Posted on 07/07/2009 7:49:56 PM PDT by nuconvert
Tear gas was still wafting through the streets of Tehran when, at a June 23 White House press conference, The Huffington Post's Nico Pitney conveyed an Iranian's question to President Obama: "Under which conditions would you accept the election of [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad? And if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there, isn't that a betrayal of what the demonstrators there are working towards?"
Obama avoided a direct answer, saying only that the Iranian government should "recognize that there is a peaceful path that will lead to stability and legitimacy and prosperity," and expressing hope that the clerics would take it. The president's implicit acceptance of Ahmadinejad is a mistake. Obama may express concern about how the election was handled, but to Iranians, the real issue is a much broader question: the regime's very legitimacy.
In the Islamic Republic, elections are not democratic. The Guardian Council, a group of strictly traditionalist mullahs, must approve all candidates for office, and in the most recent election, it allowed less than 1 percent of would-be candidates to run. Why then hold elections? To demonstrate public support for the regime. As Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, chairman of the Guardian Council, explained two days before the vote: "The enemies have always tried to question the legitimacy of the regime by trying to reduce public participation in elections. The people must blind the eyes of the enemies by vast participation in elections."
The Iranian rulers' equation of the election with a blessing of their regime's legitimacy makes neutrality difficult. To accept the election is to endorse theocracy. Indeed, this is how young Iranians marching on the street frame the question.
(Excerpt) Read more at michaelrubin.org ...
To accept the election is to endorse theocracy.
To accept Zelaya as president is to endorse Bolivarianism.
What else will Obama choose wrong?
Why is the date up at the heading July 20, 2009?
Did I oversleep?
Pong
Did the U.S. ever file a lawsuit against IRI & its vigilantes for taking American Embassy diplomats and staff hostage for 444 days?
Do you know?
IIRC - the Justice Dept said it went against the agreement made back then. I think it was denied, but I could be wrong.
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