But it didn't make the society more open, it made it more repressed. And instead of atomizing, it became homogenized. It all seems very 4T to me.Originally Posted by Eric the Green
Maybe this whole thing is just an American/European cycle.
Which makes a lot of sense because the previous Crisis for Iran was the 1905 Revolution, lasting until after the 1920s when Reza Khan became Reza Shah. Iran is one nation in which the TFT succession of Saeculums could probably be extended back to the 500s BC--the first Achamaenid Kings like Cyrus and Darius if anyone wants to take that chore on.
Yes, the Iranian Revolution WAS a 4T Crisis. The country was unravelling terribly in the 1970s, with oil wealth either ending up in the hands of a very few or being wasted on everything from weapons systems bought from the US to demurrage charges from goods waiting at sea to be unloaded because the ports were too small and infrastructure too poorly developed. Something very different had to be tried, and the country needed a measure of isolation from the US if it was to regenerate. In fact, Iran's situation in the late 1970s and 1980s was very reminiscent of the US during and after the Revolutionary War. The Hostage Crisis can be seen as a deliberate rupture of relations with the US in order to prevent the CIA from playing the destabilisation game that it has played in so many other parts of the world.
And Iran has benefited more than it has suffered from it's isolation. Iran has developed industry and infrastructure following a Chinese model of development that it likely would not have if Iran had remained integrated with the world economy. Iran has 1/3 of it's people with a university education. And a modern economy. And technology that is up to world standards. All of which the US would have tried to prevent Iran from having because the US feared Iran would dominate the Mideast and imperil the petrodollar. Above all, the petrodollar.
Which is why Iran has maintained and will likely continue to maintain it's cold war with the US despite giving up it's nuclear capability as a bargaining chip. And to continue it's alliance with Russia and China. The Civic rulers of Iran fear the US the same way the US feared the USSR during the Cold War.
And yes, Iran IS going through a 2T albeit a very repressed 2T. The proof of this is the growing popularity (and persecution of Christianity, particularly American Evangelical Christianity) in Iran in underground "home churches" and online. Which means that a significant portion of Iranians are alienated from Islam altogether. And we are seeing this in the execution of Iranians for practising Christianity and the number of Iranian Christians who are turning up as refugees in Europe.
We need to remember that in a 2T while outre' religious expression happens and may happen first, a revival of more traditional religion also happens. So we can expect a strong "Religious Right" to develop in Iran and a revival of Shia Islam, probably directed against Salafist Sunni Islam which is currently in a 4T and aggressing against Shia Muslims.
Don't expect a sudden rapproachment between Iranians and the US no matter what upper class young people want. There is simply too much bad history between Iranians and Americans for that to happen. We Americans delude ourselves when we convince ourselves that our appeal and our values are universal and that others will "forgive and especially forget" simply because we ask them to and wave a lot of US dollars at them. There are some things that US dollars can't buy.
Speaking of other countries, does anybody know where Pakistan/India are in terms of this cycle? India seems apparently pretty closely aligned with the US and Europe. Pakistan's history is a lot more messy; I feel like a person could technically interpret the sort of islamic revolution it had in the 1980s as 4T like (leading to censorship, banning of foreign movies, banning of alcohol). And does that mean the splitting of Pakistan and Bangladesh in the '70s was part of its 4T? India/Pakistan both actually really feel too messy and complicated to me to really follow this cycle reliably.
Anyway, it's clear that both countries went in very different directions after breaking up.
Last edited by hkq999; 01-26-2016 at 01:06 AM.
It would be nice though, or at least interesting if Iran opened up and secularized. It could become like India.
It would be nice, but I don't see this anytime soon( not in my lifetime). Maybe in a few hundred years. In the meantime we still have deal with the current Iran.
It will come much, much sooner than that. The people are not on board with their regime. Unpopular regimes are not sustainable in today's world, even if it takes decades to change them. But decades is not centuries.
One of the worst things that could happen if the Republicans win, is that they have promised to tear up the deal with Iran. That would not only allow Iran to build nuclear weapons, and thus arouse Israel to act recklessly, but they have already got money for their economy and their policies from the deal which cannot be taken back. Nor can global sanctions be re-applied if a Republican tears up the deal. The last thing anyone needs now is a war with Iran.
Clinton is to be preferred over Trump or any Republican for that reason alone.
