Iran: The Hollowing-Out of the Regime

by Malcolm Lowe • June 6, 2018 at 5:00 am

The analogies with the former East Germany suggest that Iran, too, is ripe for regime change. They also suggest that a change may come in weeks, months or years, depending on chance events and particularly on whether the local authorities and their security forces, at least in some areas, get tired of killing people.
What is likely to push such developments forward? The answer is that the new American policy, whether by chance or intent, may be as good as anything.

Pictured: The Iranian city of Mashhad, enveloped in a haze of air pollution. Of the 500 most polluted cities of the world, Iran with 19 cities comes fifth. (Image source: Tasnim/Wikimedia Commons)

On December 28, 2017, major protests against the Iranian regime broke out in Mashhad and quickly spread to numerous other urban centers. Mostly merely noisy at first, some turned violent and eventually the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) suppressed the phenomenon, killing some and arresting thousands of others. Protests have continued, but news about them is scanty. How are they to be evaluated?

There are interesting parallels with the twilight of the East German regime. By a coincidence, the Iranian regime is in its fortieth year and the East German regime suddenly collapsed just after its leaders had held a large-scale pompous celebration of its fortieth anniversary in the capital, East Berlin.

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The Ethnic Cleansing of Northern Cyprus
Confessions of a Turkish-Cypriot Mass Murderer

by Uzay Bulut • June 6, 2018 at 4:00 am

"Why is there not peace yet? How can we make peace when we have rabid murderers living among us? Instead of prosecuting them, we enable them to appear on TV and to boast about their murders.... If you do not even bring to account a murderer who says, 'killing was my art,' who will you bring to account?" — Şener Levent, the editor-in-chief of the Turkish Cypriot newspaper Afrika.
So far, these "rabid murderers" have not been held accountable for the slaughter of innocent Greek Cypriots: the ethnic cleansing of northern Cyprus. The greater issue is that he and his partners in crime were aided and abetted by the Turkish authorities. All of those responsible need to be tried at international criminal tribunals -- the sooner, the better.

Pictured: A fence demarcating the "Buffer Zone" manned by United Nations peacekeeping soldiers at the "Green Line" in Nicosia, Cyprus. (Image source: Marco Fieber/Flickr)

Is Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who keeps talking about Cyprus as a security threat to the eastern Mediterranean, trying to deliver a message? Erdogan has long been warning Cypriot and international companies exploring energy resources in the region not to "trust the Greek side in Cyprus."

The Turkish president's repeated verbal attacks on Greek Cypriots also shed light on a recent interview, broadcast live on Turkish Cypriot TV, with 84-year-old Turgut Yenağralı -- a former member of the paramilitary Turkish Resistance Organization (TMT), founded in 1957 and known for its criminal activities in Cyprus.

Yenağralı, in the interview, boasted about his role in the mass murder of Greek Cypriots and the reason for it.

"We traveled across Cyprus and either beat up or killed those who committed crimes against Turkishness," he began.

Question: Why did you engage in those activities? Was it an adventure or for excitement?

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