Comments on: Iran and U.S. ‘not fated to be enemies forever’: Stephen Kinzer

By: nmjzrkkvuan

nmjzrkkvuan — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 15:50:48 +0000

By: anathema

anathema — Wed, 12 May 2010 21:08:01 +0000

The problem with the western society in their contacts toward Iran is that they judge Iran and it’s people by the media and it’s government. Every media is dependent upon a government in one way or another. So the more media a nation has the more idea it can inject into the minds of the naive. So until our judgements are based on media information we can be sure that it’ll be incorrect. Not to mention that the “judgement” itself, especially when it be by a different culture, will basically be wrong from the very beginning.

By: Abdul Moczo

Abdul Moczo — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 07:34:09 +0000

hey man come on this is good stuff

By: Malcon Arriaga

Malcon Arriaga — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 20:41:39 +0000

Dear friend

Your words in 25 july was very explanatory. Coul you help me? I have some others questions. And I think you can give me some direction to search.

please write to arriagamalcon@usp.br

thank you

By: Liz

Liz — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 13:05:02 +0000

As Roberto says above how about scholars like Kinzer as negotiotors instead of Bolton or Ross now?
Thanks for the article.

By: Mohammad

Mohammad — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 22:09:39 +0000

I’m relieved to see one Western outlet reminding that there hasn’t been enough evidence of any election fraud. As an Iranian living in Tehran, I can confirm that Ahmadinejad has indeed many supporters. But the problem is, his supporters are frequently conservatives who are not media-savvy, not fluent in English and rarely reach out to Western journalists. Other than that, they feel the government is representing them and they are not motivated so much as Mousavi’s supporters to be active in the media and reach out to the outer world. Also, probably most of the wealthy, intellectuals, students, activists, journalists, Web users, etc. support Mousavi. He has the majority in Tehran even by the official results, and has two-thirds of the votes in the wealthy, elite northern Tehran.
So my feeling is that the magnitude of the messages generated by Mousavi’s supporters, both before and after the election, and their enthusiastic activism has led to the false perception (even among themselves) that they are the majority.
Having said that, the government was panicked by the protests and reacted hastily since it was the first time that such demonstrations were happening, which were perceived by the gov’t people as a security threat (actually some violence happened on part of Mousavi’s supporters or maybe some anarchist hooligans, which caused widespread damage to public property and almost halted business in central Tehran, although he denied that they were his genuine supporters). This rather false perception led to the sad events afterwards. I think the government genuinely (and falsely) believes that a velvet revolution was planned. They have “reasons” for that, e.g. see here: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=99327&sectionid=351020101

I call this woeful state of affairs “The Great Misconception” which I think is going on at both sides.

p.s. If you are at doubt that Ahmadinejad has many supporters and may have actually won, consult some impartial surveys on the public opinion of Iranians. e.g. a WPO poll in 2008 found out that reformists only make up 18% of Iranian population: http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brmiddleeastnafricara/609.php?nid=&id=&pnt=609&lb=brme
You may have also heard about the famous Terror Free Tomorrow poll which predicted an Ahmadinejad win: http://www.terrorfreetomorrow.org/upimagestft/TFT%20Iran%20Survey%20Report.pdf
A prominent Iranian pollster organization, namely Iranian Students Polling Agency (ispa.ir) whose members are reportedly mostly pro-Mousavi, found out that a majority of Iranians were going to vote for Ahmadinejad and Mousavi had support of less than one-third of the people. However, I have heard this through unofficial channels and cannot verify it. I’m eagerly waiting for the official results and subsequent analysis to be released (which haven’t yet and are expected to be released after the election dust settles down. This policy is because of political sensitivities which prevail in Iran).

By: John Lowell

John Lowell — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 21:20:00 +0000

Kinzer’s comments are egregiously compromised by a presupposed “maybe-they’ll-be-just-like-us-someday-and-won’t-that-be-wonderful” mindset. All of which makes his vision of recent events highly suspect, as balanced as they would otherwise appear to be on the surface. Deep down, Kinzer roots for the “color revolution” with its elitist preferences for a vision of a woman’s role in Islamic society that is deeply at odds with history and culture. At the extreme, this view has increasingly fueled American aggression in Afghanistan/Pakistan and, if left unchallenged, will be accepted where it hasn’t been so already as a legitimate casus beli when the inevitable attack on Iranian nuclear capability is launched. What then to make of “progressive” characterizations of the claimed Evangelical “crusades” against Islam in the Middle East? Is the cause of Bella Abzug then to be justified by some different but terribly superior morality, one that exposes a long suspected fascist vein in feminist thinking? Don’t be surprized, the attempts already are being made.

By: Roberto

Roberto — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 15:55:05 +0000

As an amateur historian on Iran, Guatemala and Chile, I read Stephen Kinzer’s All the Shah’s Men with keen interest.

My first impression was that He is a “good American” who understands the consequences of the criminality of 1953 coup. He understands that “for every action there is a reaction” and since the action of toppling Mossadeq was an immensely powerful historical act, he is expecting strong Iranian reactions for sometimes to come. How strong? If Iranians had done that to Americans the reaction would’ve been “total obliteration”. Yet, Iranians are not like Americans.

That is why I am not sure that Stephen fully understands some of the peculiarities of the Iranian culture and the specific important points where his culture and that of Iranians are so different.

As an example, one of the grave side-effects of the 1953 coup was that, in Iran, because of their tumultuous history, a mind-set was ever- evolving along the idea of “a pleasurable way to live this crazy life is to share the joy and pain of others” (Khayam, Saadi…). Although a very small percentage of the Iranian population was adhering to such beautiful morality, yet, the foreigners who lived in the country occasionally could meet interesting people who “were not for sale, at any price”.

After the coup, gradually that kind of attitude started to fade away. Instead of “crazy life”, “ugly, evil life” was replacing the base of the conscience of the those who were evolving from “solids, trees, animals and people” to “an angelic super-being beyond the realm of our imaginations” (read Rumi’s dazzling poetry on this)

Killing that beautiful humanistic concept for “profit” was a heinous crime indeed.

Yet, Iranians will shake hands with Americans only if they are treated with respect and if instead of Bolton, Kinser is the negotiator.