Comments on: Instead of a muffin with your coffee this morning…

By: mp3s

mp3s — Tue, 15 Feb 2005 18:45:04 +0000

mp3NUT is cool

By: Kevin Donoghue

Kevin Donoghue — Fri, 11 Feb 2005 18:15:49 +0000

“It was utterly predictable that the 1997 election in Iran would have the “aftermath” of being irrelevant, because as Cole himself acknowledges, the clerics hold all the real power there.” Whereas the aftermath of the Iraqi election is not predictable. Cole has considered various possibilities: a weak Iraqi government dependent on American power, an American withdrawal followed by intensified civil war, a state run by laypeople but with sharia law. He does not pretend to know the future. So, being an intelligent man, he restricts his comparison to the elections themselves. Functional, the contradiction you refer to is the work of an imaginary Juan Cole, a straw man of your own creation, which you are happily chopping to pieces. IMHO the following statements are all true, and Juan Cole also believes them to be true: 1) Iran has been a theocracy since the overthrow of the Shah. 2) Iran’s last election was conducted in a more orderly manner than Iraq’s election and it produced a result that the mullahs did not desire. 3) Iraq may become a more democratic country than Iran, or it may degenerate into chaos. It is too soon to tell and therefore too soon to celebrate. Juggle these any way you like; you will not derive from them the proposition that Iran is no longer a theocracy – the ludicrous claim made by your Straw Cole, just so that you can have fun chopping him up. Chop away. Your only victim is yourself. Slashing straw men is bad for your mental development.

By: Functional

Functional — Fri, 11 Feb 2005 14:52:33 +0000

Kevin— Yes, I read that sentence from Cole. It does nothing to justify his self-contradictions. It was utterly predictable that the 1997 election in Iran would have the “aftermath” of being irrelevant, because as Cole himself acknowledges, the clerics hold all the real power there. How any election could be “democratic” in such circumstances is beyond me. Cole himself never tries to reconcile his 2005 opinion with his 2004 opinion. If even he, with all his purported expertise, can’t even pretend to justify his switch in positions, why are you being such a flack for him?

By: x

Fri, 11 Feb 2005 12:52:34 +0000

So if deeper knowledge of a country’s politics is not that important to pass judgement on it and to establish if that judgement has a valid basis, I suppose it is perfectly fine with everyone if some foreign pundit who’s never been to the US, cannot read English fluently, and has never actually bothered to read up extensively on US politics, expressed the view that no Americans are interested in social security, public health care, or any form of welfare at all because they’re all rich and plump and too independent-minded to want any of that even if they needed it. There are bound to be some people for which this will “make sense” and fit in with their ideological framework; so we can discard the little fact it’s totally inaccurate, right?

By: Kevin Donoghue

Kevin Donoghue — Fri, 11 Feb 2005 08:58:03 +0000

Cole: “We can’t compare the aftermath of the two elections because we don’t know how the situation will evolve in Iraq.” My point: you understand a man’s viewpoint better if you read what he writes.

By: JRB

JRB — Fri, 11 Feb 2005 06:04:50 +0000

And we were subjected to a grotesque barrage of smug triumphalism, chest-beating, and “take that’s” from the warhawks… I’m sure that made you and Juan Cole feel just awful, all that triumphalism.

By: Uncle Kvetch

Uncle Kvetch — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 21:50:33 +0000

Rather, he was acknowledging that the Iranian election was more “democratic” only if you focus ONLY on the “election itself,” i.e., on the fact that a bunch of people got together and filled out slips of paper on a particular day. Yes. And we were subjected to a grotesque barrage of smug triumphalism, chest-beating, and “take that’s” from the warhawks after the election, all of it based ONLY on the fact that a bunch of people got together and filled out slips of paper on a particular day. I think that’s Cole’s point, or at least a part of it.

By: JRB

JRB — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 21:32:50 +0000

It had to do with the democratic character of the elections themselves, not with the aftermath. According to Cole’s dippy criteria any of Hussein’s sham elections were more democratic. Security? Check! High turnout? Check! Actual name on the ballot? Yes indeed! No ‘surprise outcome,’ I guess (why that matters is a mystery.) Still, 3 out of 4!

By: Functional

Functional — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 21:11:13 +0000

I take that back. Cole wasn’t contradicting his earlier opinion. Rather, he was acknowledging that the Iranian election was more “democratic” only if you focus ONLY on the “election itself,” i.e., on the fact that a bunch of people got together and filled out slips of paper on a particular day. But as I said above, Cole himself is undermining his current pretense that an “election” in an overwhelmingly theocratic country is more “democratic” than the recent election in Iraq.

By: Functional

Functional — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 20:59:32 +0000

Do you have a point? Or are you just trying to help me emphasize the fact that Cole (version 2005) is blatantly contradicting his 2004 opinion that Iran had the “form” but not the “substance” of democracy? Sure, if you put on blinders and pretend that all that matters is “the election itself,” you might be fooled into thinking that Iran was democratic. But Cole himself knew better, as of a year ago. It is much more important to consider whether the election is taking place within a system that gives elections any respect or weight.

By: Kevin Donoghue

Kevin Donoghue — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 20:11:33 +0000

Cole: “The issue was a narrow one. It had to do with the democratic character of the elections themselves, not with the aftermath.”

By: Functional

Functional — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 19:37:27 +0000

OK, Kevin, let me put it in simple terms. Cole, version 2004: Iran is theocratic. It is NOT democratic. Democracy doesn’t work there. Iraq will hopefully be a model. Cole, version 2005: Never mind what anyone says about Iran being theocratic. They let a so-called “liberal” through! (Never mind that this “liberal” wasn’t given enough power to accomplish anything; let’s just forget about that.) And they had high voter turnout! That’s proof that Iran is more democratic than Iraq! Again, use your head: Cole 2005 is completely inconsistent with Cole 2004’s insistance that Iran’s theocracy was preventing any real democracy from taking root there. You have a choice: Either Cole 2005 doesn’t believe Iran is really a theocracy anymore, or else he still does secretly believe it but is just lying about Iran in order to be able to bash Iraq.

By: Kevin Donoghue

Kevin Donoghue — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 18:03:58 +0000

If Cole “rarely gets around to discussing…whether Iran is more democratic than Iraq” then it is hardly surprising that the assertion that “Iran is no longer theocratic” cannot be extracted from his statements. His position does not imply it. You are not using your head, Functional, you are misrepresenting the man.

By: Functional

Functional — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 14:45:48 +0000

He doesn’t say that explicitly. But his new position implies it. You have to use your head. I’ll explain. In the 2004 version of himself, Cole wrote the following: “Sistani’s position that legitimate government must reflect the will of the sovereign people echoes Enlightenment thinkers such as Rousseau and Jefferson, and promises a sea change in Middle Eastern politics.” “Elected parliaments are common in the Middle East, but they often have more of the form than the substance of democracy. . . . In Iran, the clerical Guardianship Council has excluded thousands of candidates from running, including sitting members of parliament.” “In Iran, the electorate is free to vote as it pleases, but candidates themselves must be vetted by the clerical Guardianship Council. That council declared thousands of candidates ineligible to run in elections originally scheduled for late February, questioning their commitment to Islamist ideology. The ruling threw Iran’s politics into chaos, with its reformist President Khatami suggesting elections would be postponed. On February 1, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Islamic revolution, some 40 percent of members of parliament angrily tendered their resignations, raising the stakes in a tense game with their hard line opponents.” “If the United States insists on stage-managing Iraq’s elections, it will miss a historic opportunity for Iraq to serve as a showcase for democracy that could contrast with Iran’s legacy of authoritarianism and deadlock.” OK, did you read all of that? Pretty harsh on Iran, no? Iran has a “legacy of authoritarianism and deadlock.” It has more of the “form than the substance of democracy.” And Cole repeatedly emphasizes the theocratic nature of Iran. Now, have you noticed that in Cole’s latest tirades, he rarely gets around to discussing the actual point of dispute, namely, whether Iran is more democratic than Iraq? And have you noticed that on the one occasion when Cole finally interrupted his ad hominem attacks to address that subject, he suddenly FORGETS to mention that Iran’s elections are, by his earlier account, fairly meaningless? No, suddenly he pretends to believe that Iran is “much more democratic” for a flurry of trivial reasons, such as voter turnout, voter security, and a public list of candidates. He even pretends to suddenly believe that although the hard-line clerics were in control both before and after the 1997 election, this doesn’t matter because there wasn’t much vetting in 1997 and a so-called “liberal” slipped through. Boil it all down: In 2004, Cole (correctly) recognized that when theocratic clerics control all the real power, both before and after elections, then the elections are merely the “form” and not the “substance” of democracy. And in 2004, Cole said that Iraq should serve as the democratic model for Iran. In 2005, Cole purports to believe the opposite, and that nothing about Iran’s theocracy really matters, because a so-called “liberal” was elected in Iran in 1997.

By: kevin donoghue

kevin donoghue — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 11:37:50 +0000

Functional, Where does Cole say that “Iran is no longer theocratic”? Although I regularly read Cole, I must have mised that bit. Since you “have read all of that” no doubt you can provide a cite.