Iran's Guards get Suicide Bombed

And of course, they blame the US:

Suicide bomber attacks Iran's Guards, kills 31

Reporting from Cairo and Tehran - In a brazen attack on Iran's military elite, a suicide bomber today killed five Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders and 26 others at a gathering of tribal leaders in a southeastern province near the Pakistan border that's known for drug running and religious extremism, according to the official Iranian news agency.

The assault was carried out by a lone man who reportedly disguised himself in tribal dress and detonated an explosives belt at a gymnasium in the city of Pisheen in the Sistan-Baluchistan province, a harsh land plagued by heroin smuggling and ethnic animosities. At least 28 people were wounded in the carnage, images of which were broadcast across a stunned nation.

Iran state-owned Press TV reported that a simultaneous second bombing targeted another group of Revolutionary Guard officers traveling in a convoy near Pisheen. There were no numbers on casualties, and the report could not be independently confirmed.

State media said the Sunni Muslim militant group Jundallah, or Soldiers of God, which operates along the Iran-Pakistan border, claimed responsibility for the attack. The organization, part of a regional Sunni insurgency in Shiite-dominated Iran, has for years killed and kidnapped Iranian soldiers and police officers.

[...]

Iran's post-election unrest also may have inspired today's bloodshed. Jundallah had vowed to take revenge on the Revolutionary Guard for cracking down on protestors marching against the disputed June re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The peaceful opposition movement led by vanquished presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi never associated itself with Jundallah, but some analysts suggest the group had plotted the attack to exploit the political turmoil at a time when the Revolutionary Guard is tightening its hold on the country.

"It was a measure to show that IRGC is susceptible and penetrable. A suicide bomber infiltrated a gathering that was supposedly held under tight security because of the presence of the high-ranking IRGC commanders," said Mashaallah Shamsul Waezin , a political analyst in Tehran. "And, secondly, the timing was important because IRGC is associated with the heavy crackdown against post-election protesters, so the terrorist attack can be an intensified echo of public opinion."

[...]

The Revolutionary Guard and hard-line politicians blamed "global arrogance" for the bombing and said the U.S. was funding and arming Jundallah and other militant groups to overthrow the Ahmadinejad government. The accusations came the day before officials from the U.S. and other world powers were to meet in Vienna on Monday with Iranian delegates over Tehran's nuclear program. [...]

The Iranian theocracy blaming foreigners is predictable. But they have a lot of internal turmoil being generated by their own actions, and I expect their troubles are only just beginning.

And speaking of Iran's internal problems, Iranian blogger Azarmehr has an interesting post, comparing the pre-revolutionary political trials conducted by the Shah, with the trials happening under the current theocratic Theocracy:

Political Trials under the Shah and in Islamic Republic

Most notable is the coerced, scripted confessions.


Related Links:

Solidarity with Hengameh

Five Death Sentences Now

Our Brother Has Nothing to do with MeK

     

Imprisoned Iranian Protesters not Forgotten

Global protests over Iranian crackdown

(CNN) -- Protesters in dozens of cities worldwide on Saturday demanded the release of hundreds of detainees in Iran who were arrested in the bloody aftermath of the Islamic republic's disputed presidential election.

Saturday's global day of action across about 100 cities in six continents was organized by United For Iran and supported by several human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders.

In London, England, protesters waved green flags and wore green wristbands -- the color is symbolic of the opposition movement in Iran.

The British protesters outside the Iranian Embassy in London wanted to show solidarity for those Iranians "who feel too intimidated, too fearful" to go back out on the streets to protest, reported CNN Correspondent Paula Newton.

Several of the demonstrations, especially in the United States and Europe, called for Western governments to be more vocal about the reported human rights violations in Iran. [...]

There is a growing, popular global movement in support of the protesters, and increasing talk about stronger economic actions against the Iranian government. Good. It's about time.


Related Links:

Global Solidarity with the People of Iran

Iran: what to expect next?
     

Iranian Regime crushes all dissent. Relentlessly.

Attacks, arrests slowing online news from Iran

(CNN) -- Bloody attacks and midnight arrests, combined with a regime growing more technologically savvy, have begun stemming the flow of online information from dissidents in Iran, activists and human rights officials say.

Access to some social networking sites has been blocked in Iran since the June 12 election

Once emboldened by their ability to dodge the government and spread news about their protests to the world, many in the youth-driven protest movement, they say, are now scared of the consequences of getting caught.

"It's absolutely chilling," said Drewery Dyke, a member of human rights group Amnesty International's Iran team. "The level of fear that has permeated society now, in terms of this issue, is palpable. It's striking.

"There's an absolute hunkering down by the people."

[...]

At first, members of the movement bragged about being able to skirt the Iranian firewall and share their message -- including pictures and videos that showed the scope of their protests and documented government and pro-government violence that helped galvanize international support for their cause.

Now, some say, the government is catching up.

"It's begun to tail off, but not because people aren't taking the video," Nelson said. "There's just no way to get it out.

"Even the really savvy ones, they're having a hard time getting around things just because everything that they've been using is getting blocked quickly."

At least as effective as the online fight has been the violent, real-world targeting of dissidents using the Internet.

Iranian bloggers have been arrested and others beaten by loyalist Basij militia members, Dyke said.

Some formerly reliable sources in Iran now refuse to speak freely on the telephone or ask Amnesty International staffers to stop calling them, Dyke said.

"It hits you in the face; it's extremely frustrating," he said. "They appear to have drawn up the bridges -- hopefully those bridges will come back down soon."

Roya Hakakian, an Iranian-American author and journalist who has stayed in contact with friends and others in Iran, said she heard about one woman being stormed by pro-government militia members for merely stepping out of her car and using her cell phone during a traffic jam near a protest.

Hakakian said she fears not just the clampdown on information now but what may come next.

"Why are they so insistent on making sure there is no communication?" she said, comparing the move to when a fundamentalist government fresh off its overthrow of the Shah of Iran went on a brutal campaign to silence its critics.

"They want to go back to what they have done in the early '80s -- do away with a large number of the opposition that refuses to be converted and refuses to give in." [...]

It is like the '80's. After the overthrow of the Shah, by a coalition of groups working together, the Clerics turned against their fellow coalition members and with brute force crushed them into submission. They are now attempting to do this again, to the reformists among them. They wish to eliminate any semblance of democracy and have a completely theocratic state, a dictatorship run by unelected clerics.

The article goes on to speculate that the quiet from Iran now is not just due only to the crackdown by the government. The political opposition was set up as a political campaign, not a revolutionary movement. But as the government continues to crush that campaign, they may well be turning it into a revolutionary movement. Which is why the Iranian government is moving quickly to terrorize and kill as many of them as possible, just as they did 30 years ago.

Meanwhile, the Theocratic regime also is doing everything it can to put the blame on outside influences:

Report: UK embassy staff in Iran 'face trial'

It's what every fascist regime does. Create a circus, and hope nobody notices what they are really doing? Who are they fooling?


Related Link:

Iranian cleric's "sermon" urges "strong cruelty"
     

Iranian clerics want a Taliban style government?

According to Mansoor Moaddel, Professor of Sociology at Eastern Michigan University, that is exactly what the clerics are trying to do:

Iran’s Crisis and the U.S. Option: Support Mousavi now or fight Ahmadinejad tomorrow

The current civil uprising in Iran reflects not just a protest against a rigged election. Nor is it primarily a symptom of contentions for power or clashes between opposing perspectives on the nature of the Islamic regime. It is, rather, resistance against a political coup, whose engineers plan to impose a Taliban-style Islamic government on Iran. The coup has been organized by an alliance between the supreme leader and the most militant and fundamentalist faction within the ruling establishment, backed by the Revolutionary Guard.

The political attitudes of one of its most notorious ideologues, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, demonstrates the danger Iranians and the world would be facing should this militant faction get its way. Mesbah Yazdi does not believe in the republican aspects of the Islamic regime, but rather views Islamic law as supreme and must be unquestionably followed. The supreme leader, he says, is not elected but rather discovered by the clerics. For him, Ayatollah Khamenei is the exemplar of such a leader. He has characterized the ideas of representative government and legislative functions as belong to the decadent system of Western liberalism. He has likened reformist ideas to the AIDS virus. He has publically endorsed the construction of a nuclear bomb.

These ideas have much appeal for Ahmadinejad, who claims that the past governments were corrupt and deviated from the Islamic path.

[...]

The outcome of the current civil uprising is certainly consequential for the development of democracy in Iran. It has also far reaching implications for regional stability, international peace efforts, and the security of the United States. At this point, the regime cannot secure its rule without unleashing a reign of terror. And if this coup succeeds, the regime will forge ahead with its expressed plans for nuclear development and support for religious extremism abroad.

It would be a mistake to think that people like Ahmadinejad are reasonable. It is counter productive to base policy on the untenable premise that he would be amenable to a cost-benefit analysis on the nuclear issue. Time and again he has announced that the nuclear issue is off the table. To believe or hope otherwise would be a profound and resonant error. [...]

Read the whole thing. We have nothing to gain by worring about offending the Mullahs; they are not going to "talk" with us. But our Democrat Administration seems to have blinders on to all this.
     

Iranian cleric's "sermon" urges "strong cruelty"

Here is what a theocratic government "prayer ceremony" looks like in Iran.

If you think that looks nasty, the "sermon" is even better:

Amongst others, a member of the Iranian pro-government Basij militia, center right, chants slogans during a Friday prayer ceremony at the Tehran University campus in Tehran, Iran, Friday, June 26, 2009. Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami, a senior cleric, said during nationally broadcast Muslim sermon on Friday that the government should punish "leaders of the riots, who were supported by Israel and the U.S., strongly and with cruelty." (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

I've posted about Khatami's crimes previously. His words here shouldn't surprise anyone, given his history of torture and repression.

In 1984, as minister of culture and Islamic propagation, he presided over the creation of Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy army of terrorists in Lebanon and elsewhere.

This is a photo of a Hezbollah "Swearing in ceremony" in Iran:



Here are more photos from Hezbollah rallies:





The are historical ties to Nazism with many militant Islamist groups like Hezbollah. Cruelty is a part of that heritage, and we've seen a large dose of cruelty in Iran recently. But apparently, the ruling clerics believe MORE cruelty is needed.

Imagine what a nation that treats it's own citizens with such cruelty would do, with nuclear weapons, to citizen's of other nations?

Iran's president Amadinejad has harsh words for the USA and our president:

Iran pledges 'crushing' response to US critiques

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed Saturday to make the U.S. regret its criticism of Iran's postelection crackdown and said the "mask has been removed" from the Obama administration's efforts to improve relations.

Ahmadinejad — with his internal opponents virtually silenced — all but dared Obama to keep calling for an end to repression of demonstrators who claim the hardline leader stole re-election through massive fraud.

"You should know that if you continue the response of the Iranian nation will be strong," Ahmadinejad said in a speech to members of Iran's judiciary, which is directly controlled by the ruling clerics. "The response of the Iranian nation will be crushing. The response will cause remorse."

Ahmadinejad has no authority to direct major policy decisions on his own — a power that rests with the non-elected theocracy. But his comments often reflect the thinking of the ruling establishment.

The cleric-led regime now appears to have quashed a protest movement that brought hundreds of thousands to the streets of Tehran and other cities in the greatest challenge to its authority in 30 years. There have been no significant demonstrations in days, and the most significant signs of dissent are the cries of "God is great!" echoing from the rooftops, a technique dating to the days of protest against the U.S.-backed shah before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. [...]

Amadinejad literally kisses up to the ruling Mullahs, whose bidding he does.



Iran's president lashes out at Obama

Iran's hardline president lashed out anew at the United States and President Barack Obama on Saturday, accusing him of interference and suggesting that Washington's stance on Iran's postelection turmoil could imperil Obama's aim of improving relations.

"We are surprised at Mr. Obama," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in remarks to judiciary officials broadcast on state television. "Didn't he say that he was after change? Why did he interfere?"


"They keep saying that they want to hold talks with Iran ... but is this the correct way? Definitely, they have made a mistake," Ahmadinejad said. [...]

President Obama has been criticized here at home from the left and right, for saying to little about the Iranian situation, and for saying too much. But lets face it folks. No matter what Obama says (or doesn't say) about Iran's current government, they have never had any intention of "talking" with us about anything. The Mullahs would have us shut up, listen and obey. THEIR will is DIVINE. And if you disagree with them, you deserve to be cruelly crushed.

Democrats too often assume that leaders of other governments are always reasonable and rational; it's one of the Democrats biggest weaknesses. Their Foreign policy blind spot.

How do you "reason" with Nazis? How do you "talk" to cruel monsters who have no interest whatsoever in listening to YOU? It's not as if nobody has ever tried talking to the theocratic government of unelected mullahs since they took power in 1979. How do you "talk" with crazy people?

This protester in Sweden knows a Nazi when she sees one:



Do we?






There may be signs that the Regime is weakening from within. We can only hope. I wish the Iranians glastnost. I wish them a velvet revolution.


Related Links:

Evil Words of the Evil Cleric

German Neo Nazis: Hail Ahmadinejad!

Has Iran's Theocracy suffered a Fatal Wound?
     

Iran's "Supreme Leader" Khamenei's world view

I've previously speculated about whether Mousavi would be any better than Amadinejad as leader of Iran. Yet the fact is, under Iran's political system, what the President thinks is not nearly as important as what the "Supreme Leader" thinks and does; he has the final say in all matters.

The following article in the CSM takes a look at Iran's current supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei:

How Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, sees the world

Since the Islamic revolution in 1979, which toppled with breathtaking speed Iran's corrupt and secular shah, the country has had two rulers.

One is the package – standard in modern republics – of head of state and parliament. And then there’s the supreme leader, who, in practice, has to work with the consent of the nation’s formally democratic institutions but who, in theory, has the power to overrule them if he feels their actions run counter to God’s will. [...]

I think the author has got it wrong here. He should swap the words "practice" and "theory". Khamenei IS overruling democracy. Iran is not a real democracy, voting is just a sham.

[...] Khamenei is preserving his vision, say analysts, of what the Islamic Republic should look like in the short term by denying the popular will. But he has taken that step, they say, at a cost so great to his own image and to that of the office he occupies that the Islamic Republic is unlikely to be the same again.

[...]

Scholars of Iran say that while Khamenei has for most of his 20 years in power sought to avoid confrontation and played a behind-the-scenes role, he has always been devoted to adhering to Khomenei's call for a velayat-e-faqih, or "rule of the jurisprudent," which in practice means one man like Khamenei acting as "jurisprudent," or interpreter of God's rule on earth.

ADDING WORD "ABSOLUTE" TO HIS POWERS

Indeed, after Khamenei rose to Iran's most important position in 1989, he went further than Khomenei had, leading a successful effort to have the role of the faqih, or jurisprudent, defined more specifically in the Constitution with the insertion of the word "absolute" as in the "absolute rule of the jurisprudent."

When his younger brother Hadi Khamenei, a reformist cleric who favors more oversight and checks on the power of the supreme leader, called for this in a sermon in 1999, he was savagely beaten by basiji militia loyal to the ayatollah – the same group that has been used to attack protesters in recent days.

"I think, in some respects, what Khamenei has done in the past 10 years has been to amass even more authority institutionally than his predecessor ever had," says Suzanne Maloney, an Iran scholar at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "He clearly sees the revolution itself as under threat, and Iran has already begun to deliver with the violence over the weekend. I think they're in a good position to repress, and I don't think Khamenei will blink." [...]

So far so good. But then Ms. Maloney can't resist overstating her case. She goes on to compare Khamenei to Dick Cheney. Yeah, right. Dick Cheney claims absolute power as God's representative on Earth? And I thought he was just an elected "vice president". Silly me.

Ms. Maloney should note, that in 2005, Bill Clinton, speaking at the Davos conference, admitted he admires Iran, because there, the "good guys" always win the elections by two thirds or more, unlike in his own country. Follow the link. He actually describes the Iranian leadership as liberals and progressives, like himself. Khamenei was the Supreme Leader back then too when Clinton said that. Khamenei, a liberal progressive?

I don't think any of the Democrats are in a position to be throwing stones right now. But back to Khamenei:

[...] Mr. Cole, at the University of Michigan, says Khamenei's worldview has led him to see Iran's reformists as abiding threats, even though many of them just want to tweak the nature of the Islamic revolution, not overthrow it entirely.

"What a lot of the reformers want is consumer capitalism and international integration … and Khamenei sees this as an existential to the republic," says Cole. "Khamenei is afraid that if Iran isn't economically independent, then the US will find a way to get a hold of it again and subjugate it. A lot of his paranoia is that the reformists want to give away the show."

He's paranoid because reformers might introduce the Iranian version of glasnost, which could weaken or eliminate his power.

The bottom line is, the Supreme Leader matters more than the President, because he has more power. It's what makes Iran a Theocracy, not a Democracy.

When the Shah was overthrown in 1979, many of the revolutionaries wanted a secular democratic government, and they were promised that, but they were instead subjugated and crushed by the very mullah's they had helped to power. Many Iranian's still want what they were promised 30 years ago. That struggle continues today, and is a large part of what we are seeing now.


Another article from the CSM:

Why Iran's Ahmadinejad is preferred in Israel

The title is somewhat misleading. Some Israeli's prefer Amadinejad, while others think regime change in Iran would be better. Good arguments are offered for both viewpoints. But as long as Iran has a Supreme Leader who can override any elected officials with his "divine" authority, I don't know that it will matter much, in a substantial way, who is president. The position of "Supreme Leader" would have to be changed or eliminated in order to bring about any meaningful reform.

I tend to lean toward the side of the reformers. As someone points out in the article, Iran's nuclear program is proceeding anyway under Amadinejade. But admittedly, there are many unanswered questions about what would happen if Iranian reformers were to come to power. How much reform would we see, an who would really have the power?


Related Link:

Persian Paranoia
     

Has Iran's Theocracy suffered a Fatal Wound?

Fareed Zakaria certainly makes a good case for it. He maintains that while the regime itself may carry on for a while, it's founding ideology has suffered a fatal blow, dividing the ruling mullahs:

Zakaria: 'Fatal wound' inflicted on Iranian regime's ideology

[...] CNN: As you've seen the situation in Iran develop over the last week, what are your thoughts?

Fareed Zakaria: One of the first things that strikes me is we are watching the fall of Islamic theocracy.

CNN: Do you mean you think the regime will fall?

Zakaria: No, I don't mean the Iranian regime will fall soon. It may -- I certainly hope it will -- but repressive regimes can stick around for a long time. I mean that this is the end of the ideology that lay at the basis of the Iranian regime.

The regime's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, laid out his special interpretation of political Islam in a series of lectures in 1970. In this interpretation of Shia Islam, Islamic jurists had divinely ordained powers to rule as guardians of the society, supreme arbiters not only on matters of morality but politics as well. When Khomeini established the Islamic Republic of Iran, this idea was at its heart. Last week, that ideology suffered a fatal wound.

CNN: How so?

Zakaria: When the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a "divine assessment," he was indicating it was divinely sanctioned. But no one bought it. He was forced to accept the need for an inquiry into the election. The Guardian Council, Iran's supreme constitutional body, met with the candidates and promised to investigate and perhaps recount some votes. Khamenei has subsequently hardened his position but that is now irrelevant. Something very important has been laid bare in Iran today --- legitimacy does not flow from divine authority but from popular support.

CNN: There have been protests in Iran before. What makes this different?

Zakaria: In the past the protests were always the street against the state, and the clerics all sided with the state. When the reformist president, Mohammed Khatami, was in power, he entertained the possibility of siding with the street, but eventually stuck with the establishment. The street and state are at odds again but this time the clerics are divided. Khatami has openly sided with the challenger, Mir Hossein Moussavi, as has the reformist Grand Ayatollah Montazeri. So has Ali Larijani, the speaker of the parliament and a man with strong family connections to the highest levels of the religious hierarchy. Behind the scenes, the former president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, now head of the Assembly of Experts, another important constitutional body, is waging a campaign against Ahmadinejad and even the supreme leader himself. If senior clerics dispute Khamenei's divine assessment and argue that the Guardian Council is wrong, it is a death blow to the basic premise behind the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is as if a senior Soviet leader had said in 1980 that Karl Marx was not the right guide to economic policy.

CNN: What should the United States do?

Zakaria: I would say continue what we have been doing. By reaching out to Iran, publicly and repeatedly, President Obama has made it extremely difficult for the Iranian regime to claim that they are battling an aggressive America bent on attacking Iran. In his inaugural address, his New Year greetings, and his Cairo speech, there is a consistent effort to convey respect and friendship for Iranians. That is why Khamenei reacted so angrily to the New Year greeting. It undermined the image of the Great Satan that he routinely paints in his sermons. In his Friday sermon, Khamenei said that the United States, Israel, and especially the United Kingdom were behind the street protests, an accusation that will surely sound ridiculous to most Iranians. The fact that Obama has been cautious in his reaction makes it all the harder for Khamenei and Ahmadinejad to wrap themselves in a nationalist flag. [...]

Zakaria goes on to make some comparisons with the fall of the Soviet Union, and America's "correct" response to that, which he also compares to Obama's current response.

I've had a lot of mixed feeling about these events. Some people claim that Moussavi was a worse dictator in the 1980's than Amadinejad is now. But Iran was also at war with Iraq back then; different times, different circumstances. I also had -and still have- hopes that Moussavi might be Iran's equivalent of Gorbachev, bringing a kind of Glasnost to Iran.

Even now, there seems to be an element of that happening, as Iranians rebel against many long standing assumptions about the way things are supposed to work in Iran's Islamic Theocracy. The Iranian people are tired of broken promises, fake elections and votes that don't matter. A door has been opened now, and it may not be possible to close it again. My prayers are that Iran finds it's glasnost.

This interview touches on many good points in a complex situation. Meanwhile, events in Iran continue to escalate:

Iranian police throwing teargas at protesters in Tehran; Update: I’m ready for martyrdom, says Mousavi; Update: Israeli minister predicts revolution
     

Selective Religious Tolerance: a Leftist Tool

One would think that "Religious Tolerance" would be about showing consideration for all religions, but clearly that is not the case in Europe, as Thomas Landen at the Brussels Journal shows us:

Dispatch from the Eurabian Front: Austria, European Parliament, the Netherlands, Belgium

The Austrian authorities have indicted politician Susanne Winter on charges of incitement and degradation of religious symbols and religious agitation. This offence carries a maximum sentence of two years. Last January, Ms Winter said that the prophet Muhammad was “a child molester” because he had married a six-year-old girl. She also said he was “a warlord” who had written the Koran during “epileptic fits.”

The politician, a member of the Austrian Freedom Party FPÖ, an anti-immigration party which is in opposition, added that Islam is “a totalitarian system of domination that should be cast back to its birthplace on the other side of the Mediterranean.” She also warned for “a Muslim immigration tsunami,” saying that “in 20 or 30 years, half the population of Austria will be Muslim” if the present immigration policies continue.

Following her remarks, Muslim extremists threatened to kill Susanne Winter and she was placed under police protection. Today, the Justice Department in Vienna announced that Ms Winter will be charged with “incitement and degradation of religious symbols” (Verhetzung und Herabwürdigung religiöser Symbole). If convicted she may have to serve up to two years in jail for her opinions.

However, Alfred Hrdlicka, the Austrian “artist” who depicted Jesus and his apostles engaging in homosexual acts of sodomy during the Last Supper, has not been indicted. Nor will he be. Depicting Jesus sodomizing his apostles is not considered to be a “degradation of religious symbols” in Austria, but referring to the historic fact that Muhammad married a six-year old girl is “incitement to racial hatred.”

Neither has Mr Hrdlicka been threatened by Christian assassins for his “opinions.” The difference between Christian and Muslim extremists is that the former do not aim to kill those who offend them, but the latter do – which is perhaps also why the European authorities fear the radical Muslims and persecute their opponents while they subsidize those who insult Christians. [...]

(bold emphasis mine) The rest of the article talks about Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Geert Wilders, who have been threatened with death by Muslim fanatics for being critical of Islam. The forces of Europe's multi-culti political correctness are being mustered to deny them protection and effectively silence them and/or force them to leave. Ironically, this emboldens the most violent and threatening Muslims to continue being violent, threatening and intolerant. Why would that behavior be encouraged in a genuinely liberal and tolerant society?

Leftist socialists pretend to be liberal and tolerant, but in reality they are anything but. They are very selective about who and what they support. Any cause they can use against the establishment they support. Everything they do is a means of achieving power; freedom of speech and personal liberty are not values worth protecting for everyone, they are just tools to use selectively in pursuit of political power. The ends justifies the means.

In Turkey, the secular Left opposes the conservative Islamic AKP party. But in Europe, the Left supports Islamists. Why? Because in Europe, Leftists and Islamists have a common enemy they hate; Christian conservatives.

In Iran in the 1970's, the political Left joined forces with the Islamic Right to overthrow the Shah. The Leftists foolishly believed the Islamists would share power with them, and bring about a secular socialist state. Instead, when the Shah was driven out, the Islamists killed or exiled the leaders of the Left and subjugated their followers, under a rigid an intolerant Islamic theocratic state.

Leftists often have self-destructive tendencies, and also fail to learn from their mistakes, repeating them again and again. Even if they won't learn, surely the rest of us can? Their mistakes are a lesson for us all.


Related Links:

Hitler, Islamism and Leftist Liberals...

Political Correctness and Multiculturalism:
The New Tools of "Stealth" Socialism?

Radical Islam, the Western Left, and the
end of democracy; the problems and solutions

     

Iran's pressing needs and Iraq's vulnerability

#1460 - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: America Is Like a Battery Running Out. They Are Done For.
Iran Ch.1, Esfahan TV (Iran) - 5/24/2007 - 00:06:42

[...] Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: With the grace of God, we have almost reached the end of the path where we can take complete advantage of all nuclear capabilities. We are very near the summit. The resistance of the enemies grows weaker every day.

[...]

Now they are mustering all their power, in order to cause some commotion – some resolution, some pressure, some uproar... But let me tell you that with the help of God, they are done for. Like a battery about to run out, they muster the remainder of their power but Allah willing, nothing will happen. We've passed that. Wait one month, two months, three months... Allah willing, as soon as possible, we will pass that. Their situation is much worse than one can imagine. Their foundations are shaking. Nobody is with them. They though that if they used threats, people here would withdraw voluntarily. When they used threats nobody withdrew. When they used their fist – it boomeranged back at them. What's left for them to say? A few months ago, they threatened us militarily. Do you remember? They specified the date. They said: "On March 27, at 5 a.m., we will bomb these 20 sites." From this position of making military threats, they've got themselves to the point where they want to have talks with us, and they say: "It wasn't us making threats."

(bold emphaiis mine) Talks? Even Ahmadinejad believes we have nothing to say. I think it's because of the Democrats that we are now having "talks" with the Iranians. A waste of time for us, it buys time for Iran, and lends them the veneer of credibility. Small wonder that they want to invite Nancy Pelosi to Iran. I don't see that any good will come of it.

As for the analogy of a battery running out, perhaps Ahmadinejad is confusing us with his own country? Here is a bit of economic news from the Memri blog:

Economic Shocks in Iran

Randa Taqi al-Din, columnist for the London daily Al-Hayat, reviews the economic shocks being experienced by the Iranian economy. Iran, the second largest exporter of oil in OPEC, is in economic crisis, caused by the shortage of gasoline for cars, which Iran imports in large quantities. Iran is suffering from a soft economy, 11% unemployment, and rising inflation.

Iran’s economic shocks are the product of state control over the economy, stifling bureaucracy, and poor management. Iran’s foreign policy and the provocative statements of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have had their impact on the Iranian economy as well.

In order to revive Iran's oil sector, $100 billion is required, but no foreign investments are currently available because of the sanctions.

The Iranian leadership is blaming U.S. President Bush for its mismanagement of the economy.

Iran’s rush last year to provide economic aid to the Lebanese while failing to provide aid to a city that suffered an earthquake was widely criticized by local papers.

Ms. Taqi al-Din concluded that the Iran has only itself to blame for its economic woes, because it could be doing much better had it focused its energies on the internal front.

Source: Al-Hayat, London, June 6, 2007

(bold emphasis mine) Someone's batteries are running out. They need 100 billion in investments, or new resources to draw on. Where can they find new resources? From their neighbors, the Iraqis:

Baghdad Accuses Regional Fronts Of Seeking To Destroy Its Ports, Oil

The Iraqi government has accused unnamed "regional fronts" of targeting Iraqi oil installations and Iraqi ports.

U.S. officials have identified the "fronts" as a cell connected with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

Source: Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, London, June 6, 2007[...]

(bold emphasis mine) The Iranian theocracy has a strong interest in seeing Iraq's government fail.

There are many family connections and religious ties between the Shia Muslims in both countries. If the Americans leave before Iraq's government stabilizes, Iran could precipitate a civil war, where the Shia would most likely win and dominate. Then the Shia in both countries would unite, and Iran's oil problems would be solved... and everyone else's would begin. And the Iranian Government would also have new revenue to fund their terrorism, and grow their war machine. Ahmadinejad has made no secret of what he intends to do with that:

Ahmadinejad: The Countdown To The Destruction Of Israel Has Begun; We Hope To Move Towards Jerusalem

If we isolate Iran, their internal problems will increase and the regime may collapse from within. But if we pull out of Iraq and abandon it to Iran, we will see troubles much worse than what we are facing now.