Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Illegitimate!

At a time when the Iranian people's wishes have been stifled by an increasingly hard-line regime which has unleashed a storm of brutal recrimination on the masses anxious to protest their disbelief at the underhanded machinations of their Supreme Ruler, Ayatollah Khamenei to ensure that his chosen candidate for president be re-elected, the world looks on, detached, unmoved by their plight.

Above all, the United States, which has always considered itself a great moral force for good in the world, and which has, to that effect, moved heaven and earth to impose its values on other countries, suddenly sits back, slack and disinterested.

Interested, however, in overlooking all manner of overt and covert plans which would have the effect of disrupting world peace, for its stated new goal of conducting meaningful dialogue with a fanatical theistic government that has no interest in discussing its internal affairs with anyone, let alone the president of the country whom the ayatollahs most despise, as the Great Satan.

One might think that President Barack Obama might entertain second thoughts about continuing to extend his open hand to Iran. But no. In his eagerness to appear as a partner for peace and reconciliation with Russia, President Obama stands prepared to continue to outstretch his open hand to Iran.

Russia, after all, which has gone out of its way to aid and assist Iran, with nuclear expertise, extending credit for nuclear installations, and refusing, along with China, to denounce the country's bellicose warnings against Israel and the United Nations in defiance of condemnations over its unauthorized nuclear program, has a vested interest here.

Whereas the United States had formerly identified Iran's nuclear ambitions for what they truly represent, now while still admitting that to be clear, it plans to talk reason with an unreasoning theocracy claiming that the Almighty has given it clear passage to nuclear ascendancy, to match its aspiration to achieve political ascendancy in the region it inhabits.

At a time when Iran's Assembly of Qum Seminary Scholars have mounted a direct challenge to the legality and morality of Ayatollah Ali Khameni's actions, the U.S. stands mute.

Iran's elite religious scholars have chosen to publicly defy Iran's leaders, labelling President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election "illegitimate". Yet President Obama, along with President Medvedev, stand prepared to give their support to the legitimacy of that election, denounced by the Iranian public, and now further losing credibility with the voice of the country's leading ayatollahs.

"The voice of people seeking justice was marred by violence, which unfortunately left several dead and wounded and hundreds arrested. How can one accept the legitimacy of the election just because the Guardians Council says so?" This joint statement from Iran's religious scholars (with the added voice of Iranian Ayatollah Sistani, now in Iraq, for good measure) registers their supreme disaffection for the current regime.

The Republic Guards' Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari claims it is his troops' intention to lead a "revival of the revolution and clarification of the value positions of the establishment at home and abroad", so clearly the Supreme Leader has given instruction to the military to silence his government's critics. Is he prepared to take on the Assembly of Qum Seminary Scholars?

It might appear that Presidents Obama and Medvedev have not exercised their due diligence in studying intelligence reports. They're backing the wrong horse on this one. Whether it will make much difference in the long haul is another story.

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