Quote:
Originally Posted by Thor
Apperantly you have not read anything previously posted. But ok, 44 million of Iran is under 30 years of age. The majority of them are liberal leaning, by Iranian definitions.
The "majority" still profess loyalty to the Ayatollahs... Ok, you are aware that if you do not profess loyalty, you will be imprisoned, killed, tortured...
Castro has massive support, so does Putin... So obviously those are the genuinely held ideals of those populations.
Will continue to be a struggle. I'm curious, would you move us back to isolating China, or the current method of not only engaging China, but making them a major economic partner?
Can you please point out where I said this would be easy? I have only said quite clearly that we have 2 options:
1. Sanctions, isolationism against Iran. Israel cheers!
2. Lifting sanctions, bringing Iran into the modern world.
If it takes a decade or a few, one clearly is the better solution. You made the point of Cuba being a modern place if ONLY we lifted sanctions.... But nope, Iran becoming a part of the modern diplomatic world is only going to hurt hardliner isolationists. You seem to agree with the worries of the right wing US politicians, usually that means you are on the wrong side of history..  |
Once again, I don't disagree that there are lots of young people in Iran. Unfortunately, it's a situation where religious people have far more children than non-religious people. So you have a situation where you have millions of young people living in cities who are educated and liberal. Unfortunately, they are outnumbered by the conservatives who are the vast majority of the population.
You also cannot judge Iranians based on the ones you meet in the West, as the ones you meet in the West are largely the ones who have fled the country or at the very least want to explore other nations/cultures. These are also the people who have access to twitter, facebook, etc..so basically, all we see is a small slice of Iranian society.
I'm not even professing to know the right way to deal with a situation like Iran: relations, war, sanctions, etc....My point is just that there is simple reason for why the Ayatollahs stay in power, and that reason is the majority of the Iranians are conservatives who support them as the religious leaders of the #####es.
We'll probably have to agree to disagree on this one, as there is no way for either of us to prove people are liberal/conservative. However, I've been hearing about the Iranian liberal youth movement for decades. I've yet to see any results. Just more and more liberal people fleeing Iran.