On 12/11/06, Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> The Iranian power elite, on the whole, are a lot more divided on
> everything from economics to foreign policy to culture than the US
> power elite are.
they seem to be unified when it comes to issues of social
conservatism. (In the US, on the other hand, it seems to me that the
difference between the GOPs and Dems is much more about issues of
social conservatism than about economics or even foreign affairs.)
Well, the point of the article is that they aren't. If they were,
there would be no point in speaking of the differences among Khatami's
camp, Rafsanjani's camp, Ahmadinejad's camp, and Khamenei's camp, in
which Ahmadinejad occupies the middle ground. Such differences
matter. On economics and foreign policy, differences are larger than
on culture, except on nuclear policy. Some Iranians insist on
boycotting elections, saying that they don't, but there are those who
don't vote in any country, too, and unorganized abstention goes
nowhere.
In West Asia in general, divisions in the Iranian power elite are
probably larger and more complex than those in any other country
except Lebanon and Palestine, which is why these three areas are
interesting, especially since they are important for regional and
global politics.
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>
