|
Commentary
by U.S. Alliance for Democratic Iran
Ayatollahs’ Thug in New York
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the ayatollahs’
thug-turned-president is in New York to once
again showcase his belligerent fangs to the
world. While he was departing Tehran for New
York and in the midst of controversy about his
disgraceful invitation to Columbia University,
the state-run Mehr news agency reported that the
trial of three Iranian students jailed on
charges of acting against national security and
insulting Islam has started in Tehran.
Then yesterday the U.S. military charged that
Tehran has been smuggling Misagh-1
surface-to-air missiles and other advanced
weapons into Iraq for use against American
troops. Few days before, U.S. forces arrested a
senior commander of the notorious
terrorism-spawning Quds Force of the
Revolutionary Guard Corps, Brig. Gen. Mahmoud
Farhadi in northern Iraq. Farhadi presently
serves as the Deputy Commander and senior
intelligence officer of Quds Force's Zafar
Tactical Base overseeing the force’s entire
operations in the eastern and central Iraq.
The silver lining in having a thug like
Ahmadinejad as the mullahs’ president is that
what he says and what he does are short cuts to
the party line in the Supreme Leader Ali
Khamenei’s office and the Revolutionary Guards
Corps.
To be sure, Ahmadinejad is not in the United
States as a part of Khatami-like charm offensive
so that Tehran’s apologists on this side of
Atlantic could spin it as a sign of winds of
change blowing in Iran. Ahmadinejad is here to
deter, to intimidate, to mock and to bully his
foreign audience. More importantly, however, he
is here to create controversy and to grab
headlines in order to energize his lackluster
and rapidly shrinking power base back in Iran.
In a speech after his presidential win,
Ahmadinejad vowed to "spread the Islamic
Revolution throughout the world". "Thanks to the
blood of the martyrs, a new Islamic revolution
has arisen and, God willing, the Islamic
revolution of 2005 will cut off the roots of
injustice in the world", he said. The term
martyr of course is the ayatollahs’ euphemism
for suicide bombers. About the same time,
Al-Arabia TV reported that a group in Iran
called the Global Headquarters for the
Commemoration of Islam's Martyrs, had recruited
nearly 40,000 human "time bombs" ready to carry
out "martyrdom operations to liberate Islamic
lands."
Indeed, this group and similar outfits, which
enjoy the full backing of the IRGC's top brass,
were the brainchild of the Ahmadinejad when he
was the Mayor of Tehran and used the
municipality to give these terrorist training
centers unfettered access to capital's
resources.
It is evident from what has transpired in the
two and half years since Ahmadinejad's
presidency, Tehran is openly shedding all the
pretences, moving full speed to take advantage
of having all the key powers in the hands of the
IRGC. The clerical regime has defined its
objectives, mapped out its path and staffed its
leadership at all three branch of government
with members of the IRGC and intelligence and
security organs.
Ahmadinejad is in New York this week to showcase
the ayatollahs’ hegemony-seeking belligerent
policies on the world stage. He should enjoy his
week of traveling overseas. Upon his return to
Iran, he still has to face a restive population,
deal with an unraveling regime plagued by
factional rivalries, purges and resignations,
and an economy on demise.
Rather than focusing on the bombastic and often
diversionary statements by the ayatollahs’
president, we have to heed to the fact that
Ahmadinejad’s Achilles Heel and the real nemesis
of his regime is the people of Iran. They
possess the strategic key in ending the
ayatollahs rule of terror and tyranny and
ridding the region from the threat of a
nuclear-armed fundamentalist regime in Tehran.
Any strategy to counter Tehran is doomed to fail
as long as it does not include at its core the
people of Iran and their nearly three-decade
long resistance against the ayatollahs.
Last December, Iranian students, mirroring the
sentiments of all Iranians, burned Ahmadinejad’s
pictures while he was trying to deliver a speech
at a university campus. Calling him a "Fascist
president,” and shouting "Death to the
dictator," they booed him out of the Amir Kabir
University. On that day, fear, rather than his
trade-mark despicable thuggish smile, had
covered Ahmadinejad’s face.
The brave Iranian students have shown us how to
deal with this thug-turned-president. Alas, our
universities have turned into a staging pad for
the fascist demagogue Ahmadinejad to launch his
nefarious propaganda at the expense of tainting
the sacred principal of freedom of speech.
(USADI)
USADI
Commentary reflects the viewpoints of the US Alliance
for Democratic Iran in respect to issues and events
which directly or indirectly impact the US policy toward
Iran |