To the misguided leftist "elite" ... (By Muhammad Sahimi)

Heavens sent this for me! I was preparing to write something that listed some of the common misguided beliefs adopted by the so called "intellectuals" of the left. But Professor Muhammad Sahimi, A peace activist AND a supporter of Iran's nuclear program did it far better than I could:

He writes:

(I orange-coded the "lefties" arguments; and purple coded Ahmadinejad's reality!)

Let us then look at up some of the reasons invoked by some “leftist-progressives” to argue that Ahmadinejad actually won the election without any significant and game-changing fraud:

Ahmadinejad won because he represents the proud tradition of Iranians’ deeply-rooted nationalism, standing up for the country’s political independence from Western powers.

Sahimi debunks this notion by drawing attention to Ahmadinejad's Islamic fundamentalism and acting against national interest by his senseless barrage of belligerent rhetoric against Israel, and denying the Holocaust, that offered the United States and other powers the perfect excuse to convince the world of the (non-existent) dangers posed by Iran’s nuclear program, bringing Iran more hardships in terms of economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation.

Ahmadinejad exposed corruption among Iran’s elite.

Sahimi reminds us that NONE of his claims about corruption among the elite,are substantiated by concrete evidence, nor has his administration referred even a single case of corruption to the judiciary. If he was serious about stopping corruption, he should have acted on it!

Sahimi PLAUSIBLY notes that Ahmadinejad’s agenda is to replace one group of the elite with another, namely the commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and their allies whose companies (owned by IRGC) have won billions of dollars in contracts, in most cases without any bidding process whatsoever plus at least 63 seaports and airports that are not controlled by the government, and are used to import cheap products from China and other Asian countries, nearly bankrupting the domestic industries that produce the same products. (read the article for explicit details of Ahmadinjad's OWN corruption!)

Ahmadinejad has used Iran’s oil wealth to boost the income of the poor majority, and improve their quality of life.

Anyone believing this myth must be foolish [my words] because Ahmadinejad has had a haphazardous economic policy that has dramatically increased inflation, unemployment, the cost of food, housing and fuel. (Read the article to see how he has also veiled the economy from the scrutiny of experts!)

Mousavi’s support is mostly from the middle class.

Despite having a strong base in large urban areas, the Green Movement is not about Mousavi. It has deep roots in all sectors of the population: poor and rich, young and old, men and women, urban and rural. The vast basis of the Green movement became clear in the spontaneous massive demonstrations that hundreds of thousands of people protested in complete silence in Tehran and other cities.

Sahimi then takes a look at the sheer absurdity of the arguments of the conspiracy theory fanatics who see the hands of the CIA and other Western intelligence agencies, and Israel’s Mossad in the election and its aftermath:

The demonstrations in Iran are a repetition of the 1953 coup that overthrew Dr. Mohammad Mosaddegh, a coup that was financed and carried out by the West.

I summarize his points:

1. This is a popular movement BECAUSE unlike an average of 60% election turnout, 85% woted this time, the extra voters being the protest voters who had so far boycotted and stayed out of IRI's ceremonial elections.
2. The Iran of 2009 is vastly different from the Iran of 1953: The rate of literacy in Iran is close to 90%. Iran has 100,000 bloggers and 23 million internet users. More than 60% of its university students are female. Iran today has a strong feminist, labor and university student movement, which forms that backbone of Iran’s democratic movement. It is insulting to Iranians to claim that such an enlightened population can be easily manipulated by foreign agents.
3. The CIA and other Western intelligence agencies CANNOT have a significant presence in Iran BECAUSE there is no U.S. Having learned the lessons of 1953, [and having been in cahoots with CIA in 1979 revolution], Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence has a tight grip on all the foreign embassies in Tehran. US has no Embassy in Tehran!
4. The very fact that brutal force was used to suppress the huge demonstrations hints not only at the depth of the roots of this movement, but also its authenticity as a genuinely Iranian phenomenon. Due to what has been done to it by foreign powers over the past 200 years, is deeply suspicious of foreigners. Are all these leaders of the Green Movement Mousavi, Khatami, and Mahdi Karroubi, who have (by the power of their popular support) gained the support of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, FOREIGN agents??
5. Unlike in Ukraine and Georgia, that the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) of the United States had a significant presence in those nations, the NED does not have any partner to work with in Iran. A couple of Iranian intellectuals, such as Ramin Jahanbeglou, who had visited the NED in the United States, were quickly arrested upon returning to Iran.

Now Sahimi draws attention to some of our gullible leftist friends' defense of the rightist realities behind Ahmadinejad:

The Fatwa issued by Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi several days before the election, authorizing the use of fraud in order to “re-elect” Ahmadinejad, was fake and a propaganda ploy by the Mousavi camp, in order to prepare the people for incitement after the election.

Well well, this news was distributed by the staff of the Interior Ministry! Sahimi was the first to report about the Fatwa, which he had received by e-mail from a highly reliable source in Iran but he didn't attach author’s name because he was terrified by the possibility that his extended family in Iran may be hurt! Lack of attribution became the “reason” for the leftists to believe that the Fatwa was fake; However, other Iranian websites (all using Persian) and even Iranian newspapers in Iran reported on it, BUT no one in the conservative camp denied the Fatwa.

Sahimi then gives examples of Soviet-Style killings of the whistle blowers, blaming it for lack of attribution on many news articles that come from Iran.

Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, who is Ahmadinejad's mentor, has made statements such as this [but because we, the "leftist Iranians", have been busy fighting George Bush thus have not drawn attention to our version of Bin Ladan in Iran]:

• Those who are opposed to the Velaayat-e Faghih (guardianship of the jurist; the backbone of Iran’s political system) should get a passport and leave the country.
• People are sheep; their opinion does not matter.
• If people do not give their consent to the Islamic government that he advocates, it is permissible to obtain their consent by force.
• Islam does allow use of violence to govern an Islamic nation.
• Iran’s Supreme Leader is selected by God; the task of the ayatollah is to discover whom God has selected.
• The powers of the Supreme Leader are unlimited. He can act above and beyond what Iran’s Constitution allows him to do.

ANOTHER Leftis absurdity:

Kenneth Timmerman, a well-known Iran basher, had invoked the Fatwa heavily. In other words, just because Timmerman had used the Fatwa in his propaganda, the Fatwa could not have been true! Another absurd argument was that some of the Iranian websites that reported on the Fatwa contain advertisements for the U.S.-funded Radio Farda and Voice of America! This is beyond fiction. It is hallucination.

Sahimi also mentions the patronizing crowd, who want to decide what is good for Iran and Iranians:

Ahmadinejad is the president that Iran deserves. He is good enough for the backward Iranians.

And of course there is another crowd of so-called leftists that supports Ahmadinejad because,

Ahmadinejad has resisted the pressure by the U.S. Empire for dismantling Iran’s uranium enrichment program.

Sahimi, the author of this article is an antiwar activist, and has been writing about Iran’s nuclear program for years, and has been defending it in terms of Iran’s national rights in the framework of the relevant international agreements. (Read the article to be reminded that it was indeed Mousavi who put the Nuclear program back on track as Prime Minister, and Khatami who laid the foundation for today's achievements)

However defending Iran’s nuclear program does not necessitate supporting an illegitimate second term of Ahmadinejad, or silence about the rigged election and its aftermath.