Ayatollah Khamenei's Obsession With "The Enemy"
NEW YORK, October 16, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --
Behrooz Behbudi, Founder of the Centre for a Democratic Iran, Comments:
Just a day before the most crucial round of Iran's diplomatic talks with world powers on achieving a solution to the impasse of its nuclear program, Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei has found time again to bash the Western countries involved in the talks by accusing them of instigating a rift among Muslims by "creating the ISIS in Iraq and Syria."
"The evil Britain has created the ISIS and al Qaeda to confront the Islamic republic of Iran and the Islamic awakening across the world," Khamenei claimed in a speech on Monday.
"America, Zionism, and especially the veteran expert of spreading divisions - the wicked government of Britain - have sharply increased their efforts of creating divisions between the Sunnis and Shia," he said.
The speech, marking the Shia Muslim religious holiday of Eid Al Ghadir, was posted on his website, where he has also published video footage showing his recovery from a recent prostate surgery. The Centre for a Democratic Iran, a non-profit organisation whose mission is to promote and pursue an independent, peaceful and democratic Iran, followed these events with great interest. CDI Founder, Behrooz Behbudi, offered his thoughts:
"In parallel with every foreign and domestic policy that the self-declared moderate administration of Hassan Rouhani has been taking to get Iran out of the socio-economic calamities that the eight years of Ahmadinejad rule has created, one can clearly see a deliberate hardline policy by Khamenei to derail a return by Iran and the Iranians to peace and prosperity, however minimal given Rouhani's allegiance to the regime.
However, Khamenei's "radicalism" and ranting against Western powers is in fact a façade that is aimed at concealing his political and leadership weaknesses, as well as demonstrating his paranoia about the roots of the problems among the Muslims of the Middle East.
In raging against the US and Britain in his speech Khamenei is deliberately acting as a political player to distance himself from the behind the scene deals that his regime officials are making with world powers, with the help of the Russians as their mediators.
Islamic State is undoubtedly a threat to the peace and security of the Middle Eastern nations as well as the West, as we have watched their barbaric acts with horror on our TV screens.
However, by claiming that "the ISIS has been set up to confront the Islamic republic," Khamenei - who incidentally refers to himself as the Caliph of Shia Muslims - wants us to forget that a similar type of extremist ideology in the name of Islam has for long actually been practiced by the very regime that he leads in Iran.
Furthermore, it is a well-known fact among Iran's political forces that Khamenei owes his leadership status more to behind the scene power broking tactics by former president Rafsanjani than anything else, as his credentials as a cleric have never been accepted by Iran's religious establishment, a complex that he has long concealed by advocating his bankrupted "political Islam".
Since ascending to power and turning into an absolute religious leader and skilled political player, Khamenei has managed to dominate the political scene of Iran by empowering the Revolutionary Guard, the Basij militias and the security and intelligence organs of the regime around his "anti-American-Israeli" paranoia.
In reality, as world powers begin a new round of negotiations with the Islamic republic over the nuclear issue, they are effectively trying to reach a deal with another fundamentalist "Islamic State" that is ruling Iran with Khamenei at its Caliph in the name of the medieval system of Velayat-e Faqhi, or the Islamic government.
The irony remains however that Western powers are at the same time mulling over whether to involve the military forces of this dictatorship in Iran to help them overthrow the barbarism of the ISIS in its neighboring country in an act of appeasement to Khamenei and his associates in the Revolutionary Guard.
You cannot ask one dictator to join your forces to fight against another dictator in defence of freedom and humanity.
Contact: Dr. Behrooz Behbudi, Founder of the Centre for a Democratic Iran, [email protected]
SOURCE www.bbehbudi.net
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