Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei gloated Saturday that the Iranian public had “humiliated” Bush by electing hard liner Mahmud Ahmadinejad as president,” writes Juan Cole this morning.
Ridiculing “Space Cadet” Michael Ledeen‘s poor abilities as a Middle East expert, Cole contends that “the campaigning style of the two men” suggests “in some ways they are soul mates” and that Ahmadinejad won “in some part” by “using the same electoral tools as George W. Bush and Karl Rove.”
Cole lists, and explains in detail, each of the Rovian tactics that he alleges Ahmadinejad used:
- Smear Tactics
- False Consciousness
- Posing as a Critic of the Government You Run
- Benefitting from Dominance of the Judiciary
- Religious Congregations and the Military
Most devastatingly, Cole charges Michael Ledeen with spreading false propaganda that is killing our U.S. troops:
The news is full of stories on Iran: BBC: “Iran to Maintain Nuclear Policy”; Seattle Times: “Iranian Vote Turns Up the Heat on U.S.”; NYTimes: “Victory by Hard-Liner in Iran Could Widen Rift with U.S.,” and on and on. Cole links to the Boston Globe story.
and the chador for women. Count the days.
Isn’t this election outcome in some way a reaction of Iranians to the intense pressure from the U.S. and the Iranian people’s genuine fear that the U.S. will bomb them?
but it is also a function of the liberals not having any of their candidates allowed on the ballot.
Imagine if we had a choice between Pat Robertson, Gary Bauer, and Bush. How many of us would vote? And who would we vote for?
Yup. Azadeh Moaveni, author of Lipstick Jihad, was correct about voter apathy.
P.S. Gary Bauer in a heartbeat. He’d get my sympathy vote for falling off that stage backwards in the 2000 primaries. (And, as I recall, he actually reads the news.)
Yes, Bauer has that going for him.
If I had to choose, I’d move to Los Angeles.
But there is no doubt that the continual threatening posture from
the United States influenced this election. People wanted a strongman
to defy the US and they got one. Maybe they got more than they
bargained for.
It will be interesting to see if he does listen to the poor, to those he seduced
with promises in order to get their votes.
June 30, 2003 issue
Copyright © 2003 The American Conservative
Flirting with Fascism
Neocon theorist Michael Ledeen draws more from Italian fascism than from the American Right.
By John Laughland
[snip]
The purest ideologues of fascism, in other words, wanted something very similar to that which Ledeen himself wants now, namely a “worldwide mass movement” enabling the peoples of the world, “liberated” by American militarism, to participate in the “greatest experiment in human freedom.” Ledeen wrote in 1996, “The people yearn for the real thing–revolution.”
Ledeen was especially interested in the role played by youth in Italian fascism
is a great little restaurant/sandwich shop on 10th street between Christian and Washington in Philly. It’s called Frank and Evelyn’s, but is known more familiarly as Frank & Shanks.
Up until about a year ago, they had a big poster of Mussolini (in various poses) by their front door.
Ah, the Italian Market…nothing like it.
Why did they take it down? Is Mussolini now considered too liberal?
Norma sent me this from the Financial Times:
I was in college at a school in Louisiana that catered heavily to the oil and gas industries. There were a lot of students from Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. My future husband was a lab assistant in physics, my roommate was a geology grad student and we spent a good bit of time playing soccer with the foreign students. They had a passion for the game…it was fun.
Then, a group of student radicals took over the US embassy in Iran and everything changed.
The guys that we used to play soccer with wouldn’t make eye contact, wouldn’t speak. They wouldn’t walk alone, they ran in packs. Their former happy student visages turned into harsh glares.
On the other side of the world, there was another student, a member of student union that seized the embassy, it was Ahmadinejad.
That’s the whole point, silly.
Bush’s remarks drove lots of fundamentalist and poor Iranians to the polls, where they voted against the reformist/moderate candidate, Rafsanjani, and for Ahmadinejad.
Now, who is more likely to seek rapprochement and a peaceful solution of crises with Europe and America (not to mention his neighbours), Rafsanjani or Ahmadinejad?
Rafsanjani, of course. That’s why Bush made sure he helped Rafsanjani’s defeat at the polls with his denunciation of the Iranian election beforehand: “Iran is ruled by men who suppress liberty at home and spread terror across the world.”
Bush is trying to provoke a confrontation with Iran over its nuclear programme–Bush desperately wants an excuse to attack Iran and even hopes that Iran will strike back, so that Bush can further escalate the conflict in the Middle East. Ahmadinejad may even be stupid enough to play straight into Bush’s hands and grant Bush the provocation he desires.
The elevation of this man to the presidency of Iran is yet another step on the path towards a wider war on the Arabian Peninsula.
and he just keeps getting hotter.
Best of all, he knows what he’s talking about, he backs up his assertions with chapter and verse, and thus his devastating critiques are not easy to dismiss or discredit.
Main strategy of the Bushies therefore is simply to ignore him.
So, Susan, thanks so much for spreading the word.