Hegemony and Iran, Revisited.

Last month I wrote two posts, Resource consumption and hegemony, roadblocks to the future? and Democracy in retreat? where the subject of American hegemony was addressed. Then later in a post,My Persian Sons I wrote of my connection with Iran.

Today, Tom Barnett has two posts that offer more on the subjects. The first is a comment on a review of Parag Khanna's book,Waving Goodbye to Hegemony by Robert Jordan Prescott at House of Marathon, A Global, Multi-Civilizational, Multi-Polar Muddle, I concur with Tom's view that this is "beautifully written."

The second post that struck home with me was a lengthy post about Iran,Same old in Iran where Tom takes the time to follow up on an article by Thomas Erdbrink in the Washington Post entitled, Iran's Clerical Old Guard Being Pushed Aside. After reading the Post article, I found Barnett's comments even more helpful, in that he added the icing on the cake to explain in detail what the original piece addressed. He begins:

With any revolutionary state, the original leadership generation ages out, usually without grace and with plenty of regrets. They see what could have been and what it's turned out to be. They look back over past decisions, and realize they would have done things differently if given the chance again to rule. They typically split across two impulses: 1) they should have been more stringent re: the revolution; and 2) they should have moved more decisively to normalize the revolution's relationship with the outside world.

And cuts to the chase with:

Fascinating stuff that shows, in my opinion, that Iran's revolution is hardly unique or unknowable or "irrational." Instead we see the same old, same old: corrupt ideologues versus less corrupt technocrats. Both think they can revitalize the failed revolution, and both are wrong. But with oil prices lubricating the regime's failures so nicely, the outcome of this yin-and-yang-like struggle may go on for a while, meaning we better be ready to seize our chances for soft-kill strategies when the technocrats are in power.
That, and we should pray for the Supreme Leader's imminent demise.

A fine bit of analysis by a man with a masterful eye on the horizon.

Postscript:
Additional insight about Iran, can be found at MilitaryHistoryOnline.com where an article entitled, Special Feature: Reflections on Iran. is a very informative report with pictures.