onsdag, juni 19, 2013

"Moderat mulla" eller ulv i fårakläder

Så gav det s k valet Iran en ny president.
En engelsktalande mulla som ler hult och
utlovar avspänning och förhandlingar.
Den liberala pressen är alldeles till sig av
lycka. The Guardian skriver lyriskt att
Hassan Rowhani öppnat "hoppets
fönster". Time tror att "den ekonomiska
och diplomatiska isoleringens tid är förbi
för Iran".
Den exil-iranske journalisten Sohrab
Ahmari ger en mera realistisk bild i Wall
Street Journal: “This is what democracy
looks like in a theocratic dictatorship.
Iran's presidential campaign season
kicked off last month when an un-
elected body of 12 Islamic jurists
disqualified more than 600 candidates.
Women were automatically out; so
were Iranian Christians, Jews and even
Sunni Muslims.
The rest, including a former president,
were purged for possessing insufficient
revolutionary zeal.
Eight regime loyalists made it onto
the ballots. One emerged victorious
on Saturday.”
**
Michael J Totten varnar liberalerna för 
övertro på "den moderate Rowhani":
"But the problem with the word “moderate”
is that its meaning is entirely relative.
The Muslim Brotherhood is moderate
compared with Al Qaeda.
Bashar al-Assad is moderate compared with
Saddam Hussein.
Fidel Castro is moderate compared with Josef
Stalin.
General Franco was moderate compared with
Adolf Hitler.
But are the Muslim Brothers, Bashar al-Assad,
Fidel Castro, and Francisco Franco moderates
compared with Western political figures who
are labeled as moderates? No, no, no, and no.
It’s not even clear that Rowhani is a
moderate compared with Ali Khamenei,
the only comparison that actually
matters."
***
 
Atlas Shrugs granskar den nye presidenten
och finner inget "moderat" i hans förflutna.
* Rouhani has been involved in the Islamic
revolution since its murderous beginning.
He accompanied the Ayatollah Khomeini back
from Paris to Tehran and since then has held
a number of key security positions in a regime
which has killed and tortured hundreds of
thousands of people. Rouhani has called for
the execution of pro-democracy student pro-
testers whom he said should be crushed 
"mercilessly and monumentally"
* His most notable position was Chairman of
the Supreme National Security Council during
which time the Council helped mastermind
the 1994 bombing of the Jewish cultural
center in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people
(including many elderly Holocaust sur-
vivors).
Rouhanis son hatade förtryckarregimen
och begick självmord i protest mot den.
Han skrev i ett avskedsbrev till fadern:
"I hate your government, your lies, your
corruption, your religion,"
***
Det är viktigt att minnas att det fortfarande
är Ali Khamenei, Khomeinis arvtagare,
som styr Iran med hjälp av revolutions-
gardet Pasdaran. Presidenten är en
galjonsfigur för omvärlden...