Things in perspective…revolutions in Iran and China

I would rather be the leader of any western country today than the leaders of Iran, and China. Here’s why.

One country at a time.

Iran’s government is a dictatorship run by theocrats (ayatollahs) and a slightly lunatic president who has only known success, to include his university time taking over the US Embassy in 1979. Much of this dictatorial group is more arab oriented than the majority Persian population.

Here are population statistics:
Persian 51%, Azeri 24%, Gilaki and Mazandarani 8%, Kurd 7%, Arab 3%, Lur 2%, Baloch 2%, Turkmen 2%, other 1%

Here are language statistics:
Persian and Persian dialects 58%, Turkic and Turkic dialects 26%, Kurdish 9%, Luri 2%, Balochi 1%, Arabic 1%, Turkish 1%, other 2%

Some of the theocrats can barely speak Persian. This says legions. And their pernicious imposition on the population of their visions is tenuous, at best.

Their power today seems to be less idea based than oil based. Present Iranian threats to disrupt their oil output and even to interrupt the Persian Gulf output through the Strait of Hormuz are mostly talk from weak third world tin despots that are full of themselves. Most of the Iranian oil and even Persian Gulf oil goes east, as in to China and others, and they can not and will not tolerate this effort to hurt the west. I feel confident this has already been “expressed” in the appropriate way.

If you believe a nation's government has one responsibility to at least try to improve the lot of its citizens, then the present Iranian government is failing, and no amount of secret police, intimidation, and even billboards extolling martyrdom can change what mothers and fathers think. Because the older Iranian people have lived under other regimes, they especially know the difference.

Of such situations, revolutions are made. More to follow.

On to China, first.

My opinion about revolution there is strategic in nature, though I will drop down to operational a little bit.

China has never been able to rule itself for any historically extended period of time. This inherent principle still applies. China is not homogeneous, just like Iran is not homogeneous.

The normal historical friction is usually expressed as the inland Chinese tribes vs. the coastal Chinese tribes. It is more modernly called the friction between the governing inland Chinese tribes vs. the more entrepreneurial coastal Chinese tribes (to include the Vietnamese by the way). At the operational level, it is the massively corrupted communist Chinese government (to include the military that runs entire business empires) vs. the business people running on rampant capitalism vs. the regular people being overrun by too fast an economic change, tribal change, and even environmental change. People do not take birth defects well if they think, as they do, that it is not mother nature at work.

And somewhat as in Iran, no amount of secret police, intimidation, and media control efforts will change what mothers and fathers think. And we all really resent nepotism.

When China took over Hong Kong, some wondered if, in the end, Hong Kong might take over China?

Of such situations, revolutions are made.

The last part of this article is difficult for me, for now I am somewhat out of my league.

Of what are revolutions made? What precipitates a revolution?

I use an historical approach. As a child of the 60’s, I think the US went through a revolution, though it was different from what I think will happen in Iran and China. And for sure the Soviet Union’s dissolution was another revolution of sorts, in my opinion.

I think one size do not fit all. Iran’s and China’s revolutions will be local… and violent with much blood let.

Iran seems like a case of the majority being ruled by a minority bent on its objectives.

China seems like a case of historical friction exacerbated by resentment of corruption and nepotism and “birth defects” .

Only time will tell.

Addendum:

The USA was born through revolution. So some revolutions can have good consequences.
I think some English still think of George Washington as a terrorist.

When I told my Israeli classmate at Command and Staff College at Quantico that I at the time considered Menachem Begin an imperialist, and compared him to my Leon Uris novel writer motivations, he knew and agreed with my disappointments and frustrations, at least he said so, and I believed him.

Menachem Begin was a terrorist in his youthful time. This comment in the class by a Delta Force fellow got a big protest from the Israeli embassy. So much for schooling, except in the USMC school, it stuck.

Predicting is a human foible. For anyone who has read this far, focus on your judgment about enemy capabilities. That is where the meat is. Judging intents from media reports is a waste of your intellectual time. Do use media reports to figure out what is the other sides objectives, sometimes even called centers of gravity.