Friday, June 5, 2009
This is just a quick link to follow -- an "aside." These are links to interesting things that, for one reason or another, I didn't place into a full posting. Click the link to visit the full article. Go to the blog index for a regular listing of posts.
Judith Apter Klinghoffer: Obama Wrong On Iranian Coup - '...Mosaddeq's anti-Western policies made him popular in the urban areas, especially with leftist students. He was less so in the provinces. To improve the balance in his favor, he tried to disenfranchise the peasants by outlawing votes of illiterates (yes, literacy test!). The majlis defeated his "reform" bill. What did Mossadeq do? He organized a new elections but "stopped the voting as soon as 79 deputies -- just enough to form a parliamentary quorum -- had been elected." The urban areas votes first. He demanded that the Majlis state that there was "foreign" manipulation of the voting. It refused. The result? The elections were postponed indefinitely and since the Majlis refused to tow his line, Mosaddeq ruled though "emergency powers." Well, this is certainly a version of democratically elected government Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak would recognize...'
