René O'Deay gBlog

As one Iranian blogger puts it:

"When it was assigned to draft a constitution for the newly established Islamic Republic of Iran thirty years ago, the Assembly of Experts made sure that the sovereignty of the people would NOT be the government’s source of legitimacy."

Author Ladan Boroumand ( http://www.arsehsevom.net/zine/?p=86 or
http://www.iranrights.org/english/document-674.php ) continues:

"According to the Assembly’s intention, the supreme leader’s absolute power over the whole government emanates NOT from the people, but rather from the divine authority of the Twelfth (or Hidden) Imam, which is delegated to the supreme leader during the Imam’s miraculous occlusion."

and:

"Elections, therefore, are mere administrative procedures whose legitimacy depends upon the preelection vetting of the candidates and the postelection approval of the results by the unelected, cleric-dominated Council of Guardians."

As one student blogger activist put it after the June 2009 election farce, "We made a mistake...."

The students had assumed that there was some degree of popular sovereignty dormant in the 1979 Constitution, a sovereignty that they thought the electorate might snap into wakefulness by voting en masse.

"We made a mistake," wrote a bitter Zeid Abadi. "We refused to accept that the regime is not animated by the same logic which presides over our understanding."

But if you read that 'Constitution', you can see there is NO "degree of popular sovereignty" in it.
NONE.... because all rights defined in it are under Islamic authority and law and the 12 Imams.
http://www.iranonline.com/iran/iran-info/government/constitution.html

The West has made a huge mistake also. In their fear of one evil empire, an evil ideology, they used a worse ideology to counter and fight it, empowering it with Western Technology and supplying it with arms. and money, both in Foreign Aid and income for oil and opium/heroin.

The Pahlavi Shahs made some mistakes too,
Reza Khan, ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rez%C4%81_Sh%C4%81h )
Mohammed Reza Pahlavi ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Reza_Pahlavi )

Contradictory 'facts' in this wiki, (but look who their references are and possibly contributors):
Human rights during the Pahlavi Dynasty
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_Pahlavi_Dynasty )

There's a mess going on in the Middle East right now, with all the revolutions and protests, some violently suppressed. and they all might have extremely similar problems with their national constitutions, if they have any at all.

Has it dawned on them that mixing i-slam with their constitutional laws might be the problem, or a major part of it?

In the case of the Iranian Constitution, one can see that if this is a democracy, it is ruled by the minority, the ayatollahs and all their little brother mullahs.

An Arab fantasy, "If Iran Reformed from Within" from GulfNews.com ( http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/if-iran-reformed-from-within-1.801383 ), reveals the futility of conforming to that constitution. since after you once actually read Iran's constitution you will realize that they are conforming to their constitution now!


In another GulfNews opinion piece, the tussle between the Iranian president and the 'Supreme Leader' is laid out, over who gets to vet the candidates for President and their parliament. But the problem for Iranians remains the same, those in power decide who can run and who cannot. There are no free elections, political parties, or newspapers. AND this is all constitutionally legal.

Reform in Iran is a joke, and those in Iran all know this.

René O'Deay