Growing Iranian Fundamentalist Support: Blowback?

First off, a good video explaining the idea of blowback:



Take an objective view of US foreign policy, and you'll come to one conclusion: It's not our freedom, it's our foreign policy.

Folks, with all of the talk I see on this site about Ahmadinejad and his rhetoric, I find many are overlooking one man who is of much greater importance to Iran than the President.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: Supreme Leader of Iran.

The Office of the President of Iran does not serve the same function that it does in a traditional Western-style democracy such as ours. We have to remember that Iran is still a Theocratic state, meaning that the President is actually subordinate to the 'Supreme Leader'. One should also note that as much as the MSM hypes up Ahmadinejad as being 'extreme', he is actually considered to be a moderate in their political environment. Until now, Ahmadinejad has had a fair amount of 'moderate' support in the Iranian Parliament.

Until now.

It is now being reported that the Iranian fundamentalist groups (supporters of Khamenei), such as the the United Fundamentalists Front and the Stability of Islamic Revolution Front, are beginning to gain parliamentary seats and political power. There is a major power struggle in Iran between the current powers and the Islamic Fundamentalist groups, and it's predictably being ignored by the corrupt and incompetent MSM. Ahmadinejad's sister even lost her election in their home town.

Here's what I've gathered from these developments: the sanctions on Iran and threats from the West are being used as a tool for Khamenei to gain Fundamentalist support. As shown by the results (so far) of the parliamentary elections, it seems to be working quite well. I'm no warmonger, and I doubt that the current Iranian regime poses an external threat (even with a nuclear weapon). That being said, if these foreign policies continue, I think we may see a major shift in Iranian politics in the near future; a shift towards radical Islamic fundamentalism - BLOWBACK.

That, I believe, may pose a real external threat - regardless of their nuclear capability.

reply to post by CaptainIraq

Good post and a good rational view on the matter.
Unfortunately, complex learning and political decision-making still seems to be more related to partisan agendas instead of to a rational evaluation of the results and merits of a particular policy.

There will be no civilization until US forces withdraw their bases from Muslim lands. That is how it will until the end of time.

reply to post by CaptainIraq


I apologize for having a difficult time with quoting, so you will have to forgive me as I am new to this site.

You said;

Take an objective view of US foreign policy, and you'll come to one conclusion: It's not our freedom, it's our foreign policy.

I know the rules on this site say we cannot simply post to say we agree with what was said, but to be honest this is the absolute truth and I could not agree more. Freedom is loved by all men, but US foreign policy has a great amount of impact against peoples freedom in their countries.

I point to an article here www.humanevents.com... of which I quote part;

In an effort to understand and placate Syrian opposition groups, Secretary Clinton invited them to a meeting in Washington. Most of those invited, however, have links to the Muslim Brotherhood. Missing from the invitations are Kurdish leaders, Sunni liberals, Assyrians and Christian spokesmen. According to various reports the State Department made a deal with Turkey and Muslim Brotherhood representatives either to share power with Assad to stabilize the government, or replace him if this effort fails. One organization, the Syrian Democracy Council (SDC), an opposition group composed of diverse ethnic and religious organizations, including Alawis, Aramaic Christians, Druze and Assyrians was conspicuously -- and no coincidentally -- omitted from the invitation list.

I feel it is important to note that the muslim brotherhood is an actual terrorist organization that the US has neglected placement on their terrorist organization list! To me, this is purposeful, and this is what should be terrifying people, the alignment of the US with people in AL-qaieda, the Muslim Brotherhood, and other such terrorist organizations and helping these people gain power, such as was done in Afghanistan with the Taliban and Iraq with Saddam Hussain. It is no wonder the American government is hated, its against democracy as demonstrated by her unwillingness to support it in places such Egypt, Libya and now Syria.

reply to post by CaptainIraq


Good assessment. I agree.

Here's a decent article on sanctions and if they work. Note its from 2008, and was written to discuss if they should be applied to Zimbabwe at the time. I include it because it provides a good bit of history...

The Big Question: Have sanctions ever worked, and should they be applied to Zimbabwe?

The article examines sanctions over the years and concludes they worked in about 1/3 of the cases. It does make a notable point on Iraq..

Why did they fail in Iraq?

Because the comprehensive sanctions there ended up hurting the people they are designed to help. The 13 years of UN sanctions brought poverty and hardship for ordinary Iraqis and almost certainly caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children when water and sanitation systems collapsed and spare parts were unavailable thanks to the sanctions.

I think this is what we are seeing in Iran. It would seem very difficult to starve a people into liking you - and also very easy for any government in power to point out who was really hurting you. No wonder they are having the opposite effect.

Just as an update, it looks like Islamic conservative fundamentalists have dealt a major blow to Ahmadinejad's supporters in the elections, taking 75% of the seats in the election.

This is not looking good. This situation is still going largely ignored, and the Western powers are discussing even more sanctions. I fear that any more sanctions/military threats and we may see a major power grab by Khamenei and his supporters, the most extreme case being a hostile takeover/coup by fundamentalist forces within the year, if not months.

Parliament doesn't have that much power in their government, though it still poses a major political threat to Ahmadinejad and does represent a change in public opinion.