The Islamic Republic and its handpicked leaders, in or out of favor with the representative of God Ayatollah Khamenei, may claim they want to wipe Israel from the map, but they are actually implementing their racial cleansing of Iranians on a daily basis through endless public executions and destruction of national memorials such as statues, murals and ancient sites.
The regime recently ordered removal of statues of national heroes in various cities such as Ariobarzan and Arash-e Kamangir. For those who find this anti-Iranian policy by the regime in Teheran hard to believe under the assumption that the clerics after all are “Iranians” themselves, for the majority of Iranians, they are “Persian-speaking invaders”!
Sadjadpour also claims, as do countless other journalists and “intellectuals” in the West, that Mir Hossein Mousavi and mullah Mehdi Karroubi are opposition leaders working to bring democracy to Iran. Both Mousavi and Karroubi are from the Islamist regime by the Islamist regime for the Islamist regime. Neither wants the fall of a theocratic regime or the destruction of the current Sharia-based Constitution which is the primary reason Iranians have not obtained freedom and democracy. That is, they view Islam above all else. The majority of freedom-loving Iranians do not support or view these individuals as the answer to their national problems.
Sadjadpour hints at the Iranian youth wanting change, but leaves out the details of this change. The reader is left with the assumption that the youth just wants change in leadership when, in fact, it is the downfall of the Islamic regime in its entirety.
Sadjadpour, who works in a secular country, conveniently ignores the basic foundation of a democracy in promoting individuals within the Islamic Republic regime, who had a hand in, and will continue to operate based on, terrorism, corruption and oppression. Is Sadjadpour, an associate at a Western institution, unaware of the nature of an Islamic Constitution in Iran and its effect on that country’s laws, or lack thereof? Is he unaware of the relationship between secularism and democracy? Or does he assume the general public to be ignorant of such key concepts?
The real Iranian opposition consisting of nationalists is not for advancement of Islamic theories, philosophy and politics. It is for secularism, modernization and progress of a nation that was so brutally subdued 32 years ago by Islamic basijis, leftist guerrillas and short-sighted foreign powers.
If a country is being run by a religious faction, it will not progress since its people are forced to abide by a holier-than-thou minority claiming divine authority rather than common sense, reason and logic.
Leadership based on faith has led to social and economic disasters in a once prosperous Iran. The clerics now want to change the name of Iran’s currency and remove extra zeros to hide the destructive nature of an Islamic economic model.
Freedom, tolerance, equality, equity and respect for humanity do not mean different things at different places. Nor is something that is “traditional” okay and worthy of preservation and respect for the sake of tradition.
It is time for Mainstream Media to stop publishing and distributing such useless and harmful op-eds to the detriment of millions of people held hostage by a bunch of thugs using ideological backwardness and superstitions to control and abuse the majority.
As long as Iran is run by an Islamic regime and a Sharia-based Constitution, there will be no freedom or democracy in Iran, and certainly no end to religious violence in the Middle East.
A rich and important country such as Iran under “hardline” Islamists (Khamenei, Ahmadinejad, et al.), “reformed” Islamists (Khatami, Rafsanjani, Mousavi, Karroubi, et al.) or “democratic” Islamists (Mojahedin or MEK or PMOI) will continue to export its divine version of world order across the region and the Free World. The Iranian people have paid a dear price to reach that conclusion. Isn’t it time for Sadjadpours of Western think-tanks?
Sheda Vasseghi is on the Board of Azadegan Foundation, and is a regular contributor to Freepressers.com and WorldTribune.com on Iran’s affairs.