Iran not behind Mideast protests: Mullen

From SpaceWar. And no, Mike Mullen's no lefty freak Iran apologist.  He's the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  Excerpts:

Iran foments instability in the Middle East but is not behind popular protests in Bahrain and other countries in the region, top US military officer Admiral Mike Mullen said Monday in Qatar.

"Iran, I still believe, is a country that continues to foment instability in the region, take advantage of every opportunity," But "from my perspective that has not been the principal focus of what happened in Egypt or what happened in Bahrain or any of these other countries,"

"Those are by and large internal issues, as opposed to issues fomented by some external forces," Mullen said, although "there's always concerns in this region with Iran and certainly the US has them as well as all the regional players."
..
"As far as Fifth Fleet operations, no, the demonstrations have not had any impact here -- we're continuing to conduct our regular business out here," a spokesman for the Fifth Fleet told AFP on Monday.

In the Qatari capital Doha, Mullen met with Crown Prince Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and army chief of staff General Hamad al-Attiyah.

He's right. Say what you want about Iran, but they didn't provide/provoke the tipping-point influence needed for either uprising in Tunisia or Egypt.  Tunisia fell after years of combination economic hardship, no jobs, a corrupt, nepotistic regime, and no future prospects for its citizens.  Tunisia reached its flash point when a 26 year old self-immolated(who was no revolutionary himself), frustration morphed into rage, and Revolution took hold within the Tunisian collective consciousness.

Egypt's revolution was not only a response to Mubarak's authoritarianism, but it was mostly a food riot extrapolated out to governmental overthrow, brought on by Ben Bernanke.  Thanks Ben!  The Washington Post's analysis is about half right:  Let's do some excerpts:

DOES BEN S. BERNANKE, the Federal Reserve chairman, deserve the blame - or the credit, depending on your point of view - for Hosni Mubarak's plight? Some seem to think so. Last August, Mr. Bernanke announced further Fed asset purchases known colloquially as "quantitative easing II," or "QEII" for short. The goal was to ease monetary conditions in the United States and fuel growth. But cheaper money lowered the costs and raised the rewards of speculating on food and energy, relative to some other investments. The latest rise in commodity prices began around the time of Mr. Bernanke's announcement; expensive food triggered unrest first in Tunisia and then in Egypt. Ergo, Mr. Bernanke undermined Mr. Mubarak - or so the argument goes.

Here's where The Post doesn't go far enough..

Still, Mr. Bernanke was probably right to deny that the Fed is "primarily responsible" for the current price run-up. The spike in wheat prices, which determines the price of bread in Cairo, began before QEII, when drought destroyed Russian crops. (Yes, but QEII exacerbated the crisis to boiling point. The absence of a single(or two, for that matter..)crop/commodity, even wheat, won't necessarily throw a society into chaos.  17 percent yearly inflation on people who make 2 dollars a day?  Now the promise of inevitable starvation, that's the kind of thing that freaks societies out.)  Subsequent floods in Australia have destroyed more wheat. As for other foodstuffs and oil, the continuing rapid growth of investment and middle-class consumption in China and India probably explains much recent inflation - just as it will probably drive future price increases in those goods. (Damn China and India for growing.  Just because their economy's are growing does not mean they're eating That Much More food to cause a significant Global agricultural distortion that would cause double digit inflation.  Yes, their populations are growing, but this cause/effect is too rapid for population increase to be a primary factor.).  Ugh.  Not a mention here as to how commodities traders influence global food prices, so when disaster does strike a crop, traders make much more money while doubling the effects of drought or flood on those who couldn't afford prices BEFORE said drought or flood happened..)

Reforming those misbegotten programs(Involving Sugar and Cotton--my clarification) would probably improve global commodity markets more than abolishing QEII, which ends in a few months anyway. (Bullshit.  The damage is done.  After QEII, will prices magically decrease, or will they stay at the same level/continue to rise as they do during inflationary periods?  My Unicorn says prices will decrease.)

Higher food prices do, indeed, hurt the poor. But the focus should be on alleviating their suffering - not on alleged political effects(Overthrowing their corrupt, misery causing governments IS Alleviating Their Suffering, ya big dumb douche!  Put differently:  Focus on the political effects of food inflation again, led to governmental overthrow, thereby alleviating the people's suffering.  Hey!  We ended up in the same place..). Costlier food all by itself is not destabilizing; there are no food riots in democratic India or the Philippines(Yet.  Yet.).  As Egypt and Tunisia prove, it's the combination of misery and tyranny that's combustible(At present.  Let's check back in December).

Bahrain might be the likeliest candidate for Iranian influence, or it might be the Shia majority is sick of the Sunni minority's oppressive rule.  This might be why:

"In Bahrain, you have the majority Shia, who are oppressed, and the minority Sunnis, who have all the money and all the power. That's a pretty volatile combination."



The extent of the economic divide between the Sunni ruling class and the Shiite majority is shocking, said Toby Jones, an assistant professor of history at Rutgers University and an editor at the Middle East Report political journal, who lived in Bahrain for several years in the mid-2000s.

"Nationally, Bahrain is a very poor country and the wealth that does get created is concentrated in the hands of the rulers and the influential," he said. "… I’ve never seen wretched poverty like I’ve seen in Bahrain."

Factors that spurred Libya's current bloodbath?  Inertia, and Gaddafi as mass murderer are two good guesses, for the moment..  Again, Iran just isn't a factor.  Iran's own protests have been squelched for the moment, so whether Revolution Inertia ultimately spread to Tehran remains to be seen. 

Until any credible evidence actually surfaces regarding Iran's influence on any effected country's problems, all narratives regarding factors should be assumed Internal, not due to External pressures from anyone in Iran.  If evidence points otherwise, I'll revisit my stance.  But right now, no such evidence seems to exist.