You give their system way way too much credit. The whole system is a joke. First, in principle, fine lets pretend that it makes sense that you should have an islamic law requirement for the Assembly of Experts. However, what makes no sense is the fact that the very person who is to be regulated by this body and his appointees determines who is qualified. You can't have the people being appointed decide who is doing the appointing. Even if women can run for the Assembly of Experts, don't expect to get any types that break from the norms of the Guardian's Council. As for the Guardian's Council, which in the end controls everything. Six come from the Supreme Leader and six are appointed by the head of the Judiciary and confirmed by the parliament. Except the head of the judiciary is appointed by the Supreme Leader so he indirectly determines who is appointed to the other 6 slots. Also, while the head of the judiciary has a life term, he can be dismissed on a whim by the Supreme Leader so he can be bullied into doing practically anything for Khomenei. As for parliament, oh wait the Supreme Leader controls that too. Guess who blacklisted the entire reform party during the last election and basically made sure the conservatives would win. As for the expediency council, wait that's also appointed by the Supreme Leader. A body to mediate disputes that's appointed by one of the disputing parties. What a non-neutral body. Everything in their system is circular and the people control very little. Khomenei learned his mistake when the reformists swept to power and proceeded to destroy the one true democratic body there by screening candidates for that too just like the Assembly of Experts. There's a reason why turnout for the last election was non-existant. There really wasn't much of a choice as to who you could vote for.
good post, but some things i disagree with its an islamic republic based on islamic law, thus you need to have some competence in islamic law if you pass the test, you can run for the assembly of experts....the end your notion about the "supreme leader" controlling parliament is incorrect....he actually interceded and asked the guardian council to reconsider some of their decisions vis-a-vis candidates and qualifications also, 3 reformist candidates ran for president and received a nice chunk of the vote...the candidates that were "blacklisted" as you claim, were allowed to appeal the decision and many of them were then allowed to run after their appeals were accepted the expediency council's members are ideologically and politically diverse, which means no one block can monopolize power within the organization also, you give Ayatollah Khamenei a much stronger role than he actually has....in theory and on paper his position is the strongest, but because he isn't the highest ranking cleric, his decisions are disputed and sometimes ignored by other high-ranking clerics suchs Ayatollahs Jannati and Shahroudi....if this isnt politics at its finest, then i dont know what is the problem i have is that people try to label iran as some type of dictatorial regime, but there is a legitimate political process going on with candidates from different ideological/political backgrounds if the people didnt believe in the system, they wouldnt participate in the elections in such high numbers the system isnt perfect and neither is any political system, but its better than anything iran has ever had
You're the one saying he is up for election. i'm just going along with what you're saying. even if he is up for election in the IR Constitution, do you seriously anyone will vote him out?. he controls BASSIJIS AND SEPAH PASSDARAN( There are many patriots generals in there and not all all loyal to khamenie). he would unleash the ones he has the loyalty on everyone. khamenbie is one smart bugger. he has built powerbase in the bassij by paying heavy tomans to keep there loyalty.
Fine, but that in and of itself is a detriment to democracy and a tool to manipulate the system by using arbitrary standards to reject certain candidates.
geeimsobored, beautifully put. there problem is there is no opposition. no alternative as of yet. if there was a goverment in waiting, the people would have booted this facists out along time ago.
democracy doesnt have to be secular...see Jonathan Fox and Shmuel Sandler, “Separation of Religion and State in the Twenty-First Century: Comparing the Middle East and Western Democracies” in the Journal of Comparative Politics This study examines the separation of religion and state in western democracies and the Middle East using five measures from the Religion and State dataset: the official relationship between religion and the state, the comparative treatment of different religions, discrimination against minority religions, regulation of the majority religion, and religious legislation. The results show that, while all the these factors are more prevalent in the Middle East, all of them are also present in at least some western democracies. Also, all western democracies except for the U.S. have at least some of these five forms of government entanglement with religion. These results imply that the U.S. separation of religion and the state is the exception for liberal democracies rather than the rule and that religious democracy, including Islamic democracy, is possible this is what iran is striving for and if you have any criticisims of the iranian system, they can be made of politics in general anywhere and standards arent abritrary in iran, they're set standards for everybody this is incorrect, we were talking about eligibility to run for the assembly of experts....if you pass the test, you can run for the assembly....this is the law and it's not open to interpretation in any political system somebody has to have the final say and in the iranian system its the office of the velayat-e faqih moreover, an indirect triangular relationship of checks and balances has developed between the faqih, parliament, and expediency council, which tempers the power of each....rafsanjani, chair of the expediency council, hopes to limit khamenei's power by binding the faqih more closely to the collective consultative vote of the expediency council and intensifying their advisory role vis-a-vis the faqih. this is possible due to the fact that khamenei's appointments to the expediency council are permanent similar to supreme court appointments in the us....khamenei can then pressure the council of guardians to not allow legislation to reach the point of arbitration....then the parliament would become the natural ally of the faqih, because they dont want their role to be diminished in relation to the guardian and expediency council....thus, khamenei's power is much less than people think in particular since other higher ranking ayatollahs in the political system have challenged him on many issues and won....decisions are made through a constant process of negotiations and a complicated process of political bargaining.....this is politics This is simply not true and factually incorrect There have been 7 parliamentary elections since 1979 where multiple parties have competed with a high degree of public participation....participation hovers around 65% and has reached as low as 50% and as high as 80% of those eligible to vote there are have been 3 elections for the assembly of experts with another scheduled for this year with an average of 54% of those eligible to participating there have been 9 presidential elections since the revolution with the most recent being last year and participation has never dipped below 50% of those eligble to vote....on average 63% of iranians participate in their presidential elections and 60% participated in the one last year 50% or above is considered a good degree of participation anywhere in the world and the iranians system usually averages much more than that so your claims of voter apathy are false....if iranians didnt believe in their system they wouldnt participate so heavily in the electoral process....the system has strong institutions and legitimacy....there arent many other countries in the world that have had this many major elections (this isnt even counting the referndums, which have had high degrees of participation as well) since 1979. See Wilfried Buchta. Who Rules Iran? The Structure of Power in the Islamic Republic for detailed voting statistics and patterns of participation see reply above there are laymen that run almost every ministry laymen in the expediency council the president is a laymen and so is most of his cabinet laymen in the guardian council as well this isnt true....see voters stats and patterns of participation above again if people were so discontent they wouldnt participate so highly in every election iran has ever had the iranians system isnt perfect, but it's the best political system that iran has ever had (none of this even existed under the shah) and they are continuing to develop politically and continuing to reform and liberalize despite what you may think....just look at how different the government and country is now than it was in 1979
Fine, this is a moot issue anyway. I'm not debating whether or not a democracy has to be secular. I'm merely saying that non-secular democracies are subject to less accountability because they use religion as a smokescreen and as a justification to maintain leadership and restrict who can do what within government. Wrong, scroll down to the part of this link about the Assembly of Experts. All candidates are subject to the approval of the guardian's council. Its not like they're taking SAT exams and if you score a 1500 and above you get to run. In the end, they're being regulated by a body that they are intended to partially regulate. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/iran/structure.html Fine, but the key thing to note is that the whole system of government is run by the same religious scholars and experts. There is no diversity within any part of that government. The one body that had any, the parliament, effectively got run over by conservatives. You'll say the expediency council is diverse, but their power is negligable when compared to others. Even if there is politics within Iran, its not good politics or politics that the average person has any influence on. This is simply not true and factually incorrect You're focusing too much on numbers. For example, in the last election the most heavily "reformist" part of Iran, Tehran, had a meager 28% turnout. In other reformist areas, the same trend occured. Sure, turnout was high but that was predominately in more conservative areas. Not to mention the fact that there were serious allegations of voter fraud in the last election that were never investigated. No that's not true at all. Read the link above, the guardian's council is composed of six religious clerics appointed by the Supreme Leader and six experts in islamic law appointed by the judiciary (which is controlled by the Supreme Leader mind you). Those aren't lay people. As for the Expediency Council, you are overvaluing their importance. It serves two functions. 1. to advise the supreme leader and 2. to mediate disputes between the majlis and guardian's council. Except, the last time there was serious disputes between the two (when Khatami and the reformists ran the majlis) nothing ever happened. no grand reforms happened dispite passage in the majlis. Everything either got vetoed or was threatened with a veto. I dont care what you say, having a mediating body appointed by one of the disputing parties is not democratic or fair. Even if there are laypeople, they are laypeople appointed by the supreme leader and consequently aren't objective. See now a real democracy might have elections for the expediency council or open elections for the most powerful man in the system (the supreme leader) The whole system is a big circle that which technically is a democracy but actually embodies very little of the values that a democracy is supposed to stand for. I'm done posting on this but you can continue to defend Iranian democracy. There is so much more they could do but probably won't do because of ambivalence from the largest sectors of society (Tehran etc..) Right but the government took a step backwards in the last election. The reformists did manage to institute small changes in society and slowly make some headway but those days are seemingly gone. I'm sure you don't expect much from this new president or parliament. I certainly don't. Many of these changes have come in spite of government, not because of it. Just because change has occured, doesn't mean the system works. It means forces are altering society despite a flawed system that is run by an oligarchy of religious and Islamic legal experts that do little to represent the people.
the info on the assembly of experts is not accurate in that pbs post....that law was changed a long time ago due to public demand, if you pass the test you can now run, which is the point i was making all along there is diversity and i've already pointed that out in my previous posts...for example, ahmadinejad 1st 3 nominees to the oil ministry were rejected by parliament the expediency council does matter because they have the final say on legislation as i said there are laymen all over iranian politics.....half the members of the guardian council are lawyers (and are also approved by parliament), which makes them laymen elections in iran are legitimate and that is seen through the easy transfer of power from on administration to another also, your characterization of the new president as some type of reactionary is not factually correct.....he has made reforms of his own already, which you never hear about of course including beauracratic reforms aimed at stamping out corruption, which he was famous for doing as mayor of tehran and he has also started giving grants and small loans to people to start businesses and poor iranians so that the poor iranians can get married, which means a lot to them i'm focusing on the #s too much? the #s dont lie....again, if iranians in general didnt believe in the legitimacy of their system, they wouldnt participate to such a high degree in elections and the political process
There seems to be two threads discussing the same thing, so I'll post this again here: Why you are so hell-bent on defending a theocratic regime that has produced such a "democratic" process that they disqualified a large percentage of reform candidates before ever having their "elections." (another term for telling them to, "go **** yourselves... you ain't running for office, 'cause we don't want you to" ... and it had an affect on the turnout) You keep comparing the regime to that of the Shah's. Get a clue! Except for one or two members here with good, personal reasons to look back in fondness at the Shah's regime, none of the rest of us miss him and his grandiose pretentions to royalty one bit. The Shah is dead, his regime over. Iran is in the grip of a theocracy that has repressed the Iranian reform movement, imposed their religious rule on the country for years, are determined to aquire atomic weapons, have had their president dismiss the Holocaust as an exaggeration, and worse, who has called for the destruction of Israel, and other things too numerous to mention. I'm curious... Creepy, why do you have such a love for the theocratic regime of Iran? Why does it turn you on? Why does criticism of it twist your gonads in a knot? Keep D&D Civil.
well i'm glad you dont miss the shah its true some candidates were disqualified because they didnt meet eligibility requirements and the leader of iran was highly critical of these disqualifications....however, whats not mentioned is that there was an appeals process and many candidates had their appeals accepted and were then allowed to run also, i'd like to point out that 3 reformist candidates received a good percentage of the vote in the presidential elections last year....actually if 2 of those candidates wouldve endorsed the other, iran would have a reformist president now iran is an islamic republic trying to become a religious democracy....the reformist movement doesnt want to abolish the islamic republic, they want to change it....everybody agrees that there should be an islamic republic, they just have different ideas of what it should be the reason i compare it to the shah is because i want people to see how far iran has come since the days of royal dictatorship i'm sorry if my words come off as "defending" the iranian government, im not an apologist for any regime anywhere, but i am interested in the facts....something most people dont seem to wanna acknowledge why arent you and others tolerant of different perspectives?
I'm sorry... I'm just sitting here, getting a good laugh. I needed one, having just had a half dozen 14 year old guys over to have a Magic tournament with my son. You have no idea just how amusing your post was. Keep D&D Civil.
The guy does appear to be a nut. But he hasn't really done anything. He would not be crazy enough to attack Israel. They are the fourth most powerful nation in the WORLD. Iran would get crushed like the Rockets in every single fight, in every possible way. The U.S's invasion of Iraq is more scary to me, as long as the most powerful nation in history can not be peaceful then it is difficult to see other countries sitting back without fear.
Screw this PC crap. I said before we went to Iraq that it was a huge mistake it's time to show the world we have some balls and take out all of there important targets. No one in this world belives that Iran does what is needed to controll the terror activities that go on in their country so I say they want to flex their military might and spit on the other nations trying to discourage their dangerous activities. It time to strike.
Hey we are taking this bs approch to dealing with all foriegn policy issues because invading iraq has backfired in our face. Just because that was a mistake does not mean we should stop the iranians now before it is too late and they have killed hundreds of thousands of jews with their nucular bombs that can reach isreal. The world will thank us in the long run if we take them out now. We will look like a bunch of morons if iraq continues on it's course and then we compound it by letting Iran do as it pleases.
Let's say you're right. Isn't that Israel's problem? They have the cajones (in megatonnage) to do something about it. Why do you want to bring Americans into this with a pre-emptive strike? Are you ready to serve to save the world from Iran?
