But as far as I know, not one Arab government has yet pronounced on the situation in Iran, either for or against. That strikes me as rather more interesting.

They could hardly do otherwise. They can’t back Mousavi and the protestors, because it would highlight their own lack of democracy. They can’t back Ahmadinejad, because he wants to replace their regimes with Shi’ite theocracies. They also can’t be seen to back Ahmadinejad, because it would piss off their own people and the Americans.

Oppositional groupings such as the Muslim Brotherhood will be watching with extraordinary interest. After all, there ever were to be free elections in Egypt, for instance, there would be little doubt about the outcome.

It’s not obvious to me that the Muslim Brotherhood would win democratic elections in Egypt. I suspect that Islamism is about at its high water mark and will probably decline in the next few decades.

As I argued in an earlier post, the western left should back neither Ahmadinejad nor Mousavi, but stand with the Tehran protestors, if only because they represent the best hope for greater democracy in Iran.

You can’t back the protestors without backing Mousavi, because that’s who the protestors support. In what way should the West “stand with” them? Verbal support, while welcome, is not on its own going to cut it.

I think the West should develop computer software and hardware so that people can communicate with each other without the state knowing what they’re doing. These computers should be the standard ones on sale in western countries. (The idea is that everyone in the west would use them, so that if Iran wanted to import computers they would too, or would be forced to invent their own inferior and more expensive ones. Obviously there would be no point in getting specialist hardware/software to be used by dissidents, because then posxsession of such would mark one out as a dissident. Instead we want to make something that’s standard all over the world).

This owukld have the added advantage that the UK government couldn’t monitor people’s communications either.

Or we could spend a load of money on telepathy research or something.

Cabalamat: “I suspect that Islamism is about at its high water mark and will probably decline in the next few decades”.

Why do you think that? With increasing oil prices, the ability of Saudi and Islamist oil billionaires to bankroll an increasingly close following of Mohamamed’s instructions about bringing the whole world under Allah does not seem likely to go away.

@3: Why do you think that?

Because Political Islam doesn’t deliver the goods.

For example, the islamic Republic of Iran looks like it’s turning itself into a a thuggish run-of-the-mill dictatorship.

With increasing oil prices, the ability of Saudi and Islamist oil billionaires to bankroll

Until the oil runs out, then where will Saudi be?