anonymous111.2

benross

Jamshid is right.  You should have bloged your comment.  It's pretty good.

Using the word

Using the word “independent” in that fashion was invented by the Left during the cold war to slam down and demean non Communist nations to claim that they are all “occupied” by “the Imperialists!”. It means nothing in real life.

Iran has always been independent, under Shah and post 1979. Unless your country is occupied and added to the territory of another country, you are independent. The Left perpetuated and spread this propaganda claiming that countries that cooperated with the West in the global struggle against Communism are “not independent” and are “sell outs”! If you had economic, cultural or political relations with the U.S or Western Europe, you are “not independent”!!! That’s how they brainwashed many people and were able to assassinate the character of many governments in order to overthrow them.

Not touching the fact that Left’s attempt to redefine the word “independent” is exposed, but its hypocrisy is evident when they called Soviet blocked countries that many of them had direct Soviet army presence in them as “free anti Imperialist nations”, but if a country had a U.S base, it was “not independent”!! Figure that one out.

Anyways, the problem the Iranian people and the world has with the Fascist regime in Iran is not about Iran’s “independence”, cause Iran has always been independent, it with IRIs Fascist nature and demonic policies and tactics.

IRIs fall is inevitable and the countdown for it started on June 12th, 2009. Iran and the world had enough with this Terrorist, war mongering, human rights butchering, clash of civilization perpetuating, illegal and illegitimate fundamentalist regime.

benross

As long as you are keeping a copy of your jozvehs! Comments have a way of quickly getting buried and be difficult to retrieve after a year or so.

جمشید

ممنون از لطفت.می‌گویند کسی ادعای پیغمبری می‌کرد. جماعت خِرش را گرفتند که تو اگر پیغمبری کتاب آسمانی‌ات کو؟ پاسخ داد من کتاب ندارم جزوه می‌دهم!

حالا این داستان ماست! من اینجا و آنجا اگر چیزی به نظرم برسد می‌گویم و اگر چیزی را نگفته‌ام به این دلیل است که به نظرم نرسیده است!

Benross

Well said. It is a shame your comment is not posted as a blog. I suggest you edit it and post it as an article since its content merit it.

Really Xerxes

I am impressed.  Why the change of heart?

XerXes

We will never go back to pre-1979, and that is unfortuante.  Because if we could go back, we would certainly do things differently, and would not allow a legitimate quest for freedom and rule of law become a vehicle for the imposition of a Middle Ages style theocracy.

anonymous111.2

Iran will not lose its independence and we will never go back to pre 1979. If the Islamic Establishment goes, we will move at least a decade forward, instantly.

In response to Xerxes,

I think that the Iranian people have been so starved for freedom since the 1979 revolution that at this point, they will trade "independence" for the chance to have the most basic elements of freedom, such as freedom of the press...and that is really sad...

XerXes

for once in your life you actually make some sense!!!

IRI

Is politically independent. How hard is to understand this. Political independence without freedom, democracy, economic stability is meaningless, as N. Korea is also politically independent.

So Iran is politically independent but can't take that to the bank (worthless with IRI). If we were politically independent with Shah, that would have been good.

My observations

Capt_Ayhab: Thanks for the kind words.  There is really a good discussion going on here.  I guess here's how I would make the distinction between IRI (and Israel for that matter) and Japan is that while Japan, for instance, shares and adjusts its economic policies to coordinate them with its partners, the IRI must agree to  one sided foreign policy mandates and even decisions made by other nations without which it simply cannot function as a soverign nation.  Let's look at the IRI.  Being at the total mercy of Russia and China to pevent "crippling sanctions" being issued against it at the Security Council will not leave it much choice to challenge Russia when it comes to territorial issues.  That is why the IRI lacks real independence.

benross: pretty nice analysis.  I do like to add a couple of points.  In my opinion, the Shah, unlike the IRI, did not risk Iran's territorial integrity for the sake of a stateless ideological goal.  The IRI, on the other hand has shown no hesitation to do so if that will allow it greater ideological expansion (or ideological depth).  Therein lies the danger.

Independence

The term 'independence' has no longer the meaning it had in its historical context, being the colonial period or the cold war.

Iran, although never fully colonized, was always under strong influence and presence of Russia and Britain. Before recovering from that period, Iran fell under the cold war era which was a mixture of strategic alliance and heavy presence and influence of US, until the demise of Mohamad Reza Shah.

That kind of 'dependence' has lost it's 'reason d'être' with the end of the cold war. Those who were considered 'puppets' in cold war era -and I never thought of Pahlavis as such, much to the chagrin of many readers!- are now just heads of sovereign countries with heavy alliances with one or other powerful country. The issue of their way of governing their countries is increasingly becoming a local and national issue, rather than an issue imposed by a 'super power' of some kind. There is no longer a global polarization between the East and the West. There are pockets of regional interests that make countries friends and foes, sometimes with the same countries changing camp depending the issue at stake in the region.

IRI came with the slogan of 'Independence, Freedom, Islamic Republic'. Independence was a national desire, deeply rooted to the Iranian psyche from its memory of colonial and cold war era. The revolution happened in the end of cold war era with heavily 'anti-imperialism' content. Russia -Soviet Union back then- was considered a 'natural ally' from the day one and remained that way.

Freedom didn't have any meaning for Khomeiny but it was used by him by 'popular demand' and to seduce the urban populous. We know what happened to 'freedom' from day one!

Islamic Republic was the main agenda of Khomeiny, an ingenious invention of Khomeiny to add a bogus mechanism called 'republic' to his original Islamic regime idea, to give it a managing tool to cope with relatively advanced state of modernity already established in Iranian society, incompatible with his pure idea of Islamic regime.

An Islamic regime, by its definition and existence in 20th century, couldn't be anything but 'independent'. Although this independence is largely 'dependent' to how far Russia and now China want to protect IRI as their own bargaining chip for gaining other advantages (beyond Iranian own market) but this 'real politic' should not undermine that IRI is an 'independent' regime.

We can be at least happy to come to a term with our historic psyche and paranoia about the 'independence' and 'bigaanégaan'. Not all of us yet, but most of us. The question is no longer 'are we independent?'. Independence has no longer any meaning in post cold war era. The question now is 'are we free and prosper?'. 

The answer will come after IRI.

3rd World Mafias

Yes they have regional power, and Iran's influence is growing in Venezuela and other valued geographic regions regarding oil and natural gas. Interdependence is usually hailed as a means to lasting peace.

Iran's economy is a

Iran's economy is a 'rentier' state economy. By definition and using  plain common sense, the  indpendence of  countries such as Iran is meaningless.

...

بر بام ظلمت بيمار آنكه كسوف را تكبير مي كشد . نوزادي بي سر است٬ . وزمزمه ما . هرگز آخرين سرود نيست . هر چند بارها . دعاي پيش از مرگ بوده است .

Ostaad, you have an astounding lack of intelligence

So a quote from a blog called "airforcepundit" is suppose to impress me and other readers as a credible source?!  Get a life dude.

I did explain why Nukes have not and will not be used.  It doesn't have anything to do with IRI or its might (like a pashe kooreh)! 

 
Go study some Quran or something....Maybe you can get a job in a Afghani Madresa. 

As for sufficiency of 36 nukes for IRI, its a simple calculation, but maybe alas above and beyound your intellect. 

Normally, its a megaton/area in Km2 calculation; area being either highly populated residential centers or infrastructure that is or could be used for energy production, communication or military use.

Go look up megaton/missle and you'll be educated.

Cheers my IRI apologist delusional Muslim friend. 

BTW

Mr. anonymus111.2

Thanks for the thought provoking thread and thanks for your civil debate.

Respectfully

-YT  <<< Sailing away

Independent of humanity, of compassion, of shame, of reason

Every voice counts! Every action counts!

Ms. Mehrban

What ever you say young lady ;-)

-YT 

Mr. anonymus 111.2

I see where you are coming from and I see your point of argument. However, with your definition wouldn't Japan, Germany be also considered puppets of US.

We know that as a part of WWII peace treaty with Japan, they are not allowed to have an air force, and their air space is protected by US fleet. And as for Germany, their air defense is under NATO agreement.

-YT 

Practically everything

Practically everything. 

which case would that be?

That Iran imports EVERYTHING?

-YT 

I rest my case

I rest my case.

Ms. Mehrban

80% reportedly is from Oil and petrochemical, 20% from agricultural, Persian rugs, and some consumer products.

-YT 

Preemptive P/S No one argues whether Iran is an industrial nation or not.  ;-)

Capt_ayhab

How much of that !06.4 billion is from oil revenues?  

Ms. Mehrban

You noted[ Iran prctically imports everything.]

No argument that Iran's economy under IR has been on a downward spiral, but bare in mind that exaggerations such as yours usually discredit the argument. These are the stats about Iran's foreign trade:

Exports: $106.4 billion f.o.b. (2008 est.) [Main export partners: China 15%, Japan 14.3%, Turkey 7.4%, South Korea 7.3%, Italy 6.4%]

Imports: $67.79 billion f.o.b. (2008 est.) [ Main import partners: China 14.2%, Germany 9.6%, UAE 9.1%, South Korea 6.3%, Russia 5.7%, Italy 5%]

Trade surplus $38.61 billion

Source: //www.theodora.com/wfbcurrent/iran/iran_econo...

-YT 

P/S Have been in a Sams/Costco/Walmart store lately? approx. 80% of Walmarts products are made in China, Importing $27 billion in 2007 alone ;-)

Mehrban

I guess my thought is that if a country is beholden to another one to make strategic decisions then it has no real independence and can be considered a puppet state.

Israel, for all its prowess, has to have America's consent for all its strategic decisions.  Now, whether it gains that blessing by manipulation, infiltration, pressure or intimidation is a whole different subject.  But the fact remains that it needs U.S.'s "permission" for all its major international decisions.  Therefore, I do not consider it an independent state.

I am not sure that Israel is a puppet state

Israel has real industries, strong pharmecudicals, biomedical, soft ware and hardware technology and agricultural products to bring into the world market.  Additionally, it can trade with whom ever she wants and is known to be a viable trade partner. More importantly Israel has qualified personnel.  It also has a formidable lobby in the United States.   What does IR have?   oil dollars to pay off for protection.  Iranian market is flooded with junk Chinese merchandise.  Most factories have almost stopped production because they don't have raw materials.  Some government projects have been haulted because of government's lack of current cash flow to pay.  Good portion of the Industry has been entrusted to the Sepah (hardly qualified as trained personel or labor) to buy their loyalty.  Iran prctically imports everything.  How could a state like this be independent?   Is it independent to kill its citizens at will?  okay yes it is independent.

Fateh, can you explain what has stopped the US from...

firing "a total of 30-36 nuclear missiles" at Iran to turn Iran into a "dirt parking lot", much like the one that exists between you ears?!!! 

BTW, the 30-36 figure seems to be another of your brainfarts, because these are you figures, and thus really don't mean anything, unless you claim to be a Field Marshal in some imaginary army.

For your peace of mind, Iran has neither the capabilities nor the will to be aggressive towards the US or Israel.  At the same time, Iran's enemies are quite impotent to be aggressive towards Iran, due to Iran's capabilities to defend itself. 

That's why they are "negotiating" with Iran and Israel is throwing a tizzy.

BTW, if you want to know what "old" Chinese technology can do to "new" and American technology, read this:

//airforcepundit.blogspot.com/2006/07/analysi...