Hmm:

Dilip Hiro, I quoted him a while ago, something about the jury still being out on the Iranian Revolution. He appears to have reached a verdict.

Until the June 12th election — despite evidence of modest tinkering with the first round of the 2005 presidential vote — post-Shah Iran seemed to indicate that Islam and democracy could work in harmony. The upheaval since then has demonstrated that when strains between the two concepts develop, it is democracy that gets short shrift.

That is bad news for Muslims — and non-Muslims — worldwide.

I think that’s premature. Dilip said where power sat in the country. How about this: “The charismatic government, held to the fire for the first decade of its existence by Saddam, a rote exercise following Khomeini’s death, then (like the northern commies) made even more paranoid and insular by external sanctions and clear existential threats, can hardly be expected to behave well on its first try facing the inevitable cracks in the anti-Shah coalition.”

Maybe it’s the extra-central version of the faith at fault, not like I know, or power pure and true, but maybe the government never stopped being at war? Americans should pay special note. Our 2000 dispute drew very similar lines. The paranoid are more motivated and usually better armed.

Meanwhile, the US system failed its own transparency test with the black box bombs that took down the world economy. And yet, the people’s representatives maintain their commitment to the bane of public process, secrecy. Is there anywhere people can turn for uncorrupted governance?

Who cares. We’re a bunch of yammering idiots.