Hassan Rouhani is Iran's next president

So can we get back on topic instead of making this a pissing contest?

Hopefully this guy will do right for his people and be a decent fella to the rest of us also.

Originally posted by intrepid

You seriously believe that? Besides, does it matter to the over 1 million dead Iraqis what your motivations might have been? And because of a couple of kidnappings and an embassy looting these people have no justification for their anger? Yup, hypocrisy.

Btw, catlitter, Canada didn't go into Iraq.

The history books will say otherwise.....

What we did was right no matter what because we think it was right. If Iran nukes Israel they would feel totally justified in killing millions. China felt totally justified in starving 100 million back then they entered the industrial age.

You might see something as hypocrisy and that is because you are looking at it from another angle and disagree. Once again none of this is based on wrong or right ideals.

Originally posted by exponencial

Originally posted by catlitter

Originally posted by exponencial
reply to post by catlitter

 

When you start writting BS in a discussion, you can expect people replying to your posts to try to get you to THINK. But I guess that your username says everything about your posts

Oh I am sorry, I was mistaken, I thought this was a forum for expressing opinions. What you are telling me is that this is a forum for having your opinion battered by by others and your right to express such an opinion curtailed under the falsive banner of "thinking", which basically means "shut up until you agree with me". Is that right?

When you write something like this:
"Well, we can start with them kidnapping sailors of the Royal Navy, twice, in international waters. They should have been bombed into the stoneage for that alone, but one of their politicians threatened to attack London, and then they looted the Embassy in Tehran."

And then someone confronts you by saying what your country has done to:
Afghanistan and Iraq (Tens of thousands killed).

Then I cant image what you would do to your country, since what it has done is 1000x worse than what Iran has.

Nope, my question was about your attempt to stifle my right to express an opinion. The above diatribe from you doesn't even touch that question. Shall we try again, and see if you can come up with some justification for your attempts to stifle my freedom of expression, or will you just be honest enough to say you want everyone to have your opinion, because you are too intellectually weak to deal with other opinions?

Originally posted by boymonkey74
So can we get back on topic instead of making this a pissing contest?

Hopefully this guy will do right for his people and be a decent fella to the rest of us also.

edit on 15-6-2013 by boymonkey74 because: (no reason given)

Good point.

The youth in Iran are getting more active in politics. They are more aware. Hell it's the digital age. Changes are coming for Iran. If their PTB are smart they will embrace a change. Slow if it has to be or there will be revolution. Maybe this guy will be a bridge between the old and the new.

reply to post by intrepid


I hope he lasts longer than Catlitter
Yup we can all hope he is a decent bloke with a decent attitude not just to his fellow Iranians but to us all.

reply to post by catlitter


So, you advocate the murder of innocent people because some soldiers were kidnapped? Sounds about right, and you wonder why so many around the world hate the british. People like you make me utterly ashamed to have been born on that forsaken island.

reply to post by Firefly_


Don't Tar us all with the same brush please, many of us are super duper cool

Edit: Ooops

I get a feeling that they have allowed a "moderate" president to be elected for a reason. Perhaps it has something to do along the lines of Rouhani making "decisions" that will lead Iran to ruin, and an extreme anti-western leader, in the same vein as Ahmadinejad, if not him again, will restore things. Let's hope I am wrong.

Mmmmm... Catlitter? Well, we knoiw that stuff is usually full of.

Catlitter, you do know that we Brits - yes, us from Ingerlund - were instrumental, along with the US, in deposing the democratically elected Iranian government in 1953, in order for the oil companies to exploit it's resources. Not only that, we put in place the Shah, whose SAVAK secret police were responsible for brutal treatment of anyone voicing any opposition, disappearing people, torture, murder! Is it any real surprise some Iranians are still a little pissed at us?

For those of us old enough to remember, relations between Iran and the West were slowly improving, right up to the point where good ol' Georgie boy (another mass murderer) declared them part of the "Axis of evil" (I wonder what PR guru came up with that comic book title) and started the current animosity that set back relations 10 years or more.
It's about time we all started electing politicians who are not subservient to Israel and willing to do their bidding as, to be blunt, our foreign policy in the ME has been written by the policy makers in Tel Aviv and Washington (more Israeli occupied territory) rather than Whitehall for a long time.

So, stop acting like we are the victim (how very Israeli) and start recognising that perhaps if we were not dicking around in someone else's backyard, acting in a beligerent manner and dictating to them, then perhaps we might just find some common ground and improve things a bit. Resorting to the chest beating and macho war talk just makes you look like an ill informed idiot.

Originally posted by Firefly_
reply to post by catlitter

 

So, you advocate the murder of innocent people because some soldiers were kidnapped? Sounds about right, and you wonder why so many around the world hate the british. People like you make me utterly ashamed to have been born on that forsaken island.

Absolutely. It was an act of aggression and would have been met with such a response by iran had the situation been the opposite.

reply to post by boymonkey74


If you are not like that poster then it does not apply to you. I am not tarring everyone with the same brush. But his attitude is way too common.

For example, I had some builders in last week and some of the "banter" they were coming out with was horrific and if it was on twitter they'd be rotting in jail by now. Another example today I heard a kid no older than 8 just repeating racist comments in the middle of town, his parents are utter failures.

Racism, bigotry and intolerance of all descriptions is far too common in this country, especially behind closed doors.

reply to post by Firefly_


True dude, fight the good fight dude

reply to post by oooointreped


So when your family are killed at the hands of extremists, because of what your government did to their people, you have no right whatsoever to complain about it.

Perhaps contrary to what many may believe politics in Iran is just as complicated and nefarious as anywhere else and there has been an ongoing power struggle in Iran for some time now.

On the one side there are the extremists, (obviously everything is relative, even 'moderates' are extreme when viewed by our 'western' and non-Iranian standards), and on the other the moderates.

The real extremists are those aligned to the likes of Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi who is a member of The Assembly Of Experts and who is widely recognised as the leader of the secretive Hojjatieh Society - an ultra-conservative organisation who believe the doctrines of the Iranian Revolution have been betrayed and vehemently oppose Sunni Islam.
Hojjatieh are thought to have infiltrated the military and other influential institutions.
Hojjatieh are Twelver Shi'a who believe in hastening the coming of The Mahdi by forcing events through confrontation.
It is also thought that Mesbah Yazdi will make a play for Supreme Leader when Ayatollah Khamenie dies or retires, and that is the really important role.

It is widely accepted that Ahmedinejad's 'spiritual teacher' is Mesbah Yazdi and that he himself may have been a member of Hojjatieh.
However, relations between the two seemed to have soured near the end of his Presidency - Ahmedinajad has been for some time now practically a lame duck President and there have been disagreements surrounding various appointments etc.

Hassan Rouhani has also been a member of The Assembly of Experts for some time now and is viewed as a Centrist and a bit of a compromise candidate.
He was a student and supporter of Ayatollah Khomeini and apparently has the support of the current Supreme Leader.
At one point Rouhani was the chief negotiator with European delegates in talks about Iran's nuclear programme, he resigned from his position within the Iranian nuclear programme on the election of Ahmadinejad.

For the last few days I have been trying to find any links between Rouhani and Hojjatieh and haven't seen anything that suggests there might be - that's not to say there definately isn't any but it's a reasonable assumption at this point.
That can only be a good thing and tends to lend more weight to the arguement that the 'moderates' are winning the power struggle and that Iran may take a more conciliatory stance on the nuclear issue and may wish to enter serious dialogue.
Let's hope so.

But as I said previously, everything is relative.

reply to post by Firefly_


Racism and bigotry is intolerable no matter what shape or form it takes.

But do you honestly think 'the British' are in any way unique when it comes to this sort of behaviour and attitude?

If you are looking for a nation or race or creed that is free from these sort of elements I'm afraid it'll be a long, and I suspect, fruitless search - we British are no worse or no better than anyone else.

reply to post by Freeborn


I get your point, but as I have not been to most other countries, I cannot vouch for them. All I can go by is what I have experienced, and I can fully imagine that its "same crap, different scenery" no matter where you go in this world. People are fundamentally the same regardless of their skin/hair pigments or place of birth.

However, the British tend to preach tolerance and understanding, freedom and democracy, and some completely fail to lead by example. Openly they portray themselves as saints, open minded and tolerant, but as soon as they are behind closed doors, their veil of tolerance is discarded and their true colours surface. It happens from the top to the bottom of society throughout, and its not limited to white anglo-saxons either. Hypocrisy really makes my blood boil. I could go into numerous examples but this thread is already way off-topic now.

There are genuinely tolerant people in this country though. It is not all bad, by any means. But its bad how we have to fight to get tolerance, and things are slipping backwards ever since the tories got back into power.

reply to post by Freeborn


That's a very well thought out analysis. One point of slight disagreement, Ahmadinejad's been more of a moderate than most realize. Its hard to get a true picture in the west because to be fair he is radical by our standards but internally its another story (again everything is relative)

It seems to be a step in a positive direction. It will have to be followed up on by concrete actions on both sides. I hold out hope, but "Moderate" is a relative term when ti comes to Iran's hand picked candidates. They (The Guardian's Council) wouldn't allow someone on the ballot if he was really a maverick, no offense John McCain. Proof will be the actions taken by him and our responses as the West, towards those actions. Ball is in his court first...........