That's significant. The ayatollahs came to power thanks to big popular support (audio cassettes of khomeini). Now a popular uprising is specifically against religious restrictions. In the meantime empirically the army has all the power of the sword.
That's a step towards sidelining the ayatollahs. I guess we will see if it will evolve toward a military dictatorship (as I predict), a democracy, or the existing religious regime will manage to keep the power.
You do realize I assume that in the whole of middle east, Israel and Iran are the only reasonably functional countries where people get to elect their government to some extent and the people leading the government actually change based on the vote? Maybe that's why the governments hate each other :-)
Perhaps Lebanon as well but the country has been non-functional for a long time. Every other country including every western ally is a de-facto dictatorship of some form or the other.
There are no real elections in Iran, since every significant challenger to whomever the Supreme Leader decides to support will be disqualified (e.g. Raisi's election).
You should consider doing research. Even Wikipedia gives a good start. As everywhere, maintaining power is a balancing act and has flowed between factions
You should look at Iranian 'elections' since 2009 (stolen) or the last one (every possible serious opponent to Raisi being disqualified). Even NIAC had to concede this:
AFAIK from 2019 to 2022 there were five elections, all of them where won by the center right (the center or the right)
The right is (was) led by Netanyahu, the center by Ganz, a retired military general, former ministry of defense. Not exactly two champions of progressivism.
I don't recall a victory of the left or the Arab parties in Israel, maybe it's because, like in Iran, the situation in the area forces them to act in a certain way, to not disappear.
I don't condone what's happening in Iran, but I think I understand why there isn't a democracy of the same kind we like to pride ourselves in the west.
I think OP meant to say that Iran is to be considered more democratic than its neighbouring countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Emirates (and so on). Some of them (we all know who they are) are close friends of the west or some western countries, one in particular (we all know which one is it), and I honestly believe they are more dangerous than Iran.
You are oversimplifying Israeli politics. Concepts like "left" and "right" do not apply fully there as there are at least three fundamental splits that are somewhat independent: appeasement with the Palestinians vs hawkish politics, economic right/left, religion vs secularism. And what wins is a coalition, not a single party, so the bag is even more mixed, not to mention that parties have internal currents too
From 2019 we had 5 elections:
- 2 elections with no winner and no coalition forming
- 1 election that brought constitutional changes and a government of center-right (towards Palestinians), center-left (economically) mixed religious-secular
- 1 election that was also center-right (Palestinians) but included an Arab party too, mixed bag (economically) more secular than religious
- the last election that appears to be full right (Palestinians), mixed right/left (economically), substantially pro-religion
I can agree that the policy towards the Palestinians is somewhat fixed on the center-right but there are very clear reasons for that. Neither ignoring the Palestinian problem, as attempted in the '70s and '80s nor appeasing them, as was done in the '90s and '00s, proved to be less than disastrous solutions.
But economically you will find a lot of leftist ideas even in "rightist" parties, out in the open or somewhat overt (allowances for the religious) and the secular/religious split is becoming a strong force of polarization too
> And what wins is a coalition, not a single party, so the bag is even more mixed, not to mention that parties have internal currents too
Yes and that's what my original answer meant.
We can say the same thing about Iran, but we don't because it's easier to make the enemy look 2D, 100% evil, no complexity, only sins, mistakes and violence. We also say stpid shit like: democracy will fix everything, knowing very well it won't it would simply allow us to negotiate a way into their "market".
Rethotical propagandistic tactic don't work anymore in 2022 and I believe we should be honest to ourselves if we wanna talk about complex socio political topics.
Us 100% good vs Them 100% bad is not the way, IMO.
Israel is corrupt and Iran is a dictatorship. If another party decides who can have power in the elected body - that party has power. That's what has happened to Hong Kong, and it's what happens in Iran.
"In the meantime empirically the army has all the power of the sword."
Isn't it the Revolutionary Guard who wields the real power of the sword? From what I have heard, the regular army is kept somewhat underinvested precisely because the young recruits cannot be trusted, while the RG consists of utterly dedicated individuals supporting the regime at any cost.
That was 70 years ago. Are countries, their people, and their policies immutable?
If this was a genuine question and not the snide remark that it appears to be, then a good place to investigate whether or not the UK government has any support for it or not would be to check out BBC Persia. De jure the BBC are not a government entity, but they are de facto.
It's also strange how people portray Mossadegh's government at the time of his removal as democratic. If you look at the history[1], Mossadegh had a power struggle had a power struggle with parliament. Mossadegh responded with a fraudulent referendum that dissolved parliament and gave him sole power to rule by fiat, his government claimed 99.94% of voters voted in favor of it. He asked the Shah to call new elections, the Shah had him dismissed (which he had constitutional authority to do), Mossadegh refused the dismissal, and he was removed by the military.
Well they elected religious extremists who weren’t particularly keen about democracy either. I think democracy is more than just majority rule. Of course El-Sisi’s regime is not much better..
And Gaza is in the middle, with millions of trapped people.
There are ways to solve these issues but they involve a regional solution where everyone works together. Like approaching Hamas with a roadmap for building up Gaza and replacing them with moderates and free and fair elections. Or like having all Arab countries agree to offer citizenship and equal rights to people of Palestinian descent who were born in the country and so were their parents. And then after that Israel can offer a right of return to them, so they actually have a choice of where to go. Unfortunately that will take another 10 years to materialize.
Yes democracy is majority rule that complies with the current zeitgeist of the blue checkmarks. Majority rule that doesn't is populism or authoritarianism
That's a step towards sidelining the ayatollahs. I guess we will see if it will evolve toward a military dictatorship (as I predict), a democracy, or the existing religious regime will manage to keep the power.