by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
When I was in South Korea, I knew this one Iranian expat who collected friends like other people collect stamps. I went to his birthday party and there must have been 35 people at the restaurant. And, in general, Iranians as a people love America, even if their theocratic government definitely does not.
So I watched the recent protests in Iran with keen interest. I’m just the right age that the American hostage situation in Tehran made a big impression on me when I was growing up. That was, in fact, probably the seminal political event of my early childhood.
Anyway, what are we to make of what’s going on in Iran right now? I honestly don’t know. The protests started because a young woman was beaten to death after she wore her headscarf the wrong way or some such. The real issue is, are all these protest just the usual “letting off steam” that happens every once in a while in a dictatorial society or is it something bigger?
If democracy came to Iran, that would radically change the geopolitical framework that we’ve long come to assume with the Middle East. The price off gas across the globe might come down. Iran and Israel might break bred. And, in general, we could sigh a huge sigh of relief.
There is the other end of the spectrum, of course, which is if the Mullahs begin to feel threatened on an existential basis that they lash out against their perceived external enemies in an effort to juice up support domestically. I don’t know what to tell you. It could go either way.
Only time will tell.
