[marden]

Dec. 3, 2006 21:00 | Updated Dec. 4, 2006 1:02
Iran's parliament wants Ahmadinejad out
By DPA
TEHERAN, Iran

Iran's parliament wants the next presidential elections to be held more than one year early, the Fars news agency reported Sunday.

Parliament approved a draft bill upon which the parliamentary and presidential elections would be held simultaneously in the first quarter of 2008.

As the next parliamentary elections are scheduled for February 2008, but the next presidential elections for June 2009, the new bill would reduce the four-year presidential term of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by almost one and a half years.

The members of parliament in favor of the bill, more than 80 percent, say that the simultaneous formation of the executive and legislative powers would enable better cooperation between the two powers and strengthen parliament's supervision role.

Ahmadinejad has not yet reacted to the draft bill.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...cle%2FShowFull

I think this is equivalent to the message our protesters send to the Islamists.

We should read that the Iranian parliament may not support Ahmadinejad's taking Iran on a headlong race to the edge of doom and they may not back all his decisions.

Now, this isn't something the average poster can make use of, but to our foreign policy and military strategists this could be HUGE.

The clock that ticks down toward the end of the world may have slowed down.

Ahmadinejad is someone who looks forward to the end of the world. He is suicidal.

Obviously, he does not speak for ALL of Iran. Praise be!

[goMac]

The article states why Iran's Parliament is doing it. And it has nothing to do with Ahmadinejad personally. Considering the source, unless you can link to something that gives that as the definitive answer, I doubt the conclusion the article is making.

Where's the beef, Marden?

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Originally Posted by marden 

Ahmadinejad is someone who looks forward to the end of the world. He is suicidal.

Indeed. We can see how suicidal he really is by how he's risked himself to–

–oh wait, never mind.

greg

[marden]

Originally Posted by goMac 

The article states why Iran's Parliament is doing it. And it has nothing to do with Ahmadinejad personally. Considering the source, unless you can link to something that gives that as the definitive answer, I doubt the conclusion the article is making.

Where's the beef, Marden?

Now, this isn't something the average poster can make use of, but to our foreign policy and military strategists this could be HUGE.

Just watch and learn.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by marden 

Just watch and learn.

C'mon Marden. You're giving me Lima Beans. I want real beef here.

(Also you're posting opinions of foreign agents. You should be careful.)

[marden]

Originally Posted by goMac 

C'mon Marden. You're giving me Lima Beans. I want real beef here.

(Also you're posting opinions of foreign agents. You should be careful.)

There's nothing more for now. Just learn to note things mentally and then put them away until later. Then when something else happens you can put those two pieces together and it might mean something to you where it would mean nothing to most others who hadn't noted the first event.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by marden 

Then when something else happens you can put those two pieces together and it might mean something to you where it would mean nothing to most others who hadn't noted the first event.

I wouldn't bet your house on what you think is going to happen.

[Wiskedjak]

Marden,
Are you suggesting that democracy may actually be working in Iran?

[marden]

Originally Posted by goMac 

I wouldn't bet your house on what you think is going to happen.

What do I think is going to happen?

What do you think is going to happen?

Is it hard to not share your true thoughts with us as we do with you?

Do you have to get permission from a handler to say anything of substance?

[marden]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

Marden,
Are you suggesting that democracy may actually be working in Iran?

I haven't mentally gotten that far.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by marden 

What do I think is going to happen?

What do you think is going to happen?

Is it hard to not share your true thoughts with us as we do with you?

Do you have to get permission from a handler to say anything of substance?

Oh c'mon. We all know you think this will lead to Ahmadinejad being forced out early, which given his popularity, is extremely unlikely.

What's going to happen is he'll be elected in again, and then he'll be around for another term, just starting earlier than his 2nd term normally would.

If anything it's a maneuver to avoid Ahmadinejad having to face an election during a crisis situation.

[marden]

Originally Posted by goMac 

Oh c'mon. We all know you think this will lead to Ahmadinejad being forced out early, which given his popularity, is extremely unlikely.

What's going to happen is he'll be elected in again, and then he'll be around for another term, just starting earlier than his 2nd term normally would.

If anything it's a maneuver to avoid Ahmadinejad having to face an election during a crisis situation.

So, you are predicting a crisis situation!

[goMac]

Originally Posted by marden 

So, you are predicting a crisis situation!

I don't think you're thinking of the same type of crisis situation I'm thinking of. More like a US against Iran crisis.

But moreover Ahmadinejad isn't going anywhere. He is too popular in Iran.

[marden]

Originally Posted by goMac 

I don't think you're thinking of the same type of crisis situation I'm thinking of. More like a US against Iran crisis.

But moreover Ahmadinejad isn't going anywhere. He is too popular in Iran.

In all fantasy ideologies, there is a point at which the make-believe becomes an end in itself. This fact is nowhere more clearly exhibited than in the Italian conquest of Ethiopia.

Any attempt to see this adventure in Clausewitzian terms is doomed to fail: There was no political or economic advantage whatsoever to be gained from the invasion of Ethiopia. Indeed, the diplomatic disadvantages to Italy in consequence of this action were tremendous, and they were in no way to be compensated for by anything that Italy could hope to gain from possessing Ethiopia as a colony.

Why invade, then? The answer is quite simple. Ethiopia was a prop — a prop in the fantasy pageant of the new Italian Empire — that and nothing else. And the war waged in order to win Ethiopia as a colony was not a war in the Clausewitzian sense — that is to say, it was not an instrument of political policy designed to induce concessions from Ethiopia, or to get Ethiopia to alter its policies, or even to get Ethiopia to surrender. Ethiopia had to be conquered not because it was worth conquering, but because the fascist fantasy ideology required Italy to conquer something — and Ethiopia fit the bill. The conquest was not the means to an end, as in Clausewitzian war; it was an end in itself. Or, more correctly, its true purpose was to bolster the fascist collective fantasy that insisted on casting the Italians as a conquering race, the heirs of Imperial Rome.

http://www.policyreview.org/aug02/harris.html

I believe Ahmadinejad's popularity may come from his having harnessed two seemingly complementary fantasy ideologies of his people.

The pre-Islamic "Persia-as-major-empire" ideology and the post-Islamic Iran as the seat of the new global caliphate or bust!

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by marden 

I haven't mentally gotten that far.

I understand that recognizing the existence of a self-made Islamic democracy, in a place where the only US intervention was to stop democracy from evolving, might a challenge for you.

[Millennium]

Um, last I checked, wasn't Ahmadinejad considered much more moderate than the Iranian Parliament? Didn't he get into a lot of trouble with them over some of the things he's done? Or am I confusing him with the previous president of Iran?

[vmarks]

You're confusing Ahmadinejad with Khatami.