Bracing Reality Check

I continue not to have the faintest idea what's really happening in the country of Iran, beyond the writ of the reporters from Teheran. I wish the democrats the best, if that's who they are, though Ann Appelbaum links to a reminder that if they are, Moussavi is an unlikely standard bearer, what with his participation in the mass murder of 30,000 Iranians 20 years ago.

Two weeks ago, however, the Economist had a fascinating column on what the Chinese Communist Party learnt from the Tiananmen Square events and massacre of twenty years ago. Executive summary: they realized they needed to change in order never to lose power, and did so in a systematic and hugely successful way.

This is probably bad for mankind, given how the Chinese don't care in the slightest about human rights in their broad, Enlightened Western meaning (more and more of the West doesn't care much, either, but that's a different subject), and the Chinese certainly seem on their way to being extraordinarliy influential on mankind in coming generations. Actually, another article in the Economist told how the authoritarian powers of the world are already setting up aid projects meant to counter the West.

So maybe we'll soon see a benign, democratic Iran. And very likely we won't. Perhaps not ever.