Hitch

Christopher Hitchens su Slate parla di Iran ed Iraq: Yes, Iran is meddling in Iraqi affairs, but maybe the influence works both ways. :

"Even though numerous American media outlets have fallen into the lazy trap of saying that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was overwhelmingly 'elected' as president of Iran last June, the plain fact remains that his last-minute emergence was a manipulated fraud, concocted behind the scenes after the original list of candidates had been screened and purged, and was an even grosser fraud on the day itself, with no attempt made to hide the ballot-stuffing and vote-rigging. Whereas, with the exception of some bans on individual Baathists, rather than on Baathism itself, the successive votes in Iraq have been a more and more accurate reflection of actual political differences as well as of ethnic and confessional ones.

Prima o poi qualche estimatore di Hitchens in Italia se ne potrebbe accorgere.

Nonetheless, everything I can glean from friends and contacts in Iraq makes it ever-clearer that the Iranian state and its clerical proxies made a huge intervention in the Iraqi voting earlier this month, most especially in the southern provinces and in the capital city of Baghdad. It was probable that the Shiite parties would have won anyway, but they made assurance doubly sure by extensive fraud and by using both militias and uniformed policemen to exclude, coerce, or intimidate voters. So, the regional dilemma is now as follows: Will the Iraqi model be one day followed in Iran, or will Iran succeed in imposing its own 'model' on Iraq?"

La realta' e' piu' complessa, tuttavia, della rigida immagine data dai nostri media, con gli sciiti assurti a nuovi "cattivi"; nemmeno Sistani e' un vero "khomeinista" , ne' e' probabile che gli sciiti iracheni vogliano replicare un regime di cui i loro correligionari iraniani sembrano essere estremamente delusi.

Grand Ayatollah Sistani, for example (who is himself an Iranian by birth), is an opponent of the ideology of Ayatollah Khomeini, who first promulgated his authoritarian concept of the veleyat-i-faqih, or "guardianship of the cleric," while in enforced exile in Iraq. There are important Shiite scholars on opposite sides of the argument, in both nations, about whether the mullahs should seek to wield political power in the here and now. It seems a safe bet, on every measurement of opinion that we have, that a huge proportion of the Iranian population is fed up with the misery and backwardness and corruption—to say nothing of the international isolation—that has attended three decades of clerical rule. And there are certainly a vast number of Iraqis who do not intend to exchange one form of absolutism for another.

Che fare? Secondo Hitchens, sarebbe il caso che i "progressisti" euramericani cominciassero a pensare del "vero" lavoro: la causa democratica, progressista, femminista e quant'altro in Iran avrebbe un futuro, se venisse aiutata da elementi privati e non venisse invece vista sotto l'influenza del governo USA.

Millions of Iranians have satellite dishes and relatives in the West; there is a large and restive Kurdish minority that has been much encouraged by developments in Iraq; feminist and other dissident movements are extensive. It is sometimes argued that such groups do not want to be seen or painted as agents of the U.S. government. Very well, then, here is a great project for American human-rights and pro-disarmament and "civil society" groups to undertake.

In ogni caso, e' ora di svegliarsi: gli ultimi eccessi iraniani sono sicuramente dovuti anche alla sensazione d'impunita' che i suoi leader cominciano ad avere, dopo averla fatta franca troppe volte.

Whatever the case, it cannot be that such a despotic and arrogant regime feels that it can meddle everywhere without any cost to itself.