Barnett: Iran Mullah Overthrow by 2010

Thomas Barnett predicts that, “Iran will experience an overthrow of the mullahs’ rule by 2010.”

A slightly bold prediction, you say, but not exactly a hard one to make given ongoing events?   Does he get extra points for having written the above in the summer of 2003 and publishing it on page 380 of Pentagon’s New Map?

Considering I’d be leery of making that prediction even considering ongoing events, I’d say so.

FILED UNDER: Books, Middle East, World Politics, , ,
James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. Eric Florack says:

    I’d say so.

    Me, too.

    I’ve always known and written that there would be resistance to the hardline Islamic thocracy, and that it would… it must.. eventually build to the point of exploding. Never figured I’d see it in my lifetime, however. I do now.

  2. DavidL says:

    It is beyond my pay grade to figure out the political calculus here. But this is much is simple, no country can function without the consent of her people

    Even the moo-las can not shoot the entire populatation. They don’t have fifty million bullets. If enough people in Iran choose the live free or die option, there nothing the moo-las can do to stop them.

  3. Michael says:

    live free or die

    I wonder how well that translates into Persian…

  4. PD Shaw says:

    This is an interesting observatin that might show Barnett to be correct, give or take five years:

    Steady or declining [oil] production combined with rising domestic consumption will mean falling net Iranian oil exports, reaching zero by perhaps 2015. Iran requires foreign partners in its energy sector to avoid this outcome. Yesterday’s AP story about rising political risk for investors in Iran darkens the outlook for Iran’s financial and economic stability.

    Small Wars Journal