The jokes among Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s detractors are legion. In one, he looks in the mirror and says, “Male lice to the right, female lice to the left.” In the West, one American tabloid rarely misses a chance to refer to him as “Evil Madman” and in the days before his re-election here he was taunted as a “monkey” and as a “midget.”
But the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who was announced winner of a second four-year term this week is no cartoon character.
Whether his 63 percent victory is truly the will of the people or the result of fraud, it demonstrated that Mr. Ahmadinejad is the shrewd and ruthless front man for a clerical, military and political elite that is more unified and emboldened than at any time since the 1979 revolution.
[url=http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2009/06/insurrection-da.php]Michael Totten[/url] among others is following reports from inside Iran. Partway down the page he relays rumors that some of the security forces in Iran speak Persian with a foreign accent or don’t speak Persian at all. As he says, it’s impossible to verify these rumors. The is a report here of parents standing outside a police station shouting, “Obama, please help us, they are killing our young children.†How can the current government help when it has disassociated itself from the removal of the dictator next door in 2003?
There have been hopes for years that the Iranians will throw off this government, but it is not clear whether they would be able to if they tried.
From the rumors one reads on facebook by people who have friends in Iran, the general belief is that the ayatollah’s used the election to cement their hold over Ahmadinejad even further. Only after he gave in, it’s believed that they allowed him to win. No one there truly believes he won the popular vote.
Tha’t all right. Soon he will have nuclear weapons. And no one, NO ONE will do anything about it.