Air Defense Drills

Iran is conducting war games to make sure that the quality of the airforce is good and introducing new domestic technology that will enable them to protect themselves against possible threats.  I do not know if we should be concerned, but I have a feeling that they know they will likely be attacked in the near future.  If Israel and Iran would just talk things out, I am pretty sure that war will not occur.  Also Iran will need to prove that they are not building nuclear weapons in order to feel secure.  I do believe that Iran having a nuclear weapons could be a problem because the leaders are the radicals that helped overthrow the Shah in 1979.  They were the ones that did not want society to modernize because they believe that Islam is not compatible with modernization.  I think the US and Israel do have the right to worry and the rest of the middle east is worried too.  

Iran is stepping on thin ice at the moment because they are going to have alliance issues.  China and Russia are not going to save their butts if Israel attacks and Syria is in a civil war. They do have a couple allies, but I do not think that is going to be enough for them to defeat two strong militaries. 

Iran Parliamentary Elections

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/05/iran-election-results-mahmoud-ahmadinejad?CMP=twt_gu

Iran recently had a parliamentary elections and the conservative party that supports Ayatollah Ali Khamenei 20 of the 65 seats.  President Ahmadinejad party only winning 8 seats and the Independents winning 11 seats.   The rest of the seats are yet to be determined.  On the other hand, for the current results none of the reform parties put up any candidates.  So the question is which of the two is the lesser of two evils Ahmadinejad or Ayatollah Ali Khamenei?

So I think that I would have to pick Ahmadinejad at the moment.  He actually considered a "populist" in Iran and then you have the extreme conservative Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.  They both have similarities they hate the United States (another group of people hating my country...big surprise (sarcasm)).  They both attempt to get rid of any "soft" power from the United States or anything that is western.  My main issue is that since the reform parties really have no chance at winning a majority of the seats then I guess people would have to pick Ahmadinejad.  He is "suppose" to be less extreme then Khamenei.  

On the other hand, if Ahmadinejad had not suppressed the reform parties that oppose him then they would have put up candidates.  However, they could not put up candidate because they are all in jail.  The major leaders of the parties are also in jail. Also the journalists that support them get put into jail and if they try to make contact with anyone in the United States then the connection fails.


I attempted to contact a news reporting company in Iran and we started our communications and then they stopped.  I think that either I was talking to a government spy or they had intercepted the email or both.  So the government is successfully making sure the opposition does not say or fight anymore against the government.  Ahmadinejad has made sure that the leaders were arrested before the elections.  


I guess Ahmadinejad is better than Khamenei, but I still do not like the guy and I cannot wait till he gets out of power.

Iran

So I have decided that Iran deserves its own blog because I spend so much time reading news that come from there and I am interested in how the people are fairing under the rule of Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.  Also how the reform parties and the people participating in the reform movement are fairing.  I think that Iran is very interesting because they people want the country to change and modernize, but the leaders are trying their best to stop the modernization.  

One of the reasons is because of the "soft" power that comes from United States.  "Soft Power" means that when cultural ideas or practices and other things that are not military power or political begin to influence the way people think.  For example, Ahmadinejad told the people that they could no longer celebrate Valentines Day and banned the sell of Valentine items because it is a western tradition and it is against the practices of Islam.  

Anyways, I feel that I need to create a blog devoted to Iran.  Hopefully, people will read it.  Thank you so much!