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Interventionism Making Iran Stronger

Meanwhile, at home, Iranians live in a state of semi-crisis that suits the authoritarians. Those pro-democracy activists who survived the reformists’ meltdown are apprehensive and inert. The recent death of a jailed student activist who was on hunger strike, and the incarceration of Ramin Jahanbegloo, a secular philosopher whose “confessions” may soon be broadcast on […]

Meanwhile, at home, Iranians live in a state of semi-crisis that suits the authoritarians. Those pro-democracy activists who survived the reformists’ meltdown are apprehensive and inert. The recent death of a jailed student activist who was on hunger strike, and the incarceration of Ramin Jahanbegloo, a secular philosopher whose “confessions” may soon be broadcast on state television, attest to the waning influence of the West, particularly the EU, since the election of Mr Ahmadinejad led to a deterioration in relations.

The judiciary may be gearing up for fresh assaults. An article in an establishment newspaper accused an array of prominent cultural figures, including a caricaturist, a sculptor, a conductor and a painter, of teaming up with Mr Jahanbegloo and another philosopher to plot a “velvet revolution”. With the media shackled and fearful, a lot of incidents go unreported; self-censorship is the norm.

With its regional prestige higher than ever and its coffers bulging with oil receipts, hubris alone may seem to threaten Iran’s good fortune. For all that, the stimuli for Iran’s striking revival are mostly external; inside the country, economic mismanagement, human-rights abuses and resentment among the large non-Persian minority are as vivid as ever. For most of Iran’s sad reformers, it is Mr Bush’s blunders, not the clergy’s inspired leadership, that have put Iran in its present strong position. When he is gone and if the oil price were to dive, it could be very different. ~The Economist

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