	Generational Dynamics
	Modern Generational Theory

\| HOME \| WEB LOG \| COUNTRY STUDIES \| COMMENT \| FORUM \|
\| DOWNLOADS \| FOURTH TURNING ARCHIVE \| ABOUT \|

Generational Dynamics Web Log for 13-Jan-2020
13-Jan-20 World View -- In historic reversal, Iran admits shooting down passenger plane

Web Log - January, 2020

13-Jan-20 World View -- In historic reversal, Iran admits shooting down passenger plane

Iran's 'Vietcong Tet Offensive'

by John J. Xenakis

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

In historic reversal, Iran admits shooting down passenger plane
Why did Iran's government finally admit to shooting down the passenger plane?
Iran's 'Vietcong Tet Offensive'
Generational analysis of situation in Iran

In historic reversal, Iran admits shooting down passenger plane

This image from Wednesday shows the crash site with a bulldozer burying the evidence so that Iran can deny culpability. (AP)

This image from Wednesday shows the crash site with a bulldozer burying the evidence so that Iran can deny culpability. (AP)

Three days ago, overjoyed Iranian officials were watching as millions of Iranians were in the streets for the funeral of Iran's Gen. Qassim Soleimani, who had been killed by an American airstrike. Iranian officials had thought that, finally!, the Iranian people were returning to their support the government. As I pointed out in my daily commentary in the Generational Dynamics forum, this was mostly a show put on by Iran, and it wouldn't last.

Now the situation has flipped back again. Iranians, who had believed the government's story that they were winning the war in Iraq against the Americans, now learn that everything that government has told them was a lie and cover-up, and that the only result of Iran's missile attack on Americans was not dead Americans, as the government had claimed, but hundreds of dead Iranians. There are growing anti-government demonstrations. The new demonstrations are relatively small, but they're expected to grow.

For any number of reasons, the decision on Saturday by the government of Iran to admit to shooting down a Ukrainian airlines PS752 passenger plane with a missile, killing all 176 people aboard, could turn out to be the most historically consequential decision of Iran's experiment with a government of Islamic Shia terror and dictatorship that was created by the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

For several days, the government made increasingly outlandish lies to defer blame for shooting down the passenger plane. They bulldozed the crash site to hide the evidence. They refused to allow international experts to examine the planes "black boxes." They blamed the crash on a mechanical error, and they said that the plane has suddenly changed direction ominously -- both claims that Iranian video showed were untrue. All this was a lie, and the government knew it was a lie from the very beginning. Iranians listening to the BBC heard that the US, Canada and Ukraine said they had evidence to prove that Iran had shot it down with a missile, but the government of Iran said that the BBC reports were "fake news," part of the usual anti-Iran plot by the and Israel.

Finally, on Saturday, Iran admitted shooting it down, saying that doing so was a "disastrous mistake." General Hossein Salami said, "I swear to almighty god that I wished I were in that plane and had crashed with them and had burned but had not witnessed this tragic incident."

Why did Iran's government finally admit to shooting down the passenger plane?

So, why did Iran do a U-turn and admit to shooting it down?

The narrative in the media today is that Iran was forced to do so by the conclusive evidence that had been collected and presented by the United States, Canada, Ukraine, and other sources.

But if you believe that, then you also have to explain why the Russians have never admitted shooting down the Malaysian Airlines MH17 passenger plane over Ukraine in July 2014, but instead have made one ridiculous claim after another, for example saying that the US had purposely shot it down to embarrass Russia. Since then, there have been numerous deep investigations that prove conclusively that MH17 was shot down by the Russians in eastern Ukraine, using a Russian Buk missile. But Russia continues to make ridiculous excuses.

So if Iran was forced to admit its "disastrous mistake" after only five days, then how come Russia still makes one ridiculous claim after another for five years, and still refuses to admit its own mistake? What's the difference between Russia and Iran?

There could be several reasons, but from the point of view of Generational Dynamics, the most obvious reason is that Iran is in a generational Awakening era, and with large and growing younger generations born since the Islamic Revolution, and these younger generations are generally pro-Western and pro-American. These younger generations are coming to power in the government, and they would have pressured their bosses in the government to tell the truth. The goverment was also pressured by the large anti-government student protests, which make Iran look every day more and more like America in the 1960s and 1970s.

The demostrators are protesting that the government was incompetent because it kept Tehran airport open at the same time that the armed forces were launching missiles at American targets in Iraq. In fact, officials in many countries have been highly critical of Iran for this. Many have expressed incredulity that Iran would keep Tehran's airport open in what is essentially a war zone. The passenger plane that was shot down had just taken off from the airport, and the Revolutionary Guide forces mistook it for an American missile.

But the main criticisms of the government were, of course, that the government lied for three days, not only denying that an Iranian missile had shot down the plane, but also that accusing Western governments and Western media of "fake news" in claiming that a missile had shot down the plane.

Protesters point out that the government was claiming that the IRGC missile attack on Americans in Iraq would achieve victory by driving the Americans out, but all it accomplished was getting hundreds of Iranians killed.

Iran's 'Vietcong Tet Offensive'

This has dealt a major blow to the government's credibility. Iran's government has always blamed every problem on the United States and Israel, even claiming that peaceful protesters were terrorists funded by the US. The claims always lacked credibility, but now protesters will claim that every such claim was a lie. One of the chants on Sunday was, "They’re lying when they say it’s America. Our enemy is right here."

I heard one Tehran apologist on the BBC claim that the loss of credibility was only a small, temporary blip, but if Iranian officials actually believe that, then they're sadly delusional.

The analogous event during America's last Awakening era, in the 1960s, was the "Vietcong Tet Offensive." This was a massive military counterattack by North Vietnam's army in cities and villages across the entire country, beginning in January 1968. It took weeks for the American and South Vietnam forces to recapture the cities. The Tet Offensive was a military disaster for the Vietcong and the North Vietnam forces.

But it was political victory that won the war by turning Americans against the war. Americans had been told that the war was nearly won, and that "we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel," but the Tet Offensive caused Americans, especially students, to believe those were all lies.

The American government never recovered. President Lyndon Johnson announced that he would have to step down and not run for reelection. Richard Nixon became president, but he was relentless accused of lying about everything. The protests against Nixon became worse and worse, and eventually Nixon was forced to resign, under threat of impeachment.

So that's the kind of thing that Iran's government is going to be facing from now on. Iran's anti-government protests will take on new energy following the recent disaster.

Does this mean "regime change" in Iran? I've been writing for years that there will be "regime change" in Iran as it's Awakening era climax, but it's impossible to predict the timing or scenario.

Last week's events have been so politically disastrous for Iran, that they may at least trigger some resignations and firings in the regime. There's a major parliamentary election Iran next month, and that may bring some changes. But as Supreme Leader Seyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei becomes increasingly embattled, a more drastic change may occur, just as happened with Johnson and Nixon in America.

Generational analysis of situation in Iran

The complexity of the current situation in Iran and Iraq provides me with the opportunity to write a deeper generational analysis.

The last week has been fairly dramatic for me personally, because the article that I posted on Friday evening stated unequivocally, based on a generational analysis of Iran and Iraq, that there would be NO WAR with Iran. (See "4-Jan-20 World View -- Iran faces tough choices after Soleimani assassination")

This was at a time when the media was filled with analysts almost unanimously predicting World War III, and left-wing media and politicians were saying things like, "I can't see how a war can be avoided." These idiots have now all been proven wrong, and Generational Dynamics has, as usual, been proven right.

I reached my conclusion based on Iran's history, dating back at least to Iran's disastrous 1800s border wars. Whenever I make a prediction like this, I always take a deep breath and wonder whether this will finally be the time that I'm wrong, and I look like an idiot. Fortunately for me and for Generational Dynamics, that didn't happen this time, and in fact has never happened in hundreds of such predictions over the years, although this was one of the most dramatic. What did happen in Iran is completely in line with the generational analysis I posted. So it's been a relief for the world, and also for me personally.

One thing that I've learned repeatedly is that the experts in Washington have no clue what's going on in the world. As I've mentioned several times in my articles, I learned this in 2006 when Congressional Quarterly and the London Times did a survey of Mideast "experts," many with years of experience, and found out that they didn't know the answers to the simplest questions. ( "Guess what? British politicians and journalists are just as ignorant as Americans")

One of things that the experts didn't know was whether al-Qaeda was a Sunni or Shia organization. Think about that. We had people -- Republicans and Democrats -- making foreign policy who were so ignorant and stupid that they couldn't answer the simplest questions about the subject they were supposed to be experts on. (And recall that Pelosi famously declared that al-Qaeda was not in Iraq. Lol.)

Today's politicians and media are obviously just as ignorant, which is obvious every time they open their mouths. I've previously singled out the Connecticut senator Chris Murphy for criticism because al-Jazeera has run video from him several times, and referred to him as an "expert." He's been in Congress since 2007 and on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee since 2013, so he should know what's going on. And yet, he says the most incredibly stupid things. My theory is that the reason that al-Jazeera runs video from him and others like him is that they want to show to their Arab audience how stupid the Americans are.

The generational analysis I'm about to give is not rocket science, but it's beyond the mental capacity of almost everyone, since it requires the ability to understand percentages and to do math at least the fourth grade level, and most people cannot do fourth grade math. Say what you want about Boomers, but we knew how to do percentages. But in the past few decades, SAT scores have been falling, and college graduates are so dumb, they don't even know how to read a map or understand historical concepts. If you listen to many politicians, reporters and analysts today talk about the economy and Socialism, you quickly realize that they're too dumb to even do second grade arithmetic.

It's obvious that none of the experts on tv has any idea of what's going on in Iran, because they don't have the mental capacity to understand it. Also, they know absolutely nothing about Iran's history, because that's also beyond their mental capacity.

So let's take a look at what you'd have to know if you want to understand Iran today. You may wish to have a pencil and paper handy to take notes.

It would be nice for you to know something about the relationship between the Constitutional Revolution and the Islamic Revolution in Iran's history, but that would be asking too much.

You'd have to recognize the importance of the Iran/Iraq war of the 1980s. But why would anyone know about that? There are two wars going on right now -- in Syria and Yemen -- and there have been other recent wars -- four Gaza wars, Lebanon war, Iraq war, Gulf war -- so why would anyone know anything about this ancient antedeluvian Iran/Iraq war that happened so long ago that it's totally meaningless and forgotten today?

Then you'd have to be able to make generational connections. This is very abstract, and few people are capable of it, given that few people can do fourth grade percentage problems. Suppose a poll in 2000 revealed that only 20% of 30-40 year old Iranians believe that ABC is true, and that a poll taken today says that 80% of 30-40 year olds believe that ABC is true. Most analysts, reporters, economists and politicians would say, omigod, 30-40 year olds have changed their minds about ABC. These baffled people fall back on the usual extraneous factors, such as changed poverty levels or a change in the US administration, since that all they're mentally capable of understanding. They would not be mentally capable of understanding that 30-40 year olds in 2000 would be 50-60 years old today, and 10-20 year olds in 2000 would be 30-40 years old today, and so they haven't changed their minds at all. Examining the two poll results would reveal that everyone believes the same thing they did 20 years ago, but they've just gotten older. That concept is completely foreign and incomprehensible to the mainstream media, economists and analysts, but it's crucial to understanding what's going on in Iran today.

Applying that abstract reasoning to the current situation, the students who were beaten, tortured and jailed by Iran's security policy for peaceful demonstrations 20 years ago are now going to be 30-40 years old, and they're obviously going to remain extremely angry at the current hardline leaders, even if they did crowd the streets at Solomeini's funeral.

Even more recently, those 30-40 year olds have not forgotten that just a month ago, Solomeini was overseeing the torture, rape, jailing and murder of peaceful anti-government protesters.

Applying the same abstract reasons, everyone over age 35 in Iran today has some personal memory of the Iran/Iraq war, and how their fathers, uncles and brothers were tortured and killed by Iraqis. For these people, Solomeini is a war hero, and those feelings haven't gone away. So feelings about Solomeini are going to be mixed -- many revere him for fighting the Iraqis, and also loathe him for torturing and killing peaceful Iranian protesters. Once again, this is way too nuanced and abstract for anyone in Washington to understand.

Finally, the situation in Iraq is even more nuanced. On the one hand, Solomeini is a war criminal because of the Iran/Iraq war, and Solomeini has been overseeing the Iran-backed People's Mobilization Forces (PMFs) in torturing, beating and jailing peaceful anti-Iran protesters, but on the other hand, Iran is pretty much in control of Iraq's government, which is pretty much in shambles anyway.

So if you understand the above, they you understand why my unequivocal prediction that there would NOT be a war with Iran turned out to be true, while the idiots on TV and in the media who were predicting WW III really are idiots.

And quite seriously, Dear Reader, if you listen to these guys in the mainstream media, you should understand that they literally don't have a clue about anything. They probably couldn't find Iran on a map, and they certainly know nothing about Iran's history. You might as well get your news from the Saturday morning cartoon shows.

John Xenakis is author of: "World View: Iran's Struggle for Supremacy -- Tehran's Obsession to Redraw the Map of the Middle East" (Generational Theory Book Series, Book 1), September 2018, Paperback: 153 pages, over 100 source references, $7.00, https://www.amazon.com/World-View-Supremacy-Obsession-Generational/dp/1732738610/

Sources:

Related Articles:

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the Generational Dynamics World View News thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (13-Jan-2020) Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal

Web Log Pages