[Loy]

Binkie-(and again, appologies for the tardiness),

1.You keep bringing up court imposed death sentances, which (according to Iranian law) is always up for review. However, I'm talking about death sentances imposed by the theocrats (or, in laymens terms, the clerics), which, according to Iranian law, was neevr to be reviewd or overturned except by the clerics....that is, until after 1997. Maybe I should have been a bit clearer on this point, and I appologise for not being so.

2.You're wondering where my analogy of the abused child comes from? Simple-I'm taking your "abusive commjunication is better than no communication" stance to it's logical end. You stated that Bush saying "you're a bunch of little pissants, and we'll stomp you if you annoy us too much" is liken to (as you've agnowledged) abusive language. Now, is abusive communication better than no communication? Yeah, that's up for debate. However, you're misconstruing my point about Clinton approach, as I said it was more hands off, and more "we'll become friendlier if we start seeing reforms". This approach is a direct 180 from the Bush Sr/Reagan approach of "we're gonna fuck with you guys any way we can".....now, which is going to bring about better results? Acourse of action bent on excaberating and sustaining tensions, or one of detente, where tensions can relax a bit while both sides work on themselves a bit?

3.As far as the reforms.....you stated that they were stopped by the hired thugs that "stiffled opposition". However, all the clampdown by the clerics did was re-consolidate Khatami's popularity, and the clampdown was lifted, with this many of the reforms that were happening stopped-zero. where was Khatami's power in that? Well, I think it had been demonstrated that he was extremely popular amongst the Iranian populace....power by the people, if you will. And I love how you stated that the reforms were "small".....one thing Khatami (and most of the Iranians) have learned is that shit like this (you know.....changing the social structure) takes time, and if you jump into it too quickly (say, for example, lining up all the clerics on the shooting range), you have more chances of fucking up any positive change that's already taking place. Might not be dramatic enough for you, but fuck it-change is change, and for you to denigrate the path these guys were taking because it lacks dramatic flair is...well, I'm sorry, but it's just plain silly.

4.Al-Jazeera commentary is just like American commentary-a person speaking with a bullhorn. Granted, I tend to read a lot of commentaries in most of the papers I read (they tend to set up the "background dialogue" for the articles within), I take most of them with a grain.....nay, a pound and a half, of salt. As far as you pointing out that the majority of commentaries are "anti-Israli" (which, after checking out a few of them, aren't so much "Anti-Israli" as much as they're "Anti-Fucking-With-Everybody-Else-Israel"), I have two points to make (since I had made the third point)- 1-look at where they're at? These guys are more directly in line for Israel's antagonism (not to discount they're fucking with Israel. However, they're fucking with Israel doesn't get the same backing from the US government as Israels fucking with them), and 2-um, most commentaries from, oh, around the world, happen to fairly "anti-Israli" (again, actually anti-Israel-fucking-with-their-neighbors). (And before you (or anybody else) uses this as a lame example for that whole "liberal media bias" myth, I'd like to point out that quite a number of Jews have actually taken the "anti-IFWTN" stance as well).

4-The only difference between now and before (as far as the reform movement is concerned) is that we're now paying attention to it....and Bush is trying to bigfoot himself in. As I've said, most of the people involved with the actual reform movements over there have never really considered the US intervention as anything but a minor blip in the overall picture there. But this goes into the whole "mass-consensus viewpoint" thing, and that's a conversation that's bound to get fairly long and brutal, so I'm going to leave it for now (since a whole conversation about it is unneccesary for the subject at hand) except to point towards my last post in regards to "mass consensus viewpoint".