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IRAN'S NEW PURGE - Slapping the 'Moderates'
NYPost ^ | January 26, 2008 | Amir Taheri

Posted on 01/27/2008 6:09:07 AM PST by nuconvert

IRAN'S NEW PURGE - Slapping the 'Moderates'

January 26, 2008 -- OPPONENTS of taking a tough line on Iran have always claimed that imposing sanctions (not to mention threatening military action) would strengthen the Islamic Republic's most radical elements.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice looks to have bought that argument. Last week, she agreed to water down the new sanctions that her advisers had devised against the Islamic Republic.

-excerpt-

Events inside Iran, however, provide a different picture. The Council of the Guardians of the Constitution, a 12-man committee of mullahs and their legal advisers, this week rejected applications from nearly 4,000 men and women to run in the March 14 general election. Nearly all the denied applicants belong to the 21 groups designated by Western observers as "reformist" opponents of the ultra-radical President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

-excerpt-

To be sure, the so-called reformists have never proposed any reform program as such. Rafsanjani spent most of his eight years as president building his business empire; Khatami spent his tenure traveling the world and building his image as an amateur philosopher working for "a dialogue of civilizations."

More regime opponents were killed or thrown into prison under Rafsanjani and Khatami than under Ahmadinejad. And both "reformers" tried to export the Khomeinist revolution via agents and clients in many Muslim countries, especially in the Middle East.

-excerpt-

What differentiated the two men from Ahmadinejad was their penchant for taqiyeh (dissimulation) - an old trick of the mullahs who have turned speaking with a forked tongue into fine art.

Ahmadinejad, by contrast, shuns taqiyeh. What is on his tongue comes from his heart. He firmly believes that his brand of Islam stands on the threshold of victory against a corrupt, weak, fat and cowardly West led by a deeply divided United States

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: ahmadinejad; amirtaheri; iran; majlis; reformers; regime; rice; sanctions; taheri

1 posted on 01/27/2008 6:09:10 AM PST by nuconvert
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To: nuconvert
The Council of the Guardians of the Constitution, a 12-man committee of mullahs and their legal advisers, this week rejected applications from nearly 4,000 men and women to run in the March 14 general election.

The hilarious part is that they even have elections, which are a purely Western Civ invention with absolutely no precedent in Islamic history.

2 posted on 01/27/2008 6:24:47 AM PST by Sherman Logan
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To: freedom44; AdmSmith; sionnsar; odds; Army Air Corps; GOPJ

pong


3 posted on 01/27/2008 7:23:40 AM PST by nuconvert ("Terrorism is not the enemy. It is a means to the ends of militant Islamism." MZJ)
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To: nuconvert
OPPONENTS of taking a tough line on Iran have always claimed that imposing sanctions (not to mention threatening military action) would strengthen the Islamic Republic's most radical elements.

During the Cold War the "intellectuals," MSM pukes, and internationalist "free traders" urged that we pour FDI and technology into the U.S.S.R to "help the moderates lest we play into the hands of the hardliners, cause a war, and it would be our fault."

The author reacts like Americans did back then and sees through that self-serving silliness.

A great article! The author is a real journalists not just an employee of a news organization.

Javier Solana of "bomb, bomb, bomb the Serbs; help, help, help the radical Muslims" fame, I believe. Hellary, Half-bright, and BJ's co-conspirator.

More regime opponents were killed or thrown into prison under Rafsanjani and Khatami than under Ahmadinejad.

As I recall, Rafsanjani ordered terrorist attacks and was in fact charged by the German police.

4 posted on 01/27/2008 7:41:39 AM PST by WilliamofCarmichael (If modern America's Man on Horseback is out there, Get on the damn horse already!)
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To: Sherman Logan

Khomeini was a strange animal


5 posted on 01/27/2008 7:46:11 AM PST by nuconvert ("Terrorism is not the enemy. It is a means to the ends of militant Islamism." MZJ)
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To: WilliamofCarmichael
The idea of 'reformers' in gov't in Iran is a joke. At best, it is 'regime lite'. Most are not even that. It's a label sold to the West, and one that most in the West accept as being somehow legitimate.

They ALL have to go !

6 posted on 01/27/2008 7:59:55 AM PST by nuconvert (There are bad people in the pistachio business.)
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