Iran's New President

[A Theist]

Iran elected a new president who promises moderation over extremism...Meanwhile, Israel warns that we should not get our hopes up over Iran's newly elected president....Sounds hopeful, but I'm still not sure how I feel about it yet...The final say on that nation's policies is still in the hands of Iran's hardliner fundamentalist muslim clerics...

Moderate cleric Hassan Rohani won Iran's presidential election on Saturday with a resounding defeat of conservative hardliners, calling it a victory of moderation over extremism and pledging a new tone of respect in international affairs.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?fil...%20target=

[Something completely different]

Bollocks.

The Iranian constitution outlines that the "Supreme Islamic leader" meaning the Ayatola, has to approve of each policy or action undertaken by the president or parlarment.

The entire Iranian political system is nothing but a disgusting scam in which it doesn`t even matter whom you elect, since the show is run by the ayatola and his lapdog the revolutionary guard.

Irans isolation will certainly remain in place. So "moderate" my ass! The last time they had a "moderate" in power, that "moderate" sent weapons into Iraq for shias to fight western troops and sunis. Armed Hisbollah to the teeth so that it was capable to become a substancial threat to the rest of the world. And of course flirted arround with the usual scum such as the North Koreans.

The only thing that could change Iran for the better would be a total collapse of the Islamic "Republic", with those responsible for crimes being sent to the trials they deserve!

[A Theist]

Bollocks.

The Iranian constitution outlines that the "Supreme Islamic leader" meaning the Ayatola, has to approve of each policy or action undertaken by the president or parlarment.

The entire Iranian political system is nothing but a disgusting scam in which it doesn`t even matter whom you elect, since the show is run by the ayatola and his lapdog the revolutionary guard.

Irans isolation will certainly remain in place. So "moderate" my ass! The last time they had a "moderate" in power, that "moderate" sent weapons into Iraq for shias to fight western troops and sunis. Armed Hisbollah to the teeth so that it was capable to become a substancial threat to the rest of the world. And of course flirted arround with the usual scum such as the North Koreans.

The only thing that could change Iran for the better would be a total collapse of the Islamic "Republic", with those responsible for crimes being sent to the trials they deserve!

The entire Iranian political system is nothing but a disgusting scam in which it doesn`t even matter whom you elect, since the show is run by the ayatola and his lapdog the revolutionary guard.

...I suspect as much too...for the moment, I'm not very optimistic either.

[Minimalist]

This character was styled a "moderate" because he was the least objectionable of the 6 candidates. He is far from moderate in the western conception of the word.

Most Iranians voted for the lesser of 6 evils.

[Anomalocaris]

Yes, but even extremism by shiia ayatollah standards is still quite moderate compared to the Sunni concepts of moderation as practiced by American allies such as Saudi Arabia and the gulf shiekdoms, to say nothing of the so called moderate fraction of Taliban.

To be honest, the bone of contention between the west and Iran is really about geopolitics, not about conflicts in religion or ideology.

[TaraJo]

This election shows me one thing: even if the Iranian government is batshit crazy, the people aren't. They seem to want more moderation wheras the government wants to be hardline.

I think the US kinda shot itself in the foot with this one. We had such a hard line attitude with Iraq that Iran is afraid to show any weakness. Dubya built a reputation of us as warmongers and now everyone is treating us like warmongers. Not letting Obama off the hook on this one, either; his foreign policy has been only slightly better than Bush. The wars Dubya started, Obama is very slowly ending, but he's the one using a lot of drone strikes and he's still invading our privacy in the name of security. If not for the fact that he's a giant douchebag elsewhere, this makes me wish I could vote for Ron Paul just for the foreign policy.

[Cato]

TaraJo? Welcome back, unless of course I just saw a ghost.

[Minimalist]

Dubya built a reputation of us as warmongers and now everyone is treating us like warmongers

We ARE warmongers.

[Anomalocaris]

Our troubles with Iran is traceable to Dubya to a larger degree than you know.

After 911, the Iranians made multiple overtures to the US for a reset in relationship, and took multiple initiative to help the US in afghanistan. But Dubya's administration, swelling with overweening conceit and confident that American military power can solve all problems for all time without the least need for any sort of compromises whatsoever, essentially told Iran to fuck off. "Don't try to befriend us, we will kill you as soon as we are done utterly and completely subjugating Iraq there ain't nothing you can do about it" was the atitude in the Dubya Cheney whitehouse.

It turns out American military could solve precious few problems even temporaily and we, face it, got our asses handed to us in Iraq by a heavily Iranian backed insurgency which Iran back in no small measure because Iran perceived that as their last line of defence against invasion and subjugation which the Bush administration as good as explicitly told them was coming.

Having handed the ass of a superpower to it, it is no surprising if Iran sees no real need to compromise with a "superpower" that talk tough, carry big guns, but can't shoot straight and faints at the sight of blood.

[TaraJo]

TaraJo? Welcome back, unless of course I just saw a ghost.

Yeah, what can I say; people come and go.

Dubya built a reputation of us as warmongers and now everyone is treating us like warmongers

We ARE warmongers.

If by "we" you mean the government, yes, we are. If you mean "we" as in 'we the people' we're generally sick and tired of endless wars. We wanted to end Iraq a lot sooner than it did end, we want out of Afghanistan, we want to close Guantanimo Bay, we want to step down the war monger rhetoric towards Iran and North Korea. The problem is the military industrial complex and its strangle hold on the government. Even the liberals don't have candidates to vote for who will fix that. The best I can say about Obama is that he didn't make it worse; he didn't make it a whole lot better.