By very strongly and publicly supporting them and dragging the matter to the UN Security Council Of course, his supporters have been praising his “strong action” in comparison with Obama’s quiet approach to the 2009 demonstrations, meant to reduce accusations of the demonstraters being US pawns. Those demos went on a long time with large numbers eventually killed. In this case, Trump has made the government’s case, and the demos seem to have all but stopped since he took his strong tweeting “action.”
As it is, maybe he did them a favor as clearly the government has been prepared to crack down. Only 20 and one security person) this time. His strong action has reduced the ultimate bloodshed.
Barkley Rosser
Not everything that happens is caused by the United States.
Of course, Bill H, but what else shut these demos down, because they have all but stopped. The obvious alternative is repression by Iranian government, with 20 dead demonstraters, but those numbers were much greater back in 2009, and the demos just kept going. In this case, they seem to have stopped almost immediately after Trump “acted strongly.” The correlation is very high. Only other thing going on them was appearance of counter demonstrations supporting government. When was the last time that you saw a movement shut down by the appearance of some counter demonstrations.
There have been some demos recently, but they have been protests outside prisons calling for release of people arrested in the earlier demos, but not straightforward continuations of the earlier protests. Those appear to have all but stopped, even though they were going on all over the.country. Sure looks like Trump’s mouth shooting off plus UNSC move on Iran played a major role. Nobody in Iran wants to be publicly associated with our worthless piece of shit president.
Slowly but surely, the rest of the world is learning that it is far better to be against America that for it. Since it seems this is the only possible way to kill off American imperialism and foreign military adventurism for good, it is LONG overdue.
Glenn,
The evidence of CIA (or Saudi or other outside) support seems strongest in some minority dominated parts of Iran, such as the Kurdish dominated Noerhwest and Sunni Arab-dominated Ahwaz province in the southwest, a major center of oil production. But the protests started in the Persian core heartland of religious Shia support for hardliners such as Ayatollah Khameini, Mashhad and Qom.
Indeed, the immediate trigger was removal of subsidies for consumers for gasoline and eggs, and most reports coming from reliable sources such as Juan Cole say that in fact hardliners supported these initial protests, which were directed at the more moderate government of Rouhani. Then the protests spread and turned against Khameini.
If these were concentrated just in those minority areas, claims that this was all due to the CIA and the Saudis might be believable, but they were too widespread, along with being disjointed and apparently leaderless. They look to having been fundamentally spontaneous, but when people saw Trump pulling his stunts, they suddenly stopped. If CIA was really driving them, they would not have stopped just because Trump started engaging in his “strong actions..” The evidence is overwhelming that the population opposes Trump on both the questions of the nuclear deal and on economic sanctions, which he wishes to reimpose and tighten. Given that the origin of the demos was protests over economic issues, do you remotely think the demonstraters want more economic sanctions imposed by the US? No, that would be insane, and I do not think these people insane.
Maybe you think the Iranian people are insane suckers and fools, if so, you are welcome to your opinion.
Insane suckers and fools? Let’s see…homosexuality a capital crime, religious persecution, lack of freedom in speech, arts, and journalism, foreign policy adventurism (via proxies), gender inequality, stiff punishments for fornication, torture, death penalty for minors, cruel and unusual punishment (flogging for instance), etc. I think insane suckers and fools is appropriate.
It is correct that Trump help make the point that US would profit from the protests!
From Krugman: Trump most assuredly was “erratic, vindictive, uninformed, lazy, would-be” nation toppler like W, Obama and both Clintons!
Krugman’s article about Trump is correct Trump was wrong about the protests like is about almost everything aside from Bannan.
The few days’ demonstrations were very small, there were no wide angle photos indicating slight crowds.
The Ahwazi are about 2% of Iran and they are concentrated near Iraq in the SW. Who knows if ISIS is going there.
The Kurds are a “problem” from Syria through Turkey to Iraq and Iran. That 40,000 KIA in the past 20 years occurred in Turkey related to Kurds makes a few protesters in Iran…… insignificant.
While the protests in the “core” were quickly responded to by counters…
It is hyperbole to infer the protests “wounded [the] legitimacy of a regime out of touch with its people.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-iranian-protests-are-an-opportunity-for-trump–just-not-the-one-he-wants/2018/01/08/5d317f46-f49b-11e7-beb6-c8d48830c54d_story.html?utm_term=.90ce60f662b4
The authors being liberal imperialists associated with the nation toppling US State Dept and the Hillary Clinton neocon wing.
While the oil markets would “respond well” to losing Iranian supply!
A nothing burger of Trump’s making with help from 30 odd years of US befuddlement in the Middle East.
Little John,
That describes the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and who spawn ISIS and keeps aq Qaeda in the “green”. The KSA royals who are blockading and bombing Yemen to death today, with direct US “support”.
Okay so KSA women can get a drivers’ license coming in June…….
Little John,
Your list is accurate, but it has little to do with what seems to have driven these now apparently kaput demonstrations. Also, ilsm is correct that pretty much all of this applies to KSA. Heck use of proxies? KSA is bombing heck out of Yemen. The Iranians are not doing anything like that remotely, although they are providing military aid to Hezbollah and militias in Syria and Iraq, and possibly Yemen, although KSA has made exaggerated claims about the latter.
Probably the one point you have that connects to the demos is that at least at some (there seems to have been a lot of variety in demands made across different cities, which attests to the disorganized and probably mostly spontaneous nature of these demos), is a demand to cut back spending on foreign adventures and support for the various proxies. This is relevant to the main point of many of the demos being driven by complaints over cuts in subsidies for gasoline and eggs, triggering price increases for them. Supposedly those cuts were due to funding limits, which become sensitive as apparently Rouhani has supported an increase in funding for the military. This does seem like a stupid move.
However, bottom line, LJ, is that the insane suckers and fools remarks referred to the idea that somehow Iranians that Trump is for them even as he wants to end the nuclear agreement, impose stronger economic sanctions, and maintain not letting any Iranians enter the US. Again the bottom line is that while fear o the regime and counter demos may have played a role, the timing is pretty precise: the anti-government demos stopped almost exactly after Trump started shooting off his mouth about his supposed “strong action” that was supposedly in their support. They know better; on this matter they are not insane or fools.
Ilsm-Totally agree about KSA.
LJ:
I do not mind seeing you around here once and a while.
Little John
better look around you. American justice ain’t what it used to be. was said to be.
Maybe I should have prefaced my comment with the statement that humanity is 99% insane fools, probably me included!
run/dan-I still enjoy the blog and I think it’s great that you’ve let Mike post contrarian (for the vast majority of commenters) thoughts. I believed for sure you guys would run him off but you stuck to with Mike and I commend that. Look forward to AB 2018.
LJ,
No now, I think that is overdoing it. Please, while the Iranian regime is oppressive and theocratic, there is plenty of reason to believe that the population is not obviously more irrational than others. And declaring 99% to be insane kind of empties the word of any meaning. Do you really want to do that, and who the heck would that “sane 1%?
So, I think the bottom line remains, which you have only addressed by listing various unpleasant things about the regime. We already know from the 2009 demos that led to large numbers dead that many people there do not like the regime, and that they are frustrated that more “liberal” candidates are not allowed to run in elections. It is also cleat that they overwhelmingly support the nuclear deal, oppose foreigners putting economic sanctions on their nation, and oppose the US disallowing any of them from coming to the US. So the bottom line remains: they totally disagree with Trump’s positions on Iran, and the minute he started loudly proclaiming his support of their demos while denouncing the relative silence of Obama in 2009, they got embarrassed and simply stopped coming out to demonstrate. It still looks to me that he killed the anti-government demonstrations with his loud mouth and “strong action,,” although it appears he will end up looking good in the US political sphere for his hypocritical jackass conduct.
Barkley
Thank you for pointing out the sudden cessation of demonstrations following Trumps endorsement of them. I don’t know if you are right about causation, but now that you point it out, it certainly seems possible.
But as for LJ emptying the concept of insanity of all meaning by claiming 99% of people are insane, I think you are wrong. If 100% of people are insane or stupid it does not alter the meaning of insanity as “irrational” or stupid as “less than intelligent enough to solve basic problems.”
I think LJ would disagree with me as to exactly which behaviors or beliefs are stupid or insane, but after watching people with some attention for a lifetime I would say that in general they are less intelligent than they think… and I include myself and most PhD’s in that, and very often so irrational they would need to be hospitalized if it were not that the general organization that has evolved to take care of their basic needs carries them along.
So how does “general organization” evolve among insane individuals? not sure, but consider lemmings.