zenpundit.com

The Road to Tartary edition…. 

Top Billing! Michael J. Totten – Our Man Inside Iran’s Revolutionary Guards

I have a weakness, acquired from my days of studying the Soviets, for the intriguing and often tormented characters who become double-agents and defectors, as well as for the morally uncompromising, superhumanly heroic, dissidents who elect to confront tyrannical power head-on. We have had very few windows in the last thirty years into the opaque world of the of the Pasdaran-clique that now runs Iran. Michael Totten interviews one of them:

MJT: I’m a bit surprised that over the past year, since uprising after the fake election, that more people haven’t been killed during street demonstrations. I expected thousands to be killed like in China in 1989. If Khamenei were to order something like that, would the Revolutionary Guards carry it out?

Reza Kahlili: That is a very good question.

What happened in Iran totally destroyed the legitimacy they claimed to have, that they represent God and protect the oppressed. So if Khamenei wanted to do what he has seen other dictators do by killing thousands, I am sure it would affect the Revolutionary Guards’ mentality and spirit. They might not participate. That’s a very good question.

They don’t use the Revolutionary Guards to beat people or knife them or spy on them. They have the Basij and the special forces and the plainclothes police for the dirty jobs. The regular forces couldn’t sustain such an act. It would deeply affect them.

MJT: So what do you think they would do if they were given those orders? Would they just refuse to comply, or would they move against the government?

Reza Kahlili: They won’t move against the government. They just wouldn’t carry it out. They wouldn’t show up. Or if they did show up, they wouldn’t do what would be expected of them. It would create doubt in the hearts of the loyal forces who would fight a foreign force to the last drop of blood.

MJT: If you’re right about that, the government is eventually going to lose

Registan.net has excellent analysis of and speculation about events in Kyrgyzstan:

Protests, Clashes, and Arrests in Kyrgyzstan, Rushing for Inaccuracy in Bishkek, Let the Revolution Be Archived, Side elements of Upheaval, The More Things Change…,  What We Talk about When We Talk about Revolution, Why Kyrgyzstan’s Social Media Matters, A New Republic?

Transitions Online ( Bullough) – Why Are Chechens So Angry?

A very pro-Chechen look at the last few centuries of Russian-Chechen conflict and coexistence

New Eurasia.net has an interesting series on Turkmenistan. The blogger, “Annasoltan” has a good eye for the use of striking visuals too:

The signal of freedom, part 3: the 3Golden Age , OtherTube, PseudoBook, and the fate of the world in Turkmenistan,  Turkmen Gods, part 2: “This is for God and this is for our idols” , Turkmen Gods, part 1: divide and convert , “My people have been hypnotized” , Into the iris of insanity: dissent, psychiatry, and the true face of Turkmen totalitarianism,  Berdimuhammedov three years on: metaphysical dentistry or just cosmetic scrubbing?

The Atlantic Council – Kyrgyzstan’s New Chance for Democracy and Watching Karzai, Seeing Diem

Like Diem, Karzai brought some baggage with him. He was not a figure with whom the majority of Pashtuns identified, and his collaboration with the Northern Alliance made him suspicious as well. In the “grand” Afghan tradition, he has proven to be classically corrupt, instituting a kleptocracy in which members of his family have been notable beneficiaries. Corruption has, like land reform in Southeast Asia, been a major theme in Afghan opposition to Karzai, and the United States has publicly and privately implored him to clean up his regime’s act. Like Diem, he has issued pious rhetoric about attacking the problem but basically not done anything about it. As evidence, Americans seeking to liberate Helmand Province regularly report they fear corrupt Afghan officials as much or more than the Taliban.

Foreign Policy –  How Not to Run an Empire (Tom Malinowski)

U.S. policymakers increasingly view Central Asia as a transit point to somewhere else. It is a region through which oil and natural gas flow to Europe, reducing U.S. allies’ dependence on Russian energy supplies. It is a region through which fuel, food, and spare parts flow to surging U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, reducing their dependence on a precarious Pakistani supply route. Officials and policy experts even have a new name for this region that captures its status as a logistical intermediary, rather than a set of distinct countries that matter in their own right: They call it the “Northern Distribution Network.”

Foreign Affairs – A Substitute for Victory (Dr. Bernard Finel)

There is now a clear path to ending the war in Afghanistan; the question is whether political leaders can take advantage of McChrystal’s battlefield success. If Washington can turn the changing balance of power on the battlefield into a negotiating strategy that acknowledges the need to offer insurgent leaders more than just the opportunity to lay down their arms, the United States could succeed in Afghanistan in a way that neither proponents nor opponents of the Afghan surge imagined last fall. For the first time since the United States intervened in Afghanistan in 2001, it is possible to outline a coherent political-military plan that would yield, if not a clear-cut victory, at least an outcome that enhances U.S. security.

UNRELATED SUBJECTS:

There’s more than one way to skin a cat. With climate change as damaged goods for justifying social engineering and tax-farming on a global scale by an unaccountable IGO class, the scientist-political activist public intellectuals and their bureaucratic allies will be increasingly putting their efforts here.

Fabius Maximus – Starfor looks at Mexico: “The Struggle for Balance” and Freidman of Stratfor writes about “Mexico and the Failed State Revisited”

FM also includes a bibliography of Mexico related links. Comments are shut off, not sure why though if FM’s getting spammed like I have been lately I don’t blame him.

After a period of dormancy, the IO/Black Propaganda boys with an eye for talent at Swedish Meatballs Confidential are back in business!

That’s it!

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 11th, 2010 at 4:30 am and is filed under recommended reading. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.