I’ve been upset the whole week with the narrative of many mainstream international media. More disturbing was [...]]]> Maybe it is a subject of debate in newsrooms around the world, as it has been within IPS: were the latest events in Egypt a coup d’état or a dramatic but legitimate move to regain the elusive democracy? 

DIana Cariboni. Credit: Courtesy of the author

I’ve been upset the whole week with the narrative of many mainstream international media. More disturbing was the people shot dead in the street by security forces two days ago, as this video shows. But this Friday, we could see bloody repression and people shot dead all across the board.

The main argument to present this week’s developments as the last chapter of the 2012 Egyptian revolution is the earlier massive protests against the ousted democratic regime of Mohamed Morsi – followed by the swearing in of a chief justice as interim president — and the support the military action has received from a number of opposition parties and religious groups, like the Christian Copts.

“Civilian role” has been repeated once and again. But is this enough to avoid the authoritarian tag?

Those who have lived under military regimes should have no doubts. And the examples are spread all over the world.

Just a reference to my closest examples: civilians, even political parties, supported dictators or became dictators themselves in a number of Latin American countries in the 60s, 70s and 80s.

As recently as 2009, the region got lost in the same fog about Honduras, prompting me to write a story explaining the nature of a coup d’état.

This year we remember two of those civic-military rules, which began exactly four decades ago: the Uruguayan, led by the civilian and elected president Juan María Bordaberry (June 27, 1973) and the Chilean (September 11, 1973) under the cruel leadership of general Augusto Pinochet.

People still remember the deaths, disappearances and tortures. We still suffer the consequences of assailed generations growing up in the shadows.

The latest events in Egypt resemble the emergence of the same nightmare, just when Egyptians were starting to dream about democracy. Definitely, media should expose that reality, not obscure it.

Washington Times: In an editorial, the über-hawkish DC daily echoes John Bolton (referenced in our last entry here) and calls for a strike against Iran’s Bushehr reactor before fuel rods are inserted in the plant. Their revised timeline gives the United [...]]]> News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for August 18th, 2010:

Washington Times: In an editorial, the über-hawkish DC daily echoes John Bolton (referenced in our last entry here) and calls for a strike against Iran’s Bushehr reactor before fuel rods are inserted in the plant. Their revised timeline gives the United States or Israel just two days to act — though they state that it might not be so bad to wait because the radiation-fallout that Bolton seeks to avoid would be a way for a potential strike to “hinder Iranian attempts to get it back up and running.” The editors opine that “action is needed,” but admit that it’s unlikely.

NY Times.com: At the Opinionator blog, Robert Wright offers a nuanced reading of Jeffery Goldberg‘s recent Atlantic story on the likelihood of an Israeli military strike on Iran in the coming year (50-50, Goldberg says). Wright says that while there is a “bit of channeling” Bibi Netanyahu, “the piece is no simple propaganda exercise.” Wright concludes that while the piece is, if anything, a poor piece of war propaganda, it is instructive because it answers questions about the weak Israeli public (and private) reasons for bombing, and also offers the United States a map for constructing a plan to avoid that scenario, especially given that the piece offers “no sound rationale for bombing Iran.”

Arms Control Wonk: Joshua Pollack, an occasional U.S. government consultant, laments that the arms control community — “nuke nerds” — are not playing a big enough role in discussions over what to do about Iran’s nuclear program, often only speaking amongst themselves in acronym-heavy jargon. So he offers, in plain English, a little parsing about the different views of Iran’s nuclear goals: What, for instance, does “going nuclear” even mean? “If Iran is going to achieve breakout capability at a hidden facility somewhere — call it Son of Qom — then bombing Natanz won’t address that problem,” write Pollack. “The name of the game today isn’t bombing, it’s intelligence.” (Hat Tip to Laicie Olson)

Washington Post: On the anniversary of the 1953 coup d’etat that unseated the democratically elected and secular Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh (and re-installed the dictatorial Shah), Council on Foreign Relations fellow Ray Takeyh examines the events and offers an unusual account that places the blame for the failure of democracy fifty-seven years ago squarely on the same societal forces responsible for last summer’s squashing of democratic expression: Iran’s clerics.