The leaders of Iran…
…have spouted the liberal party line in their reply to the GOP senators’ letter, according to John Hinderaker:
Again, note the liberal slant. The reference to “climate change deniers” is significant: Iran, like Russia, which finances the anti-fracking movement in the U.S., wants to shut down America’s oil production so that we will be weaker in foreign affairs, and Iran’s oil”“Iran is fourth in the world in oil production”“will be more valuable…
…Got that? “Class interests and the influence of money and lobby groups” are behind the Cotton letter! I’ve never noticed that the mullahs were Marxists, but they are willing to take up any cudgel that comes to hand. It is interesting that the mullahs believed their most effective counterattack against Republican senators was to adopt talking points that come, generally, from the American left”“in particular, from Democrats.
Ah, but the leaders of the Iranian regime that began in 1979 had made common cause with the left from the start. Then they kicked the left to the curb. The left thought it could control the mullahs and their minions, but it turned out the mullahs had the last laugh.
While the [leftist] guerrilla movement [in Iranian during the 1970s] did not lead the revolution that overthrew the Pahlavi regime, four guerrilla organizations ”” the Feda’i, the pro-Tudeh Feda’i Munsh’eb, the Islamic Mujahedin and the Marxist Mujahedin ”” are said to have “delivered the regime its coup de grace,” in the street fighting of February 9-11 1979…
Following the Iranian Revolution most of the groups were successfully suppressed by the Islamic Republic.
After Khomeini came to power, he cracked down because the left’s usefulness to him had expired:
At the same time [1980], erstwhile revolutionary allies of Khomeini ”“ the Islamist modernist guerrilla group People’s Mujahedin of Iran (or MEK) ”“ were being suppressed by Khomeini’s revolutionary organizations. Khomeini attacked the MEK as monafeqin (hypocrites) and kafer (unbelievers). Hezbollahi people attacked meeting places, bookstores, newsstands of Mujahideen and other leftists driving them underground. Universities were closed to purge them of opponents of theocratic rule as a part of the “Cultural Revolution”, and 20,000 teachers and nearly 8,000 military officers deemed too westernized were dismissed.
When leaders of the National Front called for a demonstration in June 1981 in favor of Banisadr [the leftist president of Iran], Khomeini threatened its leaders with the death penalty for apostasy “if they did not repent.” Leaders of the Freedom Movement of Iran were compelled to make and publicly broadcast apologies for supporting the Front’s appeal. Those attending the rally were menaced by Hezbollahi and Revolutionary Guards and intimidated into silence.
The MEK retaliated with a campaign of terror against the IRP. On the June 28, 1981, a bombing of the office of the IRP killed around 70 high-ranking officials, cabinet members and members of parliament, including Mohammad Beheshti, the secretary-general of the party and head of the Islamic Republic’s judicial system. The government responded with thousands of arrests and hundreds of executions. Despite these and other assassinations the hoped-for mass uprising and armed struggle against the Khomeiniists was crushed.
That was pretty much the end of the left—or at least of its overt power—in Iran. But it doesn’t mean the current leadership is the least bit reluctant to use leftist talking points in order to woo the American left into appeasing and enabling them as Obama has done.
Also because they were armed, and thereby a threat to him.
The “Left” in Iran? Really? What made them Leftist except, insofar as this piece goes, opposition to theocracy?
By extension then, the Ayatollah regime is “Rightist”.
These labels don’t make a whole lot of sense in non-Western settings, IMHO. Tyrants are tyrants.
Don Carlos:
They were the left, all right.
Before the 1979 revolution, Iran was a fairly westernized place. The leftists thought they could use the Islamists to further their cause, but it turned out to be the other way around.
I remember the 1979 revolution, and I remember thinking at the time “what on earth is the left allying itself with the theocrats for?” (I was young and foolish). However, it was quite well known at the time that the left were major players in overthrowing the Shah.
I stand corrected. Maybe a Leftist Iranian state would have been less terrible, and maybe not.
Iran, more and more not just lefties problem its more and bigger than that.Iran a lasting diesis for US and others in the region.
Iran regime left with its sins all along from 1979 till today, there were no real stand off to this regime and his tools of infiltrated in the region or around the world making a lot of troubles, keep blaming one side that not can fix Iran regime problem, let stop the blame by starting to work and get real what you should do with this Axis of Evil Regime.
What Obama did in the past very similar with those in congress who sent a letter of hypocrisy to the regime’s head who is the evil himself?
Let read how this regime and how US use or deal with this regime who become more and more a factor dominate US policy in ME.
Iran Occupies Iraq
As the U.S. leads from behind, Tehran creates a Shiite arc of power.
At the Tip of Iran’s Spear
By David Ignatius, Sunday, June 8, 2008
Myth Of The Surge
The “Left” in Iran? Really? What made them Leftist except, insofar as this piece goes, opposition to theocracy?
By extension then, the Ayatollah regime is “Rightist”.
Neo brings up the right tone and correction.