In the end...it doesn't even matter... #iranelection

Tehran, I believe, is ground zero of a civil rights movement that will leave no Muslim or Arab country, or even Israel, untouched.
--Hamid Dabashi, of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University

The unrest in Iran makes me green with envy.
--Gideon Levy, Haaretz reporter

However, we will not abandon the great achievements of Iranian scientists. I too will not suspend uranium enrichment.
--Mir Hussein Mousavi, recent loser of the Iranian presidential "election"


Let's not fool ourselves over here.

There is a misconception flying around the West that the recent "election" in Iran was between the forces of good (Mir Hussein Mousavi) and evil (Mahmoud Ahmedinejad). The subsequent protests, violence, chaos, death and destruction that erupted were seen as an uprising of civil rights for the oppressed Iranians who yes, deep down inside just want to live in peace and harmony and shop at the Gap and Walmart just like the rest of us.

Not so fast my friends.

While it's easy to get caught up with the hype and excitement of a seemingly never-ending stream of young protesters, marching through the streets of Tehran chanting Allah-u Akbar, kicking over cars, setting fire to buses, fighting with soldiers and police...wait a minute, this isn't peaceful at all! It kind of looks like those anarchists who went bonkers in Seattle back in 1999.

The American Revolution...this isn't

On Youtube, videos of the chaos began popping up almost immediately. And all across the Twitter-verse, people anxiously checked online as @Change_For_Iran kept us enthralled with updates, allegedly from downtown Tehran about protests and riots breaking out. With posts like "tear gas #iranelection" and "my eyes are burning hard to keep them open #iranelection" Americans and other Westerners were able to follow along with up-to-the-minute updates from Iranians being chased by club-wielding police from the comfort of their own living rooms. As unlikely as it is that someone being chased by Iranian Revolutionary Guards would stop to type out a pithy "Tweet" - it didn't stop tens if not hundreds of thousands of young Westerners from jumping entirely onto the "support Iranian freedom" bandwagon.

Facebook statuses declared their solidarity for the "green movement" in Iran. Profile pictures were colored in green in solidarity. To this day (nearly two months after the elections) the #iranelection hashmark on Twitter is still a top-trending topic. "Free Iran" and "Where is my Vote" protests broke out all over the world and continue to this day. Pundits on both sides of the political spectrum delivered rousing, breathless pronunciations that a new day was dawning in the Middle East and a new, lovely, tolerant Iran would emerge from this chaos, led by the open-minded, tolerant, lovely Mir Hussein Mousavi. America, especially young Americans had fallen in love with a Persian for the first time since Aladdin.




First thing's first - this "election" was a sham regardless of who won, how they won, how much they won by or how rigged the election was.

There is NO democracy in Iran. There never has been.

Did that register? In case it didn't, let me say it again and I would ask you to please say it with me.

THERE IS NO DEMOCRACY IN IRAN. PERIOD.

Regardless of who "won" this "election" - the only prize was the right to be the mouthpiece for the mullahs and ayatollahs and sheiks and scum of the Earth that dictate the day to day lives of all the Iranians, Hizballah and lately, Syria. The "president" of Iran does NOTHING. The real power in a theocracy like Iran comes from the THEOCRATS, not the winners of these absurd contests that do nothing but create an illusion for their subjects that they have some kind of say in their daily lives. It's a joke. It's a scam. It's meaningless. It didn't matter if Ahmedinejad won by a million votes or 100 million votes. It didn't matter if Mousavi won. In the end, all they do is what the Ayatollah tells them to do.

But what of the great reformer, Mousavi? Perhaps he could exert some kind of reformist, positive influence on his ayatollan masters during conversations with them?

From a Weekly Standard posting before the election:

In 1981, when Mousavi first appeared, UPI explained that "Appearances aside, Mousavi heralds a more vigorous propagation of the radical Islamic foreign policy of exporting Iran's revolution." In 1987, Reuters quoted Mousavi at a demonstration in Tehran saying "Tomorrow will be the day we step on the Great Satan. Tomorrow is the time for America to see our iron fists."

Uh-oh. This doesn't look good...

Iranian Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi yesterday called Israel a "cancerous tumour" and said the Palestinian move to accept UN Resolution 242 would anger Muslim revolutionaries.

Oof.

In 1989, Mousavi called for Salman Rushdie to be killed.

Ouch.

From his profile on about.com

In that 1981 interview, Mousavi defended the taking and holding of American hostages by Iranian militants for 444 days as serving the revolution’s purpose. “It was the beginning of the second stage of our revolution,” following the overthrow of the shah, he said.

Well, that's not very liberal. Or moderate. Or anything short of completely insane.

But in all honesty, these quotes and incidents are mostly from the 1980's. What about the fact that unlike Ahmedinejad, he has not denied the Holocaust? Surely his statements on this topic at least will be clearly sympathetic to the 6 million Jews who had their lives snuffed out by a similarly evil ideology to the one he used to subscribe to but now allegedly doesn't.

From Der Speigel:

SPIEGEL: President Ahmadinejad does not believe that there is historic evidence of the mass murder of the Jews. Do you also feel that more clarification is needed?

Mousavi: We have a cemetery in Tehran where Polish immigrants are buried. They fled to Iran to escape the injustices at the time. Something must have happened.

Wow! What rousing support! "Something must have happened" indeed! Jews had to flee from "injustices" apparently. That's an odd way to describe a murder...

In local news today, a convenience store clerk was the victim of an injustice during an armed robbery. Witnesses say the alleged perpetrator pulled out a gun and injusticed him when he refused to open the cash register. Full story after these words from our sponsor!

Ok, but at least he doesn't politicize the Holocaust to advance his agenda like Ahmedinejad, right?

SPIEGEL: Your president has repeatedly denied that the Holocaust happened, and that the Germans killed 6 million Jews. Do you, too?

Mousavi: It is not a question of the number of people killed. Nor is it a question of who committed the crimes. No matter who was responsible, we condemn them for it. But the issue is this: Why should the Palestinians have to pay for what happened back then in Europe?

What does he mean “no matter who was responsible” – the GERMAN NAZIS AND THEIR ALLIES were responsible. Who else could be responsible? Maybe the Soviets? Maybe the Americans? Or maybe Jews brought it upon themselves? RIDICULOUS! And oh yes, the Palestinians shouldn’t "pay" for the crimes of the Nazis. That old story again.

Nevermind the 4,000 year connection that Jews have had to Israel since Biblical times. Nevermind the fact that there was a contiguous Jewish presence in various Israeli cities (including Jerusalem) that go back to the Roman era, predating any Arab or "Palestinian" invasion during the 600's. Nevermind all that. Because inevitably the path we are on, takes us to...

SPIEGEL: Do you recognize Israel?

Mousavi: No, I do not recognize it. For the past 20 years, we have called for a solution to the problem by taking a poll of all Palestinians. This referendum should also include Jewish and Christian Palestinians living in the region. They should decide whether they wish to live in one state or two states.

Oh wow thank you so much Mr. Mousavi! You'll ALLOW the "Jews and Christians" - who in your version of "Palestine" are a hopeless minority - to have their land and sovereignty ripped out from underneath them by the overwhelming Muslim majority in one of your absurd "elections" ! How pragmatic and moderate of you! Please notice by the way that he lumps the Jews and Christians together, continually reaffirming the notion that this is a war between Islam and everyone else, not just Jews and Israelis.

And yet, as long as he frames his worldview as being sympathetic towards the plight of the Jews "just not at our expense" - you're likely to find gullible buffoons and self-haters in the West who will fall for it. His interview with Der Speigel shows he is well versed in the practice of creating moral and political equivalency between a truly democratic Jewish state and a harshly autocratic theocracy like his own or the one he and Hamas would like to replace Israel with.

And yet all across America and Europe, young college students wear green in solidarity. Haaretz and New York Times and Huffington Post reporters rush to support this wonderfully liberal "green revolution" that they've created in their heads. Muslim and Iran apologists highlight this supposed outbreak of human rights as if to say "here look, we don't need the stupid Jews or Americans to show us how to do this, we can do it ourselves just as well!" But's it's not the same. It's an illusion.

Because what the apologists don't tell you, what the "peace activists" fail to grasp and what this ignorant administration cannot realize is that green isn't the color of Iranian freedom.

Green is the color of Islam.

It is the color of Hamas. And Hizballah. And the Muslim Brotherhood. And the Taliban. And al Qaeda.

This is not democracy breaking out in Iran. These aren't moderates fighting extremists. It's just one faction of extremists fighting another faction. Like Hamas VS Fatah. Or the Shiites VS the Sunnis. In the end, it doesn't even matter which side wins. These young Iranians getting beaten and killed in the streets are suffering for nothing. You are supporting them for nothing. They are fighting for an illusion. The results of the election are insignificant because even before the first "vote" was cast, the outcome was certain:

Continued pursuit of nuclear weapons. Continued hatred and incitement of Jews and Christians. Continued rule by the mullahs and ayatollahs. Mousavi is just different packaging of the same evil.

And you're all falling for it.




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