Category: Democracy
"An Iranian whose fiancée’s death by gunfire became a symbol of opposition to the regime during post-election protests last year made an impassioned appeal Tuesday for Tehran to be denied a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council in elections this spring."
"The weeks ahead will probably indicate whether the country will continue its slide toward Islamism or revert to its traditional secularism. The denouement has major implications for Muslims everywhere."
"In fact, in every presidential election held in the Islamic Republic of Iran since the first in 1980, the Guardian Council has disqualified the vast majority of aspirants. The most it ever allowed was ten candidates in 2001 – ten out of 814 who had applied for a candidacy. In last year’s poll, four candidates out of nearly 500 applicants were approved."
"U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that Iran is becoming a military dictatorship, a new U.S. accusation in the midst of rising tensions with Iran over its nuclear ambitions and crack down on anti-government protesters."
Bill Kristol opines at WaPo: "Perhaps embracing the concept of 'regime change' spooks the Obama administration. . . . Does Obama want an achievement that eluded Bush? Regime change in Iran -- that would be an Obama administration achievement that Joe Biden, and the rest of us, could really celebrate."
"The British media is reporting that a teacher in the London School of Economics’ government department is a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, an extremist group seeking to internally overthrow democracy and capitalism and replace it with Sharia Law. Unfortunately, the violence of groups like Al-Qaeda has caused HUT and groups like it to look less extreme by comparison and so they are not receiving the attention they deserve."
John Bolton writes:
"Universal jurisdiction" . . . has pernicious and profoundly antidemocratic consequences in the real world. A British arrest warrant, issued over the weekend in London for former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni [for alleged war crimes by Israeli forces during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip last winter], shows precisely why.
"American hopes that Iraq will become a democratic secular state with tolerance for religious differences have received a boost with the emergence of 38-year-old Ammar Hakim at the head of one of the largest Shia movements."
The EPA's designating carbon as a pollutant regulable under the Clean Air Act is a brazen threat to get business to beg for cap-and-trade. Unelected EPA officials would become the sole arbitrers and enforcers of carbon emission limits. The contortions needed to pull off this coup are amusing. Read more »
