Standing Up to Ahmadinejad
Brave dissident Iranians were the stars of Monday's rally instead of U.S. politicians. (Also, Phyllis Chesler on Why the Rally Didn't Roar and Dear Mahmoud by Michael Ledeen)
The unbelievably stunning Nazanin Afshin-Jan, a former Miss World Canada, who really has used her mantle to promulgate world peace, recommend moral and diplomatic pressure, rather than military action, as the saner means of stopping the ayatollahs from becoming atomic. Surely Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik, also present on stage, felt otherwise. It was that kind of rally.
Still, street theater has its drawbacks. I’m not sure whose idea it was to invite the post-pubescent Hebrew folk band to warm up the crowd, but given the serious business at hand, live music lent the affair a kitsch quality that old hands of the anti-Communist struggle – or reader of Milan Kundera – will have recognized at once. But don’t take my historical equivalence for it. Natan Sharansky, refusenik par excellence, and one of the headlining speakers, knew what he was doing when he spoke of the new “evil empire” that had to be stopped before it was too late. (The term empire, at least, no one can legitimately quibble over: Ahmadinejad invokes it longingly, always preceded by the term Islamic.) Elie Wiesel asked what books the Iranian president has read, offering a plural noun in lieu of the more obvious singular. But the Nobel laureate was more assertive in calling the squinty-eyed one, a former interrogator and executioner in the notorious Evin prison, a follower in Hitler’s footsteps, “an arch-criminal” who “one day will be apprehended.”
The most interesting and instructive conversation I had was with a friendly Iranian-American called Ali Miahamdost. He is a representative of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, an outspoken opposition group with a global contingent and the ears of several sympathetic U.S. Congressmen. (Ali was the one holding the chilling photo series I mentioned earlier.)
He came to America in 1978, earned a graduate degree in urban planning, returned home after the revolution to make sure the Shah was good and gone, and then came back. Now he spends the bulk of his time trying to get our government to do one simple thing: remove his organization from our terrorist watch list.
What’s it doing on there?
The Clinton administration added it in the 90’s as a “goodwill gesture” to appease President Khatami, who implied he’d be willing to drop some of the Great Satan bluster if Washington would help him scandalize and demoralize the true democrats within his country. Yes, well, we’re well acquainted with the prices and vices of realist foreign policy, and it’s safe to say that this lame quid pro quo strategy is hostage to the pre-9/11 mindset. Those who think every politically conscious exile from the Middle East is another Ahmed Chalabi in waiting would do well to talk to Ali and his comrades.
They’ve been clamoring for our attention for years.
<- Prev Page 2 of 2
Michael Weiss is a senior editor of Tablet Magazine and a culture blogger for The New Criterion. He also writes occasionally for Slate, The Weekly Standard, City Journal, The New York Daily News and Standpoint.
 |
 |
 |
Podcasts |  PJM Home |
Pajamas Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:
1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.
2. Stay on topic.
3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.
5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.
The clause regarding "hate speech" has been deleted because readers criticized it as being too loosely defined. We agreed.
These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that Pajamas Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pajamasmedia.com.
6 Comments
1. SAF:Another meaningless rally. Sanctions have been a failure, appeasement has been a failure. If I were Ahmadinejad I would look at the event and mark it as another success for my position. If there was ever a signal that the world and especially the US is not unified on what to do about Iran this is it.
Sep 23, 2008 - 3:22 am 2. Lawrence Kohn:The pursuit of Khatami was a wasted enterprise. As Minister of Cultural Guidance he organized a meeting in 1984 that established a strike force under Revolutionary Guard aegis to supplement the existing terrorists inn Lebanon. As President he spoke exactly a decade ago at the UN condemning “racism and Zionism”. (see Hydra of Carnage Uri Ra’anan editor and my article in April 1999 Midstream The “New” Russia and Iranian “Moderates). Sharansky’s presence at the rally is not only a reminder of the rallies for Soviet Jewry but also Russia’s key role in Iran’s ambition. For in addition to KGB help in the 79 revolution the Mullahs have been actively supported by every Russian regime: Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Putin without interruption and Russia has served to block efforts to thwart Iran in the UN while supplying missile technology, a nuclear reactor, parts of the East German navy and major conventional weaponry. We face not only a jihadist empire in the making but the Cold War Russian superpower revived supported by three new nuclear ICBMs: a land based under Yeltsin and a mobile land and a sea based missile under Putin. A nuclear Iran would not threaten its Russian patron but would geometrically tip the balance against the U.S. Israel and western democracies.
Sep 23, 2008 - 4:52 am 3. David Thomson:“Black hats and yarmulkes abounded, but I was pleased to see that tribalism was nowhere on the agenda.”
Nonsense. “Tribalism” was on full display because the organizers caved in to the Democratic Party establishment. They truly disgraced themselves and weakened the impact of the protest. At the end of the day, they essentially proved their willingness to abandon the cause just to suck up to the radical Democrats.
Sep 23, 2008 - 5:46 am 4. Rotten Gods:As long as world community and specially the US policy makers are not united on Iran’s issue, we will see rise of “former interrogators and executioners from the notorious Evin prison” to run iran and aggressivly bash history, people and countries that they don’t favor.
Sep 23, 2008 - 7:05 am 5. Rotten Gods:by thw way check this one out:
Israel attack map produced by Iran
Sep 23, 2008 - 9:00 am 6. Donnie Mac Leod:http://www.rottengods.com/2008/09/following-map-was-produced-in-iran-and.html
Dag Hammarskjöld: One of the Greatest Secretary Generals, the United Nations ever had as it’s lead. A very wise man for sure and he certainly gave us a reason to protest such hate mongering liars & mad men as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad .
Dag stated many years ago:::
“The mad man shouted in the market place,
no one stopped to answer him. Thus, it was confirmed
that his thesis was incontrovertible.”
-Dag Hammarshkjold
Secretary General of the United Nations
And a very wise Canadian also addressed the way to handle such madmen.
Roy McMurtry :::
“It is important to answer the mad man.
It is important because, left unanswered,
his lies and his malice can poison the climate.
They can do worse. They can make other men mad. Left
unanswered for long enough, they can nourish everything in
men and women that is hateful and destructive and murderous.
Our end is to ensure that every time the madman
shouts in the market place, he is answered.”
-Roy McMurtry, Attorney General of Ontario
Sep 24, 2008 - 4:30 pm