Working for the Clampdown

Neil MacFarquhar has an excellent report in The New York Times about the extraordinary scope of the current crackdown in Iran, which extends beyond the high-profile arrests I'd heard about to a wide-ranging assault on improperly dressed people ("150,000 people — a number far larger than usual — were detained in the annual spring sweep against any clothing considered not Islamic") and a more forceful assertion of press censorship.

The point seems to be to try to shore up the regime's political position in the wake of serious economic problems -- they're on the verge of needing to institute gasoline rationing -- and, one supposes, to try to elide the fact that these problems are being worsened by the government's attitude toward the nuclear weapons issue. It's all very bad news for Iranians, but sort of suggests to me that the sort of policy the Bush administration has been pursuing in terms of sanctions may well bear fruit if it's continued for a bit and put on course for possible future intensification.

Comments

What fruit is it supposed to bear?

Posted by otto | June 24, 2007 12:10 PM

...By order of the prophet
we ban that boogie sound...

...No one mentions the neighboring war...

Posted by Linus | June 24, 2007 12:10 PM

"It's all very bad news for Iranians, but sort of suggests to me that the sort of policy the Bush administration has been pursuing in terms of sanctions may well bear fruit if it's continued for a bit and put on course for possible future intensification."

Oh, my, Matthew. Don't go over to the Dark Side, on us.

There's a certain logic to putting pressure on the People of a nation, in order to persuade their leaders to relent, and modify that nation-states policy in this regard or that.

But, you should test such ideas against more than your drowsy intuition on a Sunday.

When has this worked, in history?

It does work, sometimes, I'm sure. But, it has rather dramatically failed to work in many others.

Authoritarian states seem to thrive on fear, repression and deprivation, and the shared sacrifices forced upon them.

Castro's Cuba? North Korea? Saddam's Iraq?

Ultimately, what we want, supposedly, is for Iran to realize that it is not in its interest to have nuclear weapons.

And, somehow, it is supposed to make sense to bully them into this realization. One thing authoritarian regimes do not thrive on, and that's the loss of face associated with the humiliation of submitting to greater powers.

(Note: I am skeptical that Bush wants non-proliferation. Their policies seem to add up to something else, something darker and more dangerous, frankly, but that's another story.)

Posted by Bruce Wilder | June 24, 2007 12:23 PM

MY, how does A connect to B here? I doubt further isolating an isolating an already isolated people will do anything good. Just about the only positive case - South Africa - saw sanctions take an elite that was pretty highly integrated with the world market in just a matter of years get cut off from their major markets. There is no real parallel with Iran. These arguments were wrong when Lenin made them and they're still wrong when Bush makes them.

Posted by Reality Man | June 24, 2007 4:12 PM

Dear Mr. Yglesias,

What in blazes convinces you that the Bush admin's policies have anything to do with political events in Iran? Nobody there wants to hear Word One from the clowns that demolished the country next door. The opposition to the Iranian regime have said, without exception, that any interference from the USA only makes their work more difficult. They have all said this a number of times to any news org. listening, and here you come expressly paying them not a bit of attention. What gives?

This makes about the only time the wingnuts' declaration that us US lefties want America to fail the least bit plausible. Since the Bushies will fail at anything and everything they attempt in foreign affairs, your encouragement here is unsettling.

Posted by Jeffreydj | June 24, 2007 4:19 PM

What? No comment yet assuring us that Iran is really a progressive democracy that has been grossly maligned by zionists?

Posted by Chris | June 25, 2007 8:14 AM