The Islamic revolution in Iran was a failure and it must end.
It oppresses the people of Iran
and is a driving force behind terrorism and war throughout the region.
Time for Iran to have a democratic revolution
and replace Islamic law with
democracy, free speech, and freedom of religion.
"The so-called "Khomeini revolution", which deposed [the] Shah, was in reality
a mere return to oppressive Shi'ite theocratic rule,
the predominant form of Persian/Iranian governance since 1502."
John Chambers:
"'Reading the Holocaust Cartoons in Tehran' ...
is one of the saddest articles I have read in a long time.
...
Iran would not be the first society in which Jews were forced to keep their heads down and pray that the storm would pass, until it broke upon them.
Nor would her father be the first to live in exile, wondering what had become of the country he once treasured."
In the
Iran-Iraq War,
Ayatollah Khomeini
used
children (age 12 to 17) rolling along the ground to clear minefields.
The poor children believed the nonsense they were taught in school
about an "afterlife"
where they would supposedly live after death:
"The young men cleared the mines with their own bodies.
It was sometimes like a race. Even without the commander's orders, everyone wanted to be first."
Iranian magazine in the 1970s.
From here.
Also here
and here.
Their last 5 seconds of freedom:
Women protesting the forced Hijab in Iran days after the 1979 revolution.
Posted here. Robert Spencer:
"Who spoke up for these women? No one. Where are they now? Those who are still alive are all wearing the hijab ...
Who speaks up for such women now? No one. But who speaks up for their oppressors? Many, many people".
The medieval thug
Ayatollah Khomeini
and his followers
enslaved Iran,
established a religious state with no elections and no human rights,
executed homosexuals, apostates and atheists,
stoned to death adulterers and prostitutes,
funded Islamist terror all over the Middle East,
and
issued violent threats against westerners
like Salman Rushdie.
Iran is still enslaved by Khomeini's ignorant followers today.
Some sources
say that Ayatollah Khomeini's wife
Khadijeh Saqafi
was 10 years old
when he married her in 1930. He was 28.
Ali Khamenei,
Supreme Leader of Iran 1989 until his death.
Iran's no.1 position is Supreme Leader, which is held for life.
Iran's no.2 position is President,
which is the product of a highly restricted "election".
All candidates for President
must be pre-approved by the Guardian Council
and must support the Islamic Revolution.
Iran does not have real elections
where anyone can run.
You can only vote for conservative Islamists.
The "moderate" and "reformist"
Mohammad Khatami,
President of Iran 1997 to 2005.
Enemy leader Khatami visits America, Sept 2006:
Shamefully, this enemy thug was allowed visit the US in 2006.
He should be arrested and put in
Guantanamo Bay,
not invited to speak at American universities.
Shame on Harvard and the
National Cathedral
for inviting him.
Shame on the Bush Administration for letting him in.
New York Sun Editorial, August 31, 2006:
"Mr. Khatemi has been invited to speak on, of all things,
"Ethics of Tolerance in the Age of Violence."
The title insults the intelligence of all those who would attend.
What in the world is a man who presided over the July 9, 1999, crackdown on Tehran University,
where hundreds of students were arrested and tortured,
doing speaking about "tolerance" at a university?"
Massachusetts Governor, Republican
Mitt Romney,
orders MA state government to
decline support
to Mohammed Khatami's 2006 visit.
"State taxpayers should not be providing special treatment to an individual
who supports violent jihad and the destruction of Israel.
...
Khatami pretends to be a moderate, but he is not. My hope is that the United States will find
and work with real voices of moderation inside Iran.
But we will never make progress in the region if we deal with wolves in sheep's clothing."
Fury at Harvard.
The university rabbi says:
"This man has no place speaking at a place like Harvard.
...
It is unfortunate that some people don't have the moral compass to condemn evil."
The Iranian dissident
Amil Imani:
"During this turbaned fascist's watch, many students' lives were extinguished
for daring to express their opposition to the stone-age regime.""Women prisoners were often subjected to even greater indignities than men
by being raped before being executed"
- and Harvard feminists don't care.
The would-be Hitler, Ahmadinejad,
denies the Holocaust happened,
calls for the extermination of the Jews of Israel,
and is trying to acquire nuclear weapons.
He is already involved in killing hundreds of Jews in Israel,
and hundreds of American soldiers in Iraq.
The lying fascist thug Ahmadinejad,
Feb 2007:
"We are opposed to any proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and nuclear weapons.
We believe that the time is now over for nuke weapons. It is a time for logic, for rationality and for civilization. Instead of thinking of finding new weapons,
we are trying to find new ways to love people."
Shamefully, despite his involvement in the killing of hundreds of
brave American soldiers in Iraq,
this enemy leader was allowed visit New York in Sept 2007 and even speak at
Columbia University.
This enemy thug should be arrested and put in
Guantanamo Bay,
not invited to speak at American universities.
Columbia University invited Nazi Germany's ambassador to speak on campus in 1933."Students who criticized the Luther invitation were derided as "ill-mannered children" by the director of Columbia's Institute of Arts and Sciences."
Also in the 1930s,
Harvard hosted a visit by Hitler's foreign press spokesman,
and other US universities had many contacts and exchanges with
Jew-cleansed Nazi Germany
almost right up until the war started in 1939.
Behind Iran's 'Moderate' New Leader, Sohrab Ahmari, 16 June 2013, states the real situation:
"So this is what democracy looks like in a theocratic dictatorship. Iran's presidential campaign season kicked off last month when an unelected 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."
Rouhani's rhetoric will perhaps not be as vile as Ahmadinejad's, but
his philosophy is the same
- contempt for freedom,
support for sharia,
hatred of Israel,
and building nuclear weapons to wipe out the Jews.
Israel still has the right to strike Iran at any time
to destroy its nuclear weapons program.
He tells them the hard truth about Rouhani and Iran:
"Now, since [1979] presidents of Iran have come and gone. Some presidents were considered moderates, other hard-liners. But they've all served that same unforgiving creed, that same unforgiving regime
...
President Rohani, like the presidents who came before him, is a loyal servant of the regime. He was one of only six candidates the regime permitted to run for office.
...
Now I know Rouhani does not sound like Ahmadinejad. But when it comes to Iran's nuclear weapons program, the only difference between them is this:
Ahmadinejad was a wolf in wolf's clothing and Rouhani is a wolf in sheep's clothing
...
Iran's fanaticism is not bluster. It's real. This fanatic regime must never be allowed to arm itself with nuclear weapons.
...
Israel will never acquiesce to nuclear arms in the hands of a rogue regime that repeatedly promises to wipe us off the map. Against such a threat, Israel will have no choice but to defend itself.
I want there to be no confusion on this point: Israel will not allow Iran to get nuclear weapons. If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone."
Saturday Night Live
gay Mahmoud video
"Iran So Far"
(and lyrics),
Sept 2007.
"I remember when it started, saw you on the news.
You were hating gays, I was eating food." "My mind says no! But my body says yes!" "I know you say there's no gays in Iran ... but you're in New York now, baby!"
Iran threatens to
kidnap, rape and kill Obama's daughter if Obama attacks Syria. Threat made in Sept 2013.
Says it all about the Iranian regime.
Says it all about the morality of Islamic fundamentalism.
"Islam is Not a Religion of Pacifists
...
Islam's jihad is a struggle against idolatry, sexual deviation, plunder, repression, and cruelty.
...
But those who study jihad will understand why
Islam wants to conquer the whole world.
All the countries conquered by Islam or to be conquered in the future will be marked
for everlasting salvation. For they shall live under [God's law]."
"Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war.
Those [who say this] are witless.
Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers
just as they would kill you all! Does that mean that Muslim should sit back
until they are devoured by [the unbelievers]? Islam says: Kill the [the non-Muslims],
put them to the sword and scatter [their armies]. Does this mean sitting back until [non-Muslims]
overcome us? Islam says: Kill in the service of Allah those who may want to kill you!
Does this mean that we should surrender [to the enemy]?
Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword!
People cannot be made obedient except with the sword!"
When Is an Election Not an Election?
- Michael Ledeen, June 16, 2005,
on the Iranian "elections" of June 2005:
"It's symptomatic of the failure of strategic vision from which our chatterers and leaders currently suffer,
that so many words and so much energy are being wasted on the immense charade that goes under the name
of Iranian "elections." Any normal person familiar with the Islamic republic knows that these are not elections at all,
and for extras have nothing to do with the future of the Iranian nation.
They are a mise en scene,
an entertainment, a comic opera staged for our benefit. The purpose of the charade, pure and simple,
is to deter us from supporting the forces of democratic revolution in Iran."
Amazing how freedom-hating leftists
attacked the
heroic Iraqi election of Jan 2005
as a fake,
and yet are silent about the
Iranian "election" of June 2005.
HOPI says it aims to:
"fight against any imperialist attack on Iran and support the Iranian peoples right to defend themselves by any means necessary.
...
No to imperialist war! For the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of US/UK troops from Iraq and all the Gulf region!
No to any imperialist intervention. The immediate and unconditional end to sanctions on Iran.
No to the theocratic regime!
Opposition to Israeli expansionism and aggression."
Apart from the bit in bold, they sound like regime lackeys.
Saeed Abedini,
a Christian imprisoned for his faith by Iran.
Youcef Nadarkhani,
a Christian pastor given the death sentence by Iran for converting from Islam to Christianity.
He was repeatedly threatened with execution by Iran unless he would renounce Christianity.
He refused.
After years in jail, and international outrage, he was released,
but is still being persecuted.
He will need to emigrate or the state will one day kill him.
Sina Dehghan, sentenced to death in 2015 for "insulting the Prophet" on social media.
As if insulting that ancient warlord should be a crime.
Death and the maiden in Iran
by Alasdair Palmer
- "Amnesty International
issued a statement expressing outrage at the execution
.. but no British newspaper or television station has reported this.
Why not? The two extremes of pro- and anti-Muslim sentiment in Britain are now united
in not expecting even the most minimal ethical standards from Islamic countries such as Iran
...
What would be headline news if it happened in America
..
is, because it happens in an Islamic state, apparently too banal to count.
That attitude guarantees that more children will suffer Atefeh's fate."
Someday - when every last trace of the thug Khomeini
has been wiped clean from a free Iran
- someday in free Iran
there will be statues to martyrs like her.
The graphic novel
Persepolis
(2003)
by Marjane Satrapi
I found the book depressing.
The author is against the Islamist regime,
but when it comes to alternatives, her head is a confused jumble,
like (sadly) so many Middle Easterners.
Her family and herself follow every daft idea that has infected the non-western world.
They are pro-communist. They like Marx and Castro.
They hate Israel.
They read post-colonial writers, and they have contempt for America and Britain.
In the revolution,
they refuse to believe that their revolutionary allies the Islamists burnt
the Cinema Rex in 1978.
Unlike the wonderful
Ayaan Hirsi Ali,
Satrapi seems to have little understanding of why
western democracies are better places.
Satrapi talks rubbish about the liberation of Iraq:
"it's a universal story. The background is Iran, but this is about everybody: family, love, exile, adolescence. If America could make war in Iraq, it was because public opinion were so scared of Iraqis. They had been dehumanised. From the second you can identify with people, that's much harder."
Trailer for
The Stoning of Soraya M. (2009).
About the stoning to death in 1986 in Iran
of Soraya Manutchehri, a 35-year-old mother of seven.
Of course the last thing the Iranian regime wants is a free Shia-majority democracy next door in Iraq.
If that happened, the infection of freedom might spread to Iran.
The Iranian regime will do everything it can to stop freedom in Iraq.
Iran's Proxy War
- Iran's support for Sheik al-Sadr's
Islamofascist "resistance" in Iraq,
which wants to set up an Islamic fundamentalist state
with no human rights,
and which has no popular support.
Iran, Hezbollah support al-Sadr, April 07, 2004
- Iran understands
the threat that a free, democratic Iraq would pose
to their tyranny.
- "Iran does not want a success in Iraq.
A democratic Iraq is a death knell to the
mullahs."
To end this,
it may be necessary to confront Iran.
Iran seems to be voting itself in as
"Next"
on the list in the War on Terror.
Finish It or Forget It, April 11, 2004
- Victor Davis Hanson on al-Sadr, Iran and
the need for America to finish this.
"a baby-faced grotesque thug .. dressed up in a cleric's robes
and backed by two or three thousand gangsters has
.. pompously boasted about his promised imposition of Iranian-style theocracy upon 26 million other Iraqis.
Forget that .. Iraqis had shown not much interest in his crackpot Shiite paradise on earth. Forget that this criminal was not a holy-man at all, but a murderer who shortly after the liberation of Iraq,
had systematically put out hits on various rivals. Forget that he was a coward who was
a mouse under Saddam's fascist police, and roared as a lion only after the Americans
.. at the cost of their lives and treasure had freed him and his Chicago-style Costa Nostra. And forget that he was hardly a nationalist, but an Iranian toady who did the bidding of Teheran and wished to ruin southern Iraq in the same manner that his kindred self-appointed mullahs had wrecked Iran."
America must destroy al-Sadr's movement
and finish the war:
"There is a lesson in the saga of Sadr here that we really must relearn about this entire war.
...
there is a law and a way to war over the ages that are unfortunately immutable, given that human nature is constant across time and space: namely that peace follows only from the defeat and humiliation of the culpable, not from magnanimity granted to impotent but still proud enemies."
The defeat of al-Sadr
by
Steven Den Beste,
8 July 2004.
A few months after all the gloating headlines,
"Al-Sadr is still loose, and he still has some supporters. But he took his best shot,
failed utterly, and he won't get a second chance. He is now marginalized,
little more than a leader of a criminal gang which once again rules over a couple of slums
on the outskirts of Baghdad, a minor but tolerable pain
waiting to be eliminated when the time is right."
No, Den Beste was wrong.
Al-Sadr was allowed to survive, and so loads of people had to die again.
Misplaced Mercy
by Ralph Peters, August 10, 2004
- "When will our nation's decision-makers, Republican or Democrat, figure out
that there is no practical alternative to killing our deadly enemies?
...
This column has said it before and will doubtless say it yet again:
If we're unwilling to pay the butcher's bill up front,
we'll pay it with compound interest in the end."
Ralph Peters
is one of the few critics of the Bush administration that I actually respect.
He is on their side and he wants them to win.
That is why they should listen to his criticism and advice:
"The neocons' unwillingness to go after Sadr early on, as soon as the cleric chose violence,
was just a two-bit reprise of Bill Clinton's reluctance to kill Osama bin Laden
when he had one chance after another.
...
We should never send our military on any mission we only intend to prosecute half-heartedly."
Andrew C. McCarthy, July 11, 2009:
"of the 4,322 Americans killed in combat in Iraq since 2003, 10 percent of them (i.e., more than 400) have been murdered by a single type of weapon alone, a weapon that is supplied by Iran for the singular purpose of murdering Americans.
...
Understand: This does not mean Iran has killed only 400 Americans in Iraq. The number killed and wounded at the mullahs' direction is far higher than that - likely multiples of that - when factoring in the IRGC's other tactics, such as the mustering of Hezbollah-style Shiite terror cells."
Iran paying Taliban to kill U.S. troops.
Sept 2010 report says Iran pays the Taliban $1,000 for killing each American soldier, and $6,000 for destroying a U.S. military vehicle.
After
Iraq, people in Iran want to be next:
"We don't want any more Islamic Republic. It has taken us 25 years
to realize that the revolution came to nothing.
...
The Afghans and the
Iraqis had their dictatorships taken away. So why not us?"
And a member of the regime:
"Obviously, I'm afraid!
Who wouldn't be afraid of an America armed to the teeth and which has shown in Iraq its
total lack of respect for the sovereignty of nations? Yes, I am afraid."
- These are stirring times.
Conversation With Khomeini
(The ayatollah's grandson)
-
"He refers as a matter of course to the work of the coalition forces
in Iraq as a "liberation."
He would prefer, he says, to live in Tehran, but he cannot consider doing so until there has been "liberation" in Iran also.
...
"Talk of an Islamic state in Iraq is not very serious or very deeply rooted among the people. It is necessary for religion and politics to be separated.
...
we have had 25 years of a failed Islamic revolution in Iran, and the people do not want an Islamic regime anymore."
...
I asked him what he would like to see happen, and his reply this time was very terse and did not require any Quranic scriptural authority or explication. The best outcome, he thought, would be a very swift and immediate American invasion of Iran."
Syria and Iran next,
says Victor Davis Hanson,
interview posted January 10, 2005.
Wider War
by Ralph Peters, 9 Apr 2004
- "Iran and Syria are at war with the United States.
In Iraq. Now.
Washington refuses to admit it."
"Iran, Syria and al Qaeda share one common goal:
Preventing the emergence of a free Iraq. They want to stop
democracy and social liberty dead in their tracks.
And they're willing to throw in all their reserves to do it."
"We are fighting a great battle for human freedom. Its outcome
may well shape this entire century."
"And as for those who declared so fervently
.. that deposing Saddam and
liberating Iraq was a diversion from the War on Terror,
just look at who we're fighting now: Al Qaeda. Extremist
militias. The Iranians. And the Syrians.
The War on Terror is here and now. In Iraq."
The Islamofascists of Iran, Syria and
Saudi Arabia are at war with:
"anyone who tries to
make Iraq a free and successful country. The terror
masters know that they would not survive successful
democratic revolution on their doorsteps, because their
own people would demand their own freedom."
".. we
are engaged in a regional conflict with Iran, Syria and
Saudi Arabia. Until the regimes of those countries
surrender or are removed, we will be attacked"
"Americans must understand that the war in Iraq is in reality a regional war which unites religious
fanatics like the Iranians and radical secularists like the Syrians and Saddam's Iraqi supporters."
"The only way to end Tehran's continual sponsorship of terror is to
bring about the demise of the present Iranian regime. And as it happens,
we have an excellent
opportunity to achieve this objective, without the direct use of military power
against Iran. There is a
critical mass of pro-democracy citizens there,
who would like nothing more than to rid themselves of
their oppressors. They need help, but they neither need nor desire
to be liberated by force of arms.
Above all, they want to hear our leaders state clearly and repeatedly
- as Ronald Reagan did with the "Evil Empire"
- that regime change in Iran is the goal of
American policy."
Watersheds:
We live in a time of democratic revolution, February 14, 2005
- "Revolution often comes from the barrel of a gun, but not always. Having demonstrated our military might,
we must now employ our political artillery against the surviving terror masters.
The great political battlefield in the Middle East is, as it has been all along, Iran
...
When the murderous mullahs fall in Tehran, the terror network will splinter into its component parts,
and the jihadist doctrine will be exposed as the embodiment of failed lies and misguided messianism.
The instrument of their destruction is democratic revolution, not war"
The Road to Victory Goes Through Tehran
by Robert W. Tracinski (May 20, 2003).
- "President Bush called the military victory in Iraq "the turning of the tide"
in the War on Terrorism. That may be true, but the tide won't stay with us
- or carry us to victory
- until we are willing to take the war to Tehran and topple the most important
material and ideological supporter of Islamic terrorism."
Taking of hostages by Iran is not Britain's finest hour - Mark Steyn, April 1, 2007,
on Britain's weak response:
"Tony Blair is looking less like Margaret Thatcher and alarmingly like Jimmy Carter
...
like the Americans, the British persist in trying to resolve real crises through pseudo-institutions.
...
The U.N. will do nothing for men seized on a U.N.-sanctioned mission. The European Union will do nothing for its "European citizens." But if liberal transnationalism is a post-modern joke, it's not the only school of transnationalism out there. Iran's Islamic Revolution has been explicitly extraterritorial since the beginning:
It has created and funded murderous proxies in Hezbollah, Hamas and both Shia and Sunni factions of the Iraq "insurgency."
...
So we live today in a world of one-way sovereignty:
American, British and Iraqi forces in Iraq respect the Syrian and Iranian borders;
the Syrians and Iranians do not respect the Iraqi border."
Britain's weak response will only encourage Iran to keep pushing,
and keep killing Britons in Iraq.
How Iran Probed, Found Weakness and Won a Triumph, John Bolton, April 9, 2007:
"the incident was deliberate and strategic, not simply a frolic and detour by a zealous local commander.
Snatching the hostages, whatever waters they were in,
was a low-cost way of testing British and allied resolve.
...
By day 13, Iran already had its final answer: not much of a reaction at all.
...
That is the lesson for Iran: it probed and found weakness. Mr Ahmadi-Nejad, the president, can undertake equal or greater provocations, confident he need not fear a strong response.
...
Emboldened as Iran now is, and ironically for engagement advocates, it is even less likely there will be a negotiated solution to the nuclear weapons issue, not that there was ever much chance of one.
Iran, sensing weakness, has every incentive to ratchet up its nuclear weapons programme,
increase its support to Hamas, Hizbollah and others
and perpetrate even more serious terrorism in Iraq. The world will be a more dangerous place as a result."
Britain on its knees, Melanie Phillips, April 8, 2007
- "The British marine hostage saga is a debacle of the first order - a grim parable of the degraded state to which Britain has now descended
...
Iran has been at war with the west for almost thirty years, but we have decided to ignore it.
Iran has been a major factor behind the carnage in Iraq, but we have decided to ignore it.
The Iranians now know from this debacle that they can make trouble for the west with impunity. They can take hostages, smuggle arms into Iraq, blow up British soldiers and even go nuclear - and no-one will do a damn thing to stop it."
Melanie Phillips is right about the big picture,
but she
is too hard on the hostages.
Yes, their behaviour was grovelling and humiliating.
But they
were under imminent threat of
rape, torture or execution at any moment.
They
were at the arbitrary mercy
of a cruel and unaccountable eastern despotism
with a long history of sadism and murder
and contempt for human rights.
You cannot blame anybody for what they do under such circumstances.
Iran needs new western hostages,
so they take Iranian-American Amir Mirza Hekmati hostage, Aug 2011.
The terrorist state of Iran threatens him with a death sentence, Jan 2012.
"Three years ago, those of us in favour of destabilising the Middle East
didn't have to be far-sighted geniuses: it was a win/win proposition. As Sam Goldwyn said,
I'm sick of the old cliches, bring me some new cliches. The old cliches
- Pan-Arabism, Baathism, Islamism, Arafatism - brought us the sewer that led to September 11.
The new cliches could hardly be worse. Even if the old thug-for-life had merely been replaced
by a new thug-for-life, the latter would come to power in the wake of the cautionary tale of the former."
"But some of us - notably US deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz
- thought things would go a lot better than that. Wolfowitz was right, and so was Bush,
and the Left, who were wrong about the Berlin Wall, were wrong again,
the only difference being that this time they were joined in the dunce's corner of history
by far too many British Tories."
The Arab Street rises up
- "One repeated, crucial claim of the anti-war advocates was that US military action in Iraq
would infuriate the "Arab Street," presumably by giving radicals a recruiting tool,
and/or causing worse hatred of the U.S. among otherwise passive Arabs and Muslims.
....
In case no Leftist has noticed, as the sun sets on February 2005, there are some early and compelling signs
that
what the "Arab Street" really wants is .... democracy. Gasp !!!"
"Turns out, the critics, liberal and "realist," got the Arab street wrong. In Iraq and Lebanon,
the Arab street finally got to speak, and mirabile dictu, it speaks of freedom and dignity.
It does not bay for American blood. On the contrary, its leaders now openly point to the American example
and American intervention as having provided the opening for this first tentative venture in freedom."
"This is not to say that this spring cannot be extinguished. Of course it can.
... But it has yielded one unmistakable verdict thus far: the idea that Arabs are not fit for or inclined toward freedom
- the underlying assumption of
those who denounced, ridiculed and otherwise opposed the democracy project
- is wrong. Embarrassingly, scandalously, blessedly wrong."
The Arabian spring, Sunday Times,
March 06, 2005,
quotes
Hisham Kassem, publisher of Egypt Today:
"History will do Bush justice after he has left the White House.
With his advisers he is today the most unpopular American president ever in the Middle East.
But he is really a man who did this region good.
The Americans have done a wonderful job.
It is because of their pressure that we have had this opening in Egypt.
Criticising Mubarak was forbidden prior to the pressure they put on him."
Rats deserting the sinking ship:
If there really is
a democratic revolution starting in the Middle East,
we can expect to see leftists scrambling to pretend that they were
always in favour of it.
Just as, after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989,
there was a mad scramble by leftists to pretend that they
always opposed communism.
Success has a thousand fathers,
and, just as in 1989 leftists tried to deny
that Ronald Reagan
was responsible,
so the modern leftists will
try to pretend
that this is nothing to do
with Bush.
It doesn't matter.
What matters is that the Middle East gets its freedom.
Was Bush right after all?,
The Independent, 08 March 2005.
See cover.
- After 3 and a half years of attacking America non-stop,
and doing everything they could to prevent this day,
The Independent starts to worry that they might be on the wrong side of history.
Arabs get it!
The Arab Street understands!
- "Opinion Survey of the Arab Street 2005", by Al Arabiya, May 2005,
shows that Arabs understand that the problem is the Arab world itself, not Israel:
"What is stalling development in the Arab world?"
81 percent said "Governments are unwilling to implement change and reform."
Only 8 percent said "The ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict."
"What is the fastest way to achieve development in the Arab world?"
67 percent said "Ensuring the rule of law through justice and law enforcement."
23 percent said "Enhancing freedom of speech."
Only 10 percent said "Resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict."
Maybe, just maybe
- despite the sneers of Europe and the left -
Arabs and Iranians
are ready for democracy.
What an exciting time.
The fundamentalist Ahmadinejad
steals the election from
the "reformer" Mousavi.
A few points:
The election is not for the no.1 spot.
That belongs to
Ali Khamenei,
and he never stands for election.
It is not a real election anyway.
Only approved candidates may run.
That is, only Islamists of some sort may run.
The "reformer"
Mousavi
is an Islamist, not a western liberal democrat.
He was part of Khomeini's revolution.
He was Prime Minister of Iran from 1981 to 1989,
and Senior Adviser to Khatami's regime (1997 to 2005).
He was a founder of Hizbollah.
He was one of the architects of the oppressive
Ministry of Intelligence, modelled on the KGB,
and involved in killing Iranian dissidents and Jews overseas.
For decades he has supported Islamist terror and oppression:
"Mousavi was prime minister at the end of the Iran-Iraq war
in 1988 when tens of thousands of political prisoners were murdered
in cold blood on the orders of Ayatollah Khomeini."
And now we are to believe he is a "reformer"?
Of course, the alternative to Ahmadinejad had to be an Islamist.
Non-Islamists were not allowed stand in the election.
Mousavi is all they've got.
Having said all that, this is bigger than Mousavi.
This could spiral.
This could bring down the regime itself.
Robert Spencer, June 15, 2009:
"Is this the beginning of the end for the Islamic Republic? Maybe, but if so, there is a long way to go. This was a pro-Mousavi demonstration ... Mousavi was a founder of Hizballah and participated in the creation of Iran's intelligence service. ...
That is not to say .. that there isn't real support for a return to a more Western-oriented government and society. Obama should today be appealing to those who hold such views -- which doesn't include Mousavi -- and pledging his support to them."
Peter Wehner, June 21, 2009:
"those who during the last few years mocked the importance of elections and the power and longing for human freedom in the Middle East, who characterized the freedom agenda as simplistic, quixotic, and fated to fail, should feel a twinge of shame in light of Iran's Freedom Revolution. Whether or not this turns out to be a historical tipping point is unclear; but one senses that in the aftermath of the last week, things have changed in a profound way. And it's not over yet."
On being oppressed in Iran:
"My only desire was for Iran to be liberated by American soldiers. Just as Europe had been liberated in 1945. We were confident that the whole world was thinking of us and would come to our rescue. But the international society chose a different path".
About being free:
"Many naïve persons have told me, that I've become way too Danish. That when I talk about freedom, I pander to the Danes, and to the Danish People's Party. To those, I have only this to say: If the belief in freedom, enlightenment and equality is equivalent to being Danish, then I was Danish already before arriving in Denmark."
On freedom being just "western imperialism":
"There is no such thing as Western values. Sure, there is Western music, food, clothes, literature, culture, but the fundamental values are universal ... Freedom of women, equal rights, freedom of expression and enlightenment are universal.
The West was one of the first places on earth which has achieved to accomplish this.
This is thanks to the courageous men and women who told us five centuries ago that the earth is round, not flat. They were persecuted, tortured and burned, but they did not give up."
On his disgust at westerners who won't support freedom:
"It causes pain in my heart that here in Europe I am the constant witness of indifference and a misunderstood perception of realities. It constitutes terror to listen to intellectual opinion leaders, people who have never experienced even one day of repression, even politicians who ought to side with freedom and feel strong responsibility for democracy, that they in the name of Goodness protect Khomeini and his successors' right to perpetrate their world view."
The death of Iranian protester
Neda Soltani, June 2009.
The Iranians have to fight for their freedom. Wish them luck.
Obama failed to support the Iranian uprising in 2009, and it was crushed.
This was Obama's great chance to bring down an American enemy, and, like with the Syrian uprising in 2011,
he didn't seem to care.
It didn't fit his stupid left-wing narrative.
Hope and Change - but not for Iran by Charles Krauthammer, June 19, 2009.
"This revolution will end either as a Tiananmen ... or as a true revolution that brings down the Islamic Republic.
The latter is improbable but, for the first time in 30 years, not impossible. Imagine the repercussions. ... It would do to Islamism what the collapse of the Soviet Union did to communism -- leave it forever spent and discredited.
In the region, it would launch a second Arab spring. ... the fall of the Islamist dictatorship in Iran would have an electric and contagious effect. The exception - Iraq and Lebanon - becomes the rule. Democracy becomes the wave. Syria becomes isolated; Hezbollah and Hamas, patronless. The entire trajectory of the region is reversed.
All hangs in the balance. The Khamenei regime is deciding whether to do a Tiananmen. And what side is the Obama administration taking? None.
...
This from a president who fancies himself the restorer of America's moral standing in the world.".
Obama's Iran Abdication, 18 June 2009.
The President of France strongly supports the protesters.
But Obama hesitates.
"The Iranian rebellion ... is turning out to be that 3 a.m. phone call for Mr. Obama. As a French President shows up the American on moral clarity, Hillary Clinton's point about his inexperience and instincts in a crisis is turning out to be prescient."
Our Hope-and-Change Policy Toward Iran, Victor Davis Hanson, June 19, 2009:
"There are ample examples from the Reagan, Clinton, and Bush administrations that speaking out against tyranny abroad enhances U.S. prestige, while keeping silent does not.
...
A hope-and-change president is proving himself both weak and cynical at a critical juncture when the world's unsavory types from North Korea to Venezuela are looking keenly at, and learning from, the U.S. reaction."
Again, Why the Diffidence?, Victor Davis Hanson, June 20, 2009:
Obama has been weak and hesitant on the Iranian revolt because of the stupid ideas in his head
that he has to un-learn.
"When the people of Iran asked you to support them against the tyranny of the Shia clerics over five years ago you, the president of the most powerful country on earth, were secretly writing letters to the dictator of Iran.
In June 2009, as Khamenei ruthlessly ordered his paramilitary forces to kill people on the streets and on university campuses, imprisoning and torturing journalists, intellectuals, the young and the old mercilessly, your friendly communications with the tyrant of Iran continued in the name of the people of the United States, ignoring the human rights of the people of Iran. You helped Khamenei to continue his Islamic tyranny in the name of Allah and Islam.
...
In 2009 when the people of Iran loudly and clearly asked for your support for their freedom and sovereignty, you ignored us and empowered the tyrants to imprison, torture and kill us.
...
You claim that the only choice that you have is either to make a deal with Khamenei - which I believe means surrender - or war. I dare say this claim is a form of misinformation and intimidation of the people of America.
Mr. President .. there is another way. Please sanction and weaken the illegal regime of Khamenei, and empower the people to overthrow this tyranny."
I'm afraid he will have to wait for the American voters to come to their senses and elect a decent President.
Encouraging the enemy: President Obama, Sept 2009, says he is not interested in "victory" over Iran,
thus conveying a message of weakness to a ruthless enemy that has been for years killing American troops.
For once, YouTube's comments are great,
including someone pointing out this contrast: Obama: "This isn't a football game, so I'm not interested in victory; I'm interested in resolving the problem." Reagan: "Here's my strategy on the Cold War: we win, they lose."
"We will never forgive our parents for having done this to us with their revolution"
-
A young Iranian on his parents' generation of 1979
- who enslaved them all under Islamism.
"In Iran, we don't have homosexuals like in your country.
In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon."
- The lying fascist thug
Mahmoud Ahmadinejadlaughs about the execution of homosexuals in Iran,
Sept 2007.
"I very much resent it in the West when people from
- maybe with all the good intentions or from a progressive point of view
- keep telling me, "It's their culture."
It's like telling people
... it's like saying, the culture of Massachusetts is burning witches.
First of all, there are aspects of culture which are really reprehensible,
and we should [all] fight against it. We shouldn't accept them.
Second of all, women in Iran and in Saudi Arabia don't like to be stoned to death."
- Interview
with female Iranian writer
Azar Nafisi.
"the following eleven are unclean: first urine, second feces, third semen, fourth corpses, fifth blood, sixth dogs, seventh pigs, eighth non-Muslims, ninth wine, tenth beer, and eleventh the sweat of a camel which has consumed impure food."
- Ayatollah Khomeini
displaying the combination of malevolence and lunacy that characterises all extreme religion.
The regular sweat of a camel is ok, though.
"I feel blessed to have been chosen by the people of Beverly Hills.
As a Jewish youngster in Iran, I was a second-class citizen
and kept running into closed doors. Through my example, I hope to open doors
in America for other people like me."
- Iranian Jew,
Jimmy Jamshid Delshad,
on his election as
Mayor of Beverly Hills, California, Mar 2007.
Could anything better symbolise the hope that America offers
to oppressed peoples all over the world?
Will someday
Iranian Jews
ever have equal status in their own land?