Ahmadinejad and Napoleon III

a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4SEayzk5d96ZHgrwEG9-tgJerrdL9m7hVi1aHjpeKY11tlnm7mlwjnYhAg1JhNsjwid70XIND8t5o8SAqQniboZWTb1pa3KxFsMV0466DHHJcLTThI8btn_u3LKOCngiavCTljHyXlaMG/s1600-h/Napoleon_III.jpg"img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 210px; height: 313px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4SEayzk5d96ZHgrwEG9-tgJerrdL9m7hVi1aHjpeKY11tlnm7mlwjnYhAg1JhNsjwid70XIND8t5o8SAqQniboZWTb1pa3KxFsMV0466DHHJcLTThI8btn_u3LKOCngiavCTljHyXlaMG/s320/Napoleon_III.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350978502203817490" border="0" //abr /a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCnNX7fawUI9fNHk3lGyIZDsfEej6QkKQH9hqMYPazJpTwxR5ZJI5bY_kBrGtJk3zBz4QXP5xHEGCUp30vBum9qpv75oJMOBDi0xq9J4cS_9uZWeeFI7O6Enn78f6vU0Y47PeqlwTSkmlA/s1600-h/225px-Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad.jpg"img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 225px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCnNX7fawUI9fNHk3lGyIZDsfEej6QkKQH9hqMYPazJpTwxR5ZJI5bY_kBrGtJk3zBz4QXP5xHEGCUp30vBum9qpv75oJMOBDi0xq9J4cS_9uZWeeFI7O6Enn78f6vU0Y47PeqlwTSkmlA/s320/225px-Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350978412523621234" border="0" //aDave Osler a href="http://www.davidosler.com/2009/06/the_eighteenth_brumaire_of_mah.html" draws an analogy between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Napoleon III /a. In the span style="font-style: italic;"18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, /spanKarl Marx excoriated Napoleon III - a man who had managed to rig the 1851 French presidential elections so he got about 7.5m votes out of 8m. Dave points out it is a bit of a shame that some modern-day Marxist commentators are failing to see the similarities between the two characters.br /br /Napoleon III had a lot of support from the poor and from peasants. However, this did not mean that Marx supported him as somehow 'representing' the working-class. Some commentators seem to be arguing that, because Ahmadinejad appeals to a significant number of poor Iranians, that this makes his regime somehow progressive. I don't agree. Marx remained opposed to Napoleon III eventhough he was able to take a large chunk of the peasantry and the poor along with him. In the same way, I do think that modern commentators, especially those who see themselves in Marx's tradition, should not be swayed from criticism and opposition to Ahmadinejad simply because he may well have support among segments of the disadvantaged.br /br /In terms of a href="http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/files/14234_iranelection0609.pdf" what the actual level of his support is, this report from Chatham House indicates the election 'results' have overstated it /a. In 2 provinces, Mazadaran and Yazd, it seems turnout was greater than 100%! Also, for the figures to make sense, Ahmadinejad would have had to have won over 44% of former reformist voters who voted for reformists in the last (2005) elections. This is very unlikely, given the polarised nature of Iranian politics.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/38622711-5364549856485527625?l=vinospoliticalblog.blogspot.com'//div

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