Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is busy doing the work the people, well, didn’t elect him to do:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered government and cultural bodies to use modified Persian words to replace foreign words that have crept into the language, such as “pizzas” which will now be known as “elastic loaves,” state media reported Saturday.

The presidential decree, issued earlier this week, orders all governmental agencies, newspapers and publications to use words deemed more appropriate by the official language watchdog, the Farhangestan Zaban e Farsi, or Persian Academy, the Irna official news agency reported.

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Among other changes, a “chat” will become a “short talk” and a “cabin” will be renamed a “small room,” according to official Web site of the academy.

While such a decree on language purification is supposed to show the overwhelming strength of the Iranian state, in reality it is indicitive of its weakness. Mahmoud Ahmdinejad was elected by Iranians to deal directly with the conservative forces in government, of which he is obviously a part of, to bring about the economic revival that mullah opposition to the moderates during President Mohammed Khatami’s eight year term hamstrung. He was not elected primarily due to his extreme views on Persian cultural identity, even if his actions while in office are less than surprising. The Iranian public is becoming increasingly impatient with the lack of movement on economic reform, which has pushed Ahmadinejad’s drive to shore up divided pblic opinion by appealing to topics on which he actually receives majority support despite failed domestic policies: nuclear energy and Israel. The decree on language, while in no way representing a new trend in governmental policy toward Farsi, does suggests that Ahmadinejad has fallen back on utilizing wedge politics to appeal to his conservative base — a sign of weakness, not strength. The failure to bring about palpable and sustainable change to the every day lives of Iranians is weakening Ahmadinejad on the domestic front, and he is not blind to that. In order to combat his eroding domestic approval despite receiving support in kind on nuclear capability and in principal on Israel, Ahmadinejad is attempting to pander to his conservative supporters at the expense of his much larger base of Iranian poor. It’s typical wedge politics, the same sort that brings about innane American congressional debates on gay marriage and flag burning during an election year where issues of actual importance, such as war, budgetary concerns, and health care, should be on the table instead.

The Iranian leadership, meaning the ultra conservative Guardian Council that vets all legislation, is not interested in aiding Ahmadinejad attain his campaign-promised economic goals. However, Ahmadinejad’s closest allies, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), is not interested in supporting an Ahmadinejad-led economic reformation, either. The IRGC, the subversive, militant governmental faction that Ahmadinejad once was a commander in, controls vast swaths of the Iranian economy through charitable fronts known as “foundations.” The Imam Reza Shrine Foundation is one of the largest of these charities, and utilizes full control over the highly important Iman Rezza Shrine to collect funds from domestic and foreign visitors and funnel the money to the IRGC and its leaders. But it’s not just religious sites the foundations control and utilize to accumulate wealth — the IRGC also controls large real estate, industrial, and hospitality firms throughout Iran that receive no governmental oversight centered on reducing corruption and guaranteeing acceptable working conditions. Obviously, Ahmadinejad would face staunch opposition to any attempts taken at instilling economic accountability and reform from those he has received the most support from within the conservative establishment. Perhaps he was never serious about increasing economic prosperity throughout Iran, but the probable reality is that Ahmadinejad believed he could bring about change without directly confronting his closest allies, an impossible goal that has led to his most outrageous domestic overtures.

However, ignoring domestic concerns cannot go on indefinitely. Even the war in Lebanon and Iran’s financial support for Hizbollah, which is in the hundreds-of-millions per month range, is not being treated as a winner by a number of Iranians. And when Ahmadinejad cannot dodge domestic political realities by playing the Israel card, he knows he’s in trouble.

Mitch Prothero in Salon (via Juan Cole):

Throughout this now 16-day-old war, Israeli planes high above civilian areas make decisions on what to bomb. They send huge bombs capable of killing things for hundreds of meters around their targets, and then blame the inevitable civilian deaths — the Lebanese government says 600 civilians have been killed so far — on “terrorists” who callously use the civilian infrastructure for protection.

But this claim is almost always false. My own reporting and that of other journalists reveals that in fact Hezbollah fighters — as opposed to the much more numerous Hezbollah political members, and the vastly more numerous Hezbollah sympathizers — avoid civilians. Much smarter and better trained than the PLO and Hamas fighters, they know that if they mingle with civilians, they will sooner or later be betrayed by collaborators — as so many Palestinian militants have been.

For their part, the Israelis seem to think that if they keep pounding civilians, they’ll get some fighters, too.

The fact that the sentence I bolded is being utilized as a line of argument and justification for the targeting of civilians is rather ludicrous. For instance, if the US started constantly shelling Sunni civilians with reckless abandon in Iraq there would be immense backlash — it would be simply unthinkable and counterproductive for US policy. For that reason, the US attempts to be extremely careful in how it targets Sunni areas, Fallujah and some other areas in Anbar province notwithstanding, and it is because the public backlash from overkill would harm American attempts at achieving peace. Yet Israel has utilized this line of thought in its Lebanese strategy, when in fact all it does is ween the moderates away from sanity and toward the radical end of the ideological spectrum. Don’t mistake me, an offensive against Hizbollah’s military positions and arsenal is more than deserved, but attempting to remove Hizbollah from Lebanese society itself via missiles alone is like a brain surgeon attempting to remove a tumor with a baseball bat.

Manuela Paraipan’s latest article on Global Politician suggests that Israel’s attacks on civilian targets in Lebanon is really in the Lebanese government’s best interests:

By shelling Hizballah, Israel is not only doing itself a service, but also to Lebanon. For years, Lebanon has been a hostage of Hizballah and its providers. The Lebanese Prime Minister, Fuad Siniora lastly recognized it publicly, in an interview with the Italian, Corriere della Sera. Siniora said, “the entire world must help us disarm Hizballah, which obeys the political agendas of Tehran and Damascus.”

I will agree that Fuad Siniora would undoubtedly love to have control over his country, with an amenable parliament and a disarmed Hizbollah. His inability to deal with Hizbollah up until this point is rooted in Hizbollah’s popularity and the strength of its bloc and allies within the Lebanese parliament, which has come about as a result of the terrorist organization’s wide-ranging public support and the United States’ push for a truly democratic and representative Lebanon following the Syrian leavestaking. While Hizbollah’s inexcusable cross-border raid, murders, and kidnappings could have been utilized to undercut the group’s hold on southern Lebanon, the Israeli escalation has put Siniora in an impossible position. The continued shelling of Lebanese cities and the deaths of civilians, including Shi’a, Sunnis, Druze, and Christians, has counteracted any wide-ranging ill will Hizbollah afforded itself by overstepping its bounds. Now Hizbollah, which continues on despite heavy pressure from the legendary Israeli military behemoth, finds itself in a much stronger position politically than before. The lopsided use of force against Lebanese civilians who are not directly connected to Hizbollah, and in many cases may have opposed Hizbollah’s existence, is creating a frightening consensus throughout Lebanon despite former political leanings — a shared hatred of Israel.

The bombardment of Lebanon will eventually end, but Hizbollah will not disappear through sheer kinetic force. At best, it will become more of an amorphous organization with a reduced ability to utilize Iranian-made rockets to attack Israeli civilians. While that is an achievable and desirable goal, it does not mean that Hizbollah would be incapable of striking Israel directly through other, unconventional means. It is, after all, a terrorist organization. Instead of solving the problem of Hizbollah, Israel may just be forcing it into another configuration with even greater and more vehement backing from every day Lebanese than ever before. So, no, Manuela, I disagree that Israel is doing Lebanon or itself, really, a tremendous favor currently.

I’m all for people making more money and attaining upward mobility, but the movements to hike the minimum wage that have proven highly popular in many communities are going to do more harm than good. Take, for instance, a new ordinance passed by the Chicago City Council today that will force Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. to increase their lowest wage to $10/hour within the city’s limits by 2010. The ordinance is aimed at stores that make more than $1 billion annually, and take up more than 90,000 square feet of space. It certainly sounds fantastic and more than fair – justified, even — until the force of the market is factored in. Wal-Mart will respond to the new measure by finding creative ways to cut costs, which will lead to massive layoffs and retail store restructuring. Price hikes on what are currently cheap goods would also ensure, most likely. It’s basic, common sense economics. Any firm would undertake exactly the same methods. Good intentions do not always make good policy.

I am playing the devil’s advocate here – I understand the primary argument concerning Wal-Mart is that they invade small communities, saturate local markets with under-priced goods, and eliminate other job opportunities through their incomparable department store hegemony. However, the problem is not Wal-Mart or its obviously successful market strategy. The problem, if it can be called that, lies with the search for the great deal. Consumers sustain Wal-Mart, which in turn locks in the low wages that, when combined with ludicrously cheap foreign labor (an entirely different subject and post), creates that great deal and locks in low wage living conditions. It’s a capitalist cycle that Lenin would have loved to rip apart.

So, perhaps it does take a political movement, like the ACORN-led push to create a livable wage for Chicago-based Wal-Mart employees, to break that cycle. In the interim, however, the market is not going to be gentle to those who think Wal-Mart is legally binded to pay them more money. It’s not. In fact, Wal-Mart would be more than happy to remove its presence from Chicago and relocate to nearby areas where the market, despite the protests of the good intentioned, will happily absorb the low priced deodorant, DVDs, denture cream, wiffle bats, and all the other minutia Wal-Mart somehow fits inside its walls.

Via praktike at American Footprints, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim has a spectacular idea about how to curb violence in Iraq: give everyone guns:

The leader of Iraq’s most powerful political party said Monday that Iraqis should band together and take up arms to protect their homes and neighborhoods against widespread lawlessness.
Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, whose Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq is the leading member of the coalition of Shiite Muslim parties governing Iraq, said the formation of so-called people’s committees was one of four essential steps the country must take to curb rampant violence.
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Hakim’s contention that neighborhoods should form their own defense committees — his fourth step — is shared by many Iraqis who feel they cannot rely on their country’s security forces or foreign troops to protect them. Others, however, have expressed fears that the people’s committees would amount to nothing more than de facto militias in a country where militia attacks have caused much of the bloodshed.

If that was allowed to occur, it would be nothing less than the largest scale example of Fareed Zakaria’s “democratization of violence” meme yet. Nothing would push Iraq further down the path of civil war than arming neighborhoods of people and asking them to fend for themselves. In a country that identifies more along tribal and sectarian lines than ones based on nationality, this would be disastrous. The basic definition of a state posits that the state, and the state alone, holds a monopoly on violence. While that is nowhere near the reality in Iraq currently — violence is doled out routinely by Sunni insurgents and Shi’ite and Kurdish militias — Hakim’s Mad Max-themed Neighborhood Watch program would officially push the country past the point of no return.