with sanitary norms,” the ministry said in a statement published in the newspaper Ultimas Noticias. The ministry urged Venezuelans to refrain from trying the drink, saying it is “considered harmful to the health.”
The U.S. prohibits the use of cyclamates in human food because of health safety concerns. Sales of Coca-Cola Zero elsewhere in Latin America have met with resistance over the use of cyclamate.
Rosy Alvarez, a spokeswoman for Coca-Cola Servicios de Venezuela, told The Associated Press on Thursday that “no ingredient of Coca-Cola Zero is harmful to peoples’ health.” But the company is complying with Venezuela’s ban and has begun halting production, she said.
Kerry Kerr, a spokeswoman at Coca-Cola headquarters in Atlanta, said Thursday that the company was in discussions with the Venezuelan government.
Coca-Cola sells many other soft drinks in Venezuela, including Coca-Cola Classic, Chinoto, Frescolita and Hit.
Death By Mosquito Truck
@Cain: If people blowing up other people is “the birthpangs of democracy” then this is just the baby kicking.
Brachiator
@Charon:
I’m not sure that this is the case. This is where I get even more frustrated that the media is dominated by pundits who know nothing about Iran, while simple reporting about its government is not as easy to get to.
BBC News has a great graphic and article about the Iranian government (Guide: How Iran is ruled).
Here is what they say about the president:
“In practice, however, presidential powers are circumscribed by the clerics and conservatives in Iran’s power structure, and by the authority of the Supreme Leader. It is the Supreme Leader, not the president, who controls the armed forces and makes decisions on security, defence and major foreign policy issues. All presidential candidates are vetted by the Guardian Council, which banned hundreds of hopefuls from standing in the 2005 elections….
Mr Ahmadinejad replaced reformist Mohammad Khatami who was elected president in May 1997 with nearly 70% of the vote. He failed to get key reforms through the Guardian Council and was hampered further after conservatives won back a majority in parliament in elections in 2004.”
And there is this about the Guardian Council:
“This is the most influential body in Iran and is currently controlled by conservatives. It consists of six theologians appointed by the Supreme Leader and six jurists nominated by the judiciary and approved by parliament….
The council has to approve all bills passed by parliament and has the power to veto them if it considers them inconsistent with the constitution and Islamic law. The council can also bar candidates from standing in elections to parliament, the presidency and the Assembly of Experts.”
Once again, I have to echo other posters who have mentioned the wonder film and graphic novels, Persepolis, about Iran in the 1970s and 1980s, a period when the Fundamentalists came to power.
A summary notes this about the film’s female protagonist:
I think that if future authoritarian regimes get toppled, it may be thanks to a few full seasons of The Simpsons on DVD.
Chuck Butcher
@Brachiator:
Show me one. Just one.
The ability to hold power over the long run depends on an ability to function fairly well. In the short run governmental terrorism will maintain a government but ineptitude eventually causes the grip on the levers to slip. Whether the replacement is “better” is clearly open to question.
Leelee for Obama
This whole situation makes my heart hurt and be glad at the same time. The young and the progressive Iranians have been dealt a blow not unlike 2004 for me. I’ll never forget how stunned I was that Bush would continue in office for four more years. I was sick and miserable for quite a while. But I had seen the future in Boston and knew that next time would be different. So do the Iranians who protested in the streets-in spite of all the awful they have now-they have seen the future and next time will be different.
Brachiator
@Tim F.:
Point noted. And as I said earlier, I think your designation of “extremists” is too narrow and does not adequately describe the range of political thinking in the Middle East, or even in the US.
And the more I think about it, the less I agree with your notion about how “extremists” are validated or how this relates to their likelihood of getting elected. This just ignores any sense of the internal politics and national interests in countries like Bolivia and Venezuela, Pakistan and India, etc. The battle by Maoists in Nepal (avowed leftist extremists) for control of the country, took place without any particular regard for anything happening anywhere else in the world.
I largely agree with you here.
Notorious P.A.T.
Theory #1: Modern farming (only grow one or two crops, no room for advancement because of huge agribusiness concerns, etc) encourages a “brain drain” away from farm/rural areas.
http://www.amazon.com/Omnivores-Dilemma-Natural-History-Meals/dp/0143038583/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245009373&sr=8-1
JGabriel
@Macsen Mifune:
Yes, but not the having sex kind. (Go ahead, try to scrub that image out of your brain.)
.
Brachiator
@Chuck Butcher:
RE: And even if this is the case, this says little about the ability of theocratic governments to retain power.
I’m missing something here. You talk about theocratic governments as being stupid. Agreed.
But where has a theocratic government been overturned recently? Iran? Saudi Arabia?
Again, what are the examples upon which you base your conclusions?
Notorious P.A.T.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
miwome
You are correct in that the extremisms feed off and sustain each other. But I don’t think Obama is why this happened. Their election is about us about as much as ours are about them; there are some people, probably, who are very concerned about the relationship–whether they want it to be better or worse–and some who see it as a consideration but not the main show, and some who could care less. Ahmedinejad vs. Mousavi is much more about economic and social class, and about how repressive people want the government to be. It’s “He’s just like us!” all over again. And no matter who won, the nuclear project would almost certainly have continued unabated, and neocons would keep screaming.
Whether Iran should be more engaged with the world outside its “extremist camp” in the region (Syria, Hizballah, Hamas, some Iraqi militias, etc.) is definitely a political issue there, but that engagement question includes more than the U.S., and as far as I understand it most of the poorer voters who support Ahmedinejad don’t really care about it, at least not the way we would. It has more to do with religious purity.
Given that, I’ve seen two theories as to why they panicked (if they panicked). One: Khameini really personally hates Mousavi, didn’t anticipate he’d win, and when he saw it happening he flipped and ordered fraud that was really shoddy because it was last minute. This one seems like an iffy theory, but I never cease to be surprised at how much history can turn on individuals acting like jackasses.
Two: Not Khameini, but rather a different ayatollah–Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi–and his allies in the military (i.e. Revolutionary Guards and basij militias)–were the ones behind this. This is corroborated by the fact that Mesbah-Yazdi issued a fatwa a few days in advance basically saying that election-stealing is a-ok, and by some analyses of the alignment of political and economic interests (basically the military and Mesbah-Yazdi and the clerics he trains against the more conservative establishment which could actually have benefited from Mousavi’s election). This would partly explain why the numbers were so janky–this wasn’t handed down through the best possible fraud channels–and why the funny business really seemed to start with military and police actions. More here.
As you can see, neither of these explanations has much of anything to do with us. Which is exactly what I would expect.
Notorious P.A.T.
No, of course not.
I don’t know how much longer those governments will last. But I wouldn’t put money on it being very long. Most analysts believe that Saudi Arabia is teetering on the brink.
Not ALL of them, no.
Leelee for Obama
I beg to differ. They are just extremists for different things.
They all have their own agenda. They’ll sublimate somewhat to get their person elected-but all of them have an issue they are extreme about.
Charon
@Brachiator:
Re the ability of a reformist president to change things:
This Post by Brian Ulrich @ The Progressive Realist, while mainly about why a military coup makes more sense than a clerical one, seems to suggest that reform (admittedly mostly economic, but still) is possible and that the Assembly of Experts is more in line with Mousavi than Ahmadinjed. I know that the Assembly is not the Guardian Council, but it is the body that is supposed to keep a check on the Supreme Leader in secular matters.
I have no clue what kind of record Ulrich has on Iran and if he’s credible, but he does offer something of a counter-point to the gloom that emanates from the straight facts of the BBC piece.
Added — I see that miwome beat me to the Ulrich piece.
miwome
@Zifnab25:
Which is why they didn’t even try to expand their share. They ran roughly the same number of candidates and left it to Aoun and FPM to make up the numbers, which is, shall we say, not what I would call a recipe for an electoral tsunami.
Perry Como
lolwut. Let’s retain a little bit of perspective here. Whatever your feelings about the 2000 or 2004 elections, the current situation in Iran is in no way comparable.
Notorious P.A.T.
What? ! ? ! ? No corporation would ever do such a thing! ! ! !
Notorious P.A.T.
I agree with her: this is somewhat comparable.
Notorious P.A.T.
Is what I meant to write.
Notorious P.A.T.
I give up.
Leelee for Obama
@Perry Como: From my perspective, it’s not very different. Considering the torture perpetrated by the Bush administration, the war in Iraq that should not have happened, the failure to prosecute the Afghan War as if it mattered, the actions against the US Attorneys who wouldn’t play ball, the damage to the economy, the failure to act on climate change and health care, the co-opting of a free-press (complicit though they were), Pray tell how were things not majorly crappy here?
The average citizen in Iran is likely not any angrier than I was, they want a decent chance at life like their parents lived it-for them, this is more economic and modernity oriented.
That’s what I think, from what I’ve read.
Thanks P. A. T.!
r€nato
for a long, long time – pretty much since Bush let bin Laden slip away in Tora Bora and sold us an unnecessary war against Iraq – I’ve said, “Bush and bin Laden need one another.”
It wasn’t hyperbole, it was the truth and your post, Tim F., underlines that fact. Political extremists need one another to justify each’s survival and power grabs.
Anoniminous
I know diddly about Iranian internal politics. So let me throw some things out:
Scenario I: some faction of an Iranian “official” armed group, e.g., Revolutionary Guards, crosses the Iraqi border and attacks US supply lines into Iraq.
Scenario II: the Iranian military conducts border skirmishing with US troops in Iraq.
Scenario III: the Iranian military unleashes an all-out attack on US forces in Iraq.
After all, one way for an unpopular government to divert opposition is by conducting a war.
MikeJ
It would be nice if people could figure out if Iran’s president is an omnipotent dictator or a powerless puppet. The sentence above from the BBC uses the word “circumscribed”, which suggests something in between the two. Which is what you would expect in real life, but is apparently too difficult a concept for most people.
Leelee for Obama
@Anoniminous:
You’re just depressing, you know that? Wonder if Ahmedinajad will call GW and Dick for pointers? Bolton and Pipes would probably give them advice for free if it meant causing the war they want-Bastards!
Martin
Well, let’s not oversimplify things either. Saudi Arabia is as different from Iran as Iran is from the U.S.
Saudi Arabia is teetering not because of any religious issue but because their gravy train is running out and they can no longer dump endless money on the people. That’s not a failure of a theocratic government but of any government that relies on paying people to stay in line.
The ‘recent examples’ demand is a red herring. Virtually all governments were theocratic in nature a millenium ago, and most today aren’t. There’s a pretty clear trend away from the religious state, though its a slow process with occasional temporary reversals. How many have fallen in the last 20 years isn’t really relevant and is the political equivalent of global warming deniers who’ll gleefully tell you how cold it was last winter.
Notorious P.A.T.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/070306.html
Anoniminous
@Leelee for Obama:
I’m just a little ray of sunshine. Spreading hope and joy where ‘ere I go.
:-)
Notorious P.A.T.
Well said.
Leelee for Obama
@Notorious P.A.T.:
Wasn’t it Jefferson who said, “No priest- ridden people ever knew true freedom.”? As a very fallen Catholic, I agree with that statement whole-heartedly. Faith has it’s place, but government should, no, must, be secular.
mclaren
This has nothing to do with America and everything to do with the following facts:
1) 40% of Iranians live below the poverty line — and this in an oil-rich country;
2) 30% of Iranians are under age 18;
3) prostitution has become a career of choice among educated Iranian women…“Eighty percent of the Tehran sex workers maintained that they pursue this career voluntarily and temporarily. ”
4) Iran is dying. The collapse of Iran’s birth rate during the past 20 years is the fastest recorded in any country, ever;
5) according to a recent report from the US Council on Foreign Relations, “Iran serves as the major transport hub for opiates produced by [Afghanistan], and the UN Office of Drugs and Crime estimates that Iran has as many as 1.7 million opiate addicts.” That is, 5% of Iran’s adult, non-elderly population of 35 million is addicted to opiates. That is an astonishing number, unseen since the peak of Chinese addiction during the 19th century;
6) For the majority of young Iranians, there is no way up, only a way out; 36% of Iran’s youth aged 15 to 29 years want to emigrate, according to yet another unpublicized Iranian study, this time by the country’s Education Ministry, Der Standard adds. Only 32% find the existing social norms acceptable, while 63% complain about unemployment, the social order or lack of money.
Ash
Somewhat off topic, but Sully has been doing a great job (mostly) these last couple of days. However, when I see him write stuff like this I just giggle.
Really Sullivan?
Ked
Well, it’s sappy, and not quite true, but just watch. If there is a revolution, it will be blogged and twittered.
And I hate twitter.
Brachiator
@Martin:
The claim was that theocratic governments were “stupid” and that their ineptitude would insure that they would fall.
With no concrete examples or verifiable predictions of when this would happen to any existing theocratic governments.
This is not the same as the broad claim of a “trend away from the religious state.”
Further, you could even dispute whether there is a trend away from the religious state in the Middle East.
And as is always the case, trend does not necessarily imply correlation. And correlation does not imply causation.
History and politics are not the same thing as science.
Charon – and others. Thanks for the link to the Ulrich piece.
Svensker
@Ash:
Sully is very excitable and gets silly at the drop of a hat. I can’t help but keep reading him because he is interested in lots of things that the lefty blogs don’t cover. And he’s got a good sense of humor. But he blabs first, thinks second.
JenJen
Some good tweets to follow for people who are getting a little tired of the massive #CNNFail!
@TehranBureau, @Iran09, @jimsciuttoABC. Jim Sciutto’s reports have been stellar, by the way. He’ll be reporting from Tehran on ABC World News Tonight; he recently tweeted that police confiscated their video cameras and tape, and that they’ve resorted to filming everything on cell phones.
This is an extraordinary moment not just in Iran, but for Twitter. And it has certainly exposed some enormous weaknesses in the concept of 24-hour news cable channels.
Martin
Concrete examples? How about all of Europe. And why are verifiable predications necessary? We’re talking social change, not astronomy.
Do you have examples of non-theocratic states giving way to theocratic ones even on a remotely broad scale? I’m not talking about states with a national religion, rather states that give up self-rule for the recognition of a religious supreme being (God) as civic leader of the nation.
In the case of many of the theocratic states that have fallen, it’s been attributed generally to the tendency of the religious leaders who have been interpreting the will of the supreme being to overreach, to suppress the will of the people, or to generally be corrupt. If it doesn’t happen with one generation of leader it almost invariably happens with a later generation for there is no institutional political check against someone who is speaking on behalf of God.
Brachiator
@Svensker:
Sullivan is an excitable boy. But part of what he means is this: People in Iran who post up pictures and use Twitter to provide eyewitness accounts of what is happening in Iraq risk being beaten and arrested by the authorities. Here’s an example of some of the pictures and reporting (Violence flares after Iranian hardliner Ahmadinejad rounds up opposition leaders following disputed election ).
The next question is what do we do — what can we do — to support the protesters?
In a related aside, I just had to turn off my radio. A conservative talk radio host noted that some were suggesting that moderate voting increased in Iran because of Obama’s overtures in the his recent speeches. And then this clown appeared to go on to gleefully note how the cops and the military are out cracking the heads of the protestors. It’s as though he wants to slam Obama for being naive, for raising false hopes. But there was no point in listening to see if he would try to rationalize the neocon threats and bluster as some kind of rational alternative.
Martin
Actually, the best feature of Sully is to be thorough. He goes out of his way to put forward dissenting opinions and is willing to stand up and say that he was wrong, is having doubts, etc. That’s rare.
Blab first, think second isn’t a flaw, rather it’s a choice of how to blog. Sully puts things out there, sometimes warts and all. John does that too (how else do we explain peak wingnut and naked mopping.) Other blogs are more thoughtful up front, others are fast and loose and mop up after.
I disagree with Sully on a lot of things, but I have to give him credit for being better at producing a full narrative and showing himself as part of that narrative than most blogs out there.
Comrade Stuck
I must have missed that during my recent hiatus from blogging. I will say, that is probably a good thing/
burnspbesq
@JGabriel:
There isn’t enough brain bleach in the entire universe.
burnspbesq
@Brachiator:
Somehow he doesn’t seem the type to bite the usherette’s leg in the dark.
Anne Laurie
Now that we’re in the Obama Recession(tm), true patriots understand that America needs a “hot war” in the Middle East to ramp up profits at America’s pre-eminent weapons manufacturers and increase Xe/Blackwater employment levels! (/neocon)
Srsly, I predict some multisyllabic version of this argument to emerge from the PNAC crowd no later than Tuesday morning. I’d actually have expected it to be on the Sabbath Gasbag shows today, so I guess the “kinder, gentler” end-of-the-Darth-Cheney-era White House administration has actually influenced our media discourse.
KG
@77: I loathe twitter too, but fuck, it’s impossible to deny that the Revolution will be Twittered.
And now, having typed that, I must go consume massive amounts of alcohol to atone.
Tom
Shorter Tim: Big Brother needs Emmanuel Goldstein.
Not a new idea.
Yutsano
Does this mean we can start bombing Minnesota?
jl
Yeah, I hate Twitter too, but what are you going to do? It is amazing to read messages as they come in from people on the ground there.
Problem with the warmonger wingnuts is that they are so predictable. Even before anyone really understands what is going on they start chearleading for more war. Totally depraved, immoral, and totally stupid people.
If the thuggish theocratic Iranian government is cracking up, that seems like a good thing to me. And it looks like it is cracking up.
Apparently some people in the Iranian Interior Ministry are leaking out what they claim are the real returns, showing a big Moussavi win.
From interviews I have seen on the blogs, the Iranians look like sane sensible and enlightened people. People knew the government wasn’t really democratic, and I read people who said that their vote was mainly a protest against Ahmadinejad. Moussavi is not even as liberal as Khatami. But their government decided to kick them in the face, and they could not take that lying down.
Looks like the government is splitting up. Rasfanjani resigned one of his posts and is meeting with Moussavi.
Interesting times. Everyone has to raise holy hell here when the wingnuts try to use it as an opportunity to gin up more warfever here.
Brachiator
@Martin:
It’s really quite simple. Here was Chuck’s original, very specific claim:
As theocracies age they get stupider, it is a natural function of the narrow limits they operate in.
Followed up with:
The ability to hold power over the long run depends on an ability to function fairly well. In the short run governmental terrorism will maintain a government but ineptitude eventually causes the grip on the levers to slip.
I simply asked for something, anything, that would demonstrate or clarify this claim. There was not even any antagonism involved, since I find this to be an interesting take on “social change.”
I never made any claim or argument about how theocracies displace more secular governments.
However, I have noted in other threads the audacity of the fundamentalist assault on Pakistan, and how this is potentially a greater crisis than the Israel/Palestinian conflict or even whether Iran develops nukes.
Yep. There is this. But in the Middle East, and parts of Africa, the complexity is the challenge of nationalism, religion and modernity, not the inherent stupidity or ineptitude of theocracies. For example, the Islamic Courts Union, which sought to impose a competent government on the chaos of Somalia soon degenerated into despotic fundamentalism. Neither moderates nor secular forces could gain any traction, and “the will of the people” never entered into the equation at all.
Iraq and Iran have oscillated between secular authoritarian regimes, often imposed by the West, and resentful, equally authoritarian, Islamic regimes (with democratic reformers generally undermined by foreign governments and in later history, the CIA) . And fundamentalists, of course, claim that the will of the people must be subservient to submitting to the will of God.
This parallels, but is largely independent of, the European Religious Wars that weren’t really resolved until — what — the early 19th century?
And of course, there is the example of the Ottoman Empire, which lasted for over 600 years, ultimately yielding to a secular, mainly democratic government. But even here, it’s not certain what might have happened here had it not been for World War I, and occupation of Istanbul in the aftermath of that war.
jl
The blog Tehran Bureau has lots of good news. A reporter for them went to different parts of Tehran before the election looking for Ahmadinejad supporters and couldn’t find a majority anywhere -even in poor neighborhoods that were supposed to be Ahmadinejad strongholds.
I don’t think we have hard evidence that the election was stolen yet. But there is evidence, if you bother to read the news. Big crackdown on communications just before election, telephone and internet blackouts. Government claims to have final count of millions of paper ballots within a day of the election, and the supreme leader says Ahmadinejad won by divine edict that same day. The officially announced election returns bear no relationship at all to previous polling numbers.
Smells like total BS to me.
From what I have read so far, the bloggers like Juan Cole have the facts and the analysis, and typical corporate media BSers like Dickey (who says no firm evidence of vote steal) have self-satisfied factless reportless conventional wisdom that they blow out of their asses. That is my opinion, but everyone can go read and make up their own minds.
gwangung
Heh. “Hard” evidence is a misnomer. It’s ALL evidence; anybody who’s done work in the sciences knows that this is how you gather data–suggestive data from here, interesting data from there. No, each single bit of data is not enough to eliminate alternative hypotheses, but the sum total of evidence might be getting to beyond a reasonable doubt.
Little Dreamer
@MikeJ:
That sounds like America, November 2000-January 2009.
jl
@gwangung:
I meant to use the term “hard evidence” to indicate reports that could be verified from multiple sources. So, for example, there are multiple reports that people in the Interior Ministry of Iran are releasing the true vote totals.
So, are there people in the Interior Ministry really doing this?
Are the numbers they are releasing really the true vote count, or not?
We don’t know. But multiple sources report that these numbers are coming from people the Interior Ministry and they are releasing updated numbers on a regular basis.
So, a range of things can be true here, and we are not sure what the situation is.
But I do think that the preponderance of evidence now is that the Iranian presidential election was rigged.
matoko_chan
Charon
I don’t get your point.
The reformists were chanting Allahu O Akbar on the rooftops when their com-net was cut off, not “Mousavi” or “Freedom now” in Farsi.
Green is the color of al-Islam.
Nejad’s bussed in farmers were carrying green and red banners.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
r€nato:
This. Says. It. All.
They need to be able to point at each other’s craziness and rile up their respective citizens to garner support. President Obama (I love saying that!) isn’t out there calling for their blood (or oil). That and the fact that he is not ‘just another white guy’ is throwing them off their games. President Obama is not feeding the various ‘enemies’ the rhetoric they need to survive and grow and it is causing them problems. If no existential threat exists then it is pretty difficult for the hard-liners to justify their us versus them positions.
I am watching the unfolding situation in Iran with great interest because this may be a historical moment in time. Our President acknowledged our complicity in a coup that overthrew a democratically elected government to install a puppet one. You can bet that admission was heard loud and clear in Iran, as well as throughout the Muslim world. Before you can solve problems, you have to admit your part in them. With that admission, President Obama opened a huge door that could lead to negotiations and possible peace with Iran.
Interesting times indeed.
jl
Update on the Daily Kos website says that the leaked Interior Ministry numbers that are supposed to be the true results are now being posted on Khatami’s (the reformist ex-president) website. There is a link to a website in Persian with Khatami’s picture on it, but what they heck do I know for sure what it is? But anyway, looks like this is not a few upper middle class university students and rich toffs in North Tehran having a tantrum. Something big is happening.
Here are what the anonymous leakers in the Interior Ministry are sying the true numbers are with looks like about 80% of the vote counted. These numbers say a big win for Mousavi:
ballets cast – 37.4 million (81%)
Spoilt ballets – 600,000 (1.6%)
Mir Hossein Mousavi – 21.3 million (57.2%)
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – 10.5 million (28%)
Mohsen Rezaei – 2.7 million (7.2%)
Mehdi Karrubi – 2.2 million (6%)
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/6/14/742253/-Early-Report-Day-Two:-The-Massacre-has-started,-Protestors-shot,-the-University-Invaded.
Litlebritdifrnt
I can haz open thread so John can ask his gardening question and I can answer? KTHNXBAI.
Litlebritdifrnt
PS)
MATERS!
Cain
@JenJen:
Twitter is revolutionizing the news. In the midst of an Iranian uprising people are getting stories directly! People to people. No dissemination, no nothing. This is fantastic! MSM’s response to this is making a new generation of viewers turn them off. Quite a feather in twitter’s hat. (although I use identi.ca instead of twitter, open source y’all!)
cain
JL
@Litlebritdifrnt: I need help also.. The bunnies have devastated my beans and beets. The garden is fenced which means the dog can’t get in but the bunnies can. Fortunately, they don’t seem to care for the peppers and squash.
Snarla
You’re calling President Ahmadinejad poorly educated? He has a doctorate.
priscianus jr
Snaria (104),
He has a doctorate in transportation engineering, an advanced technical education. Clearly the man has lots of smarts, but the type of education he has received does not preclude a narrow view of the world.
drumwolf
@Snarla:
He himself may have a doctorate (and as already mentioned, in a technical field), but his base tends to lean towards more poorly educated.
Most of our own extreme-right GOP political leaders have post-graduate degrees. Bobby Jindal was a friggin’ Rhodes Scholar.
Cain
Invariably this rebellion is going to fail, it needs to grow much much much bigger than what they have now. How interesting that they went after Tehran university first. Hard right Islamic groups are going after the students. Understandable… I”m getting flashback the last time this happened? When is that again? Sometime in the 80s right?
cain
Yutsano
As of right now we don’t know how big the insurrection is, and that’s part of the problem. The powers that be in Iran have moved against Mousavi in some way and Rafsanjani has resigned, that means there are bigger forces under way than just the students. And yeah the last major student riot I believe was in 1999. There may have been others but that’s the number that pops into my head right now.
Salacious Crumb
ok my 2 cents here..I’ll probably be harangued for sounding too pro-Ahmedinajad but I’ll say it anyways as I like this site…
first of all we need facts before we in the West pontificate to the Muslim world (again) that there is fraud going on. All indications seem to be pointing to a fraud, but seriously the way the American and European media is reporting this event, its like a foregone conclusion that massive fraud took place. We didnt like the fact that Hamas won, so we ignored them and their democratically elected govt, and it sounds like liberals and conservatives alike are ready to slam Ahmedinajad because we dont like his win either.
In some ways, if it turns out that Mousavi truly lost..then he would be a victim of his own standing…..and what I mean is that the much of the religious Iran (who arent necessarily fundamentalist, just pious) are conservative rural poor who distrust the urban youth, and especially the ones really clamoring for change as they come from the rich and upper middle class sections of Tehran. These conservative folks might not hate the West and may even dislike Ahmedinajad, but they are just as worried of too many Western influences harming their country should it become more open to the West. Good candidate, wrong choice of people rooting for him.
Bootlegger
@Notorious P.A.T.: Wrong. “Most states” were aristocratic in nature with resources and means of production handed down through clans or taken by conquest. Political intrigue and warlords were the prized skills. They used religion if it served their purpose but make no mistake, most long-term societies were aristocracies.
Saudi Arabia isn’t even a theocratic state, but an aristocracy of the House of Saud. They nourished and promoted Wahaibism to serve their own ends.
There are examples of brief runs by pure theocracies, but they tend to fall to the landowners/resource holders, the death of the charismatic founder, or internal ecclesiastical division. Oliver Cromwell comes to mind.
Bootlegger
@Brachiator: The Ottoman Turks were a landed aristocracy, not a theocracy.
Yutsano
Yes and no. The Ottomans were keepers of the caliphate and therefore the head of the Islamic world and the Islamic faith. They weren’t exactly what you would call pious. There really isn’t a comparison between the Ottomans and Iran though.
Onihanzo
Just stumbled over an article at Redstate and I don’t know what’s more ridiculous… the “hee hee it’s all burning” Joker-esque delight of Dan McLaughlin… or the comically stupid ad they had on their page for The Ultimate Man’s Survival Guide:
Irony, thy knows no bounds.
omen
anybody know an iran-centric site where we express our support for the protesters? these are the same people who held candlelight vigils and shared in our mourning after 9/11. i’ve never forgotten that kindness. it would be nice to express our sympathies in kind. i saw a note that suggested people wear green on monday as a mark of solidarity. anything else we can do?
JenJen
@Cain: You know, it really is fantastic. And watching CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News explain away their complete disregard of breaking international news should be, well, interesting over the next day. Depressing, for sure. When CNN finally showed up again last night, their anchor, Don Lemon, started lashing out at bloggers and twitterers for reporting “unsubstantiated” news. True, CNN, and how could you resist a swipe at bloggers and social media? But where the hell were you?? I could’ve sworn CNN was a news organization…
Go Twitter. It’s been incredible to follow since Friday.
@omen: I’d honestly suggest Twitter. It seems to be where Iranians are getting their news, so it’s the best place to show support at this time. It’s fascinating watching all the Twitter avatars changing over to green, for example. Please check it out, regardless of what you may or may not think of the medium. It’s been earth-shattering the last few days.
Zach
@Cain:
The Islamic Revolution was also a movement driven by the support of students, with brutal raids against Tehran University (which was later purged in the 80s; maybe what you’re recalling). It would be rather uncommon if this rebellion were going on without student support, and if it was put down by means other than cracking down on the most vocal protesters. Going after Tehran University isn’t all that telling. It’s not surprising that Iran’s response to instability, regardless of whether or not the election was stolen, is that of a police state.
Andrew Sullivan’s now retweeting claims of tampered ballot boxes over at his site. Is this the new hard evidence of fraud now that a few of the statistical arguments haven’t totally worked out (see 538 and my post in the last thread)? The argument yesterday was that it was so obvious that the election was stolen from the numbers released that it must’ve been done in panic – that the results were entirely invented – now it’s about manipulating the votes before they were counted.
Hopefully the events of the past few days lead to greater support in Iran for the protesters… not looking like anyone’s giving up soon, and it seems that they’ve won at least the appearance of the regime considering their complaints.
Persia
@WereBear: You’ve got it exactly. My mom hates travel and would really just stay within 40 miles of home always. She confessed to me this weekend she was afraid my niece and nephew would move away and never come back. I said “Mom, we can go visit them!” But she’s really almost a bit phobic of the Big Wide World.
grendelkhan
@Cain: I’m sure that’s what everyone said when the Shah was deposed. I quite understand that things have gotten intolerable over there, but revolutions are hardly guaranteed to produce an end result that’s an improvement over the original. Consider Russia, for example.
HyperIon
linky?
or would it be irresponsible of me to ask?