Iran

So wow! Time for me to get political despite my better judgment. Iranian Citizens are rising up and saying the election was a scam. everyone in the whole wide world knows it is, but this time people actually care about it. so now a large group of pissed off civilians are scaring the shit out of those in power. this is how a government should run, Governments need to fear their people.

Now here at home President Obama is getting a lot of Flak because he is not speaking out strongly against the allegedly fraudulent election. I find myself on a side not openly supporting the president, but at the same time sees a good reason for silence. It is not self indulgence or a willingness to let evil prosper, as some commentators have claimed.

the reason we have been so hands off in support for the populist dissent in that nation is to permit this movement to maintain its own ownership. if the President Speaks out in support, the Ayatollah will use that as an excuse to blame America for this dissent. it is the same thing that has happened for nearly three decades. The Nation has been brought to near collapse because the United States DID at one point meddle in Iran's internal affairs, specifically the Iran/Iraq War. truth told, in the incident we played both sides for fools, and neither has quite forgiven us for it.

the united states has a larger misunderstanding about the Nation called Iran however. it is one that has plagued us for most of the 20th century. We see Islam as an Arabic religion, so all Muslims must be Arabs as well. Iran is a Persian land however, just as Egypt is it's own region. The cultural differences between Persians and Arabs are just as wide as the cultural differences between the United States and China.

It is similar to General Patton's assessment of our inability to understand the Soviet Union, because we insisted on treating them as European, when the large quantity of Soviets were Asian.

the sooner we realize that we need to adjust our perspective on these people, the sooner we can get along with them without having to actually apologize for sins of the past.