Nope, this isn’t a crowd of liberal students protesting President Bush at Berkeley… or Harvard… or University of Colorado.
It is a crowd of democratic-minded students protesting a real tyrant, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, at Tehran University. (h/t – GatewayPundit)
An estimated 100 students staged a rare demonstration Monday against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, calling him a “dictator” and scuffling with hardline students at Tehran University.
Ahmadinejad, who was giving a speech to a select group at the university to mark the beginning of the academic year, ignored the chants of “death to the dictator” and continued with his speech on the merits of science and the pitfalls of Western-style democracy, witnesses said.
The protesters scuffled with hardline students who were chanting “thank you president” while police looked on from outside the university gates. The protesters dispersed after the car carrying Ahmadinejad left the campus.
Students were once the main power base of Iran’s reform movement but have faced intense pressure in recent years from Ahmadinejad’s hardline government, making anti-government protests rare.
But Bush is the real enemy of course, because as we all know protesting in the United States has been outlawed by our eeeeevil regime.
Meantime, those on the American Left swoon for the Iranian leader who vows to destroy our nation even though she’d be the first one beheaded under Islamic rule.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)
Makes our protesting moonbats look so hollow.
Wow, those are some REAL courageous students there Bruce –it’s a shame, but I wonder how many of them and their family will be dead before the week’s end?
Who’ve have ever thought another Iranian dictator could make the ol’ Chocolate Robed Khatami look progressive by comparison? Kind of makes me wish the Shah’s family was still in power and Carter hadn’t won in 1976.
Hopefully publicity like this kills any talk of attacking Iran because that would set the moderates back about 50 years.
I wonder who’s going to disappear first!
#3
How do you reckon that?
Some of us think that there’s a moderate Iran that will emerge when the older generation dies off. There was a huge baby boom in Iran after the 1979 revolution and those people are well educated, wear western clothes and are techno-savvy. They are going to demand real democracy (not voting from a list of people the clerics have pre-approved). If we can keep Iran contained (and bomb free) until that happens I think we will get a better resolution than if we start droppign bombs and turn that generation into America-haters.
Believe it or not (see I’m not as big a lefty as you think) that educated middle class poeple are going to demand free markets and real democracy. And it could happen there way before it happens in China so long as we don’t screw it up.
HT writes: “Some of us think that there’s a moderate Iran that will emerge when the older generation dies off.”
LOL, really HT? Wow.
Sort of like all that talk about how Iraq was one of the most educated and liberalized arab states in the Middle East and the intelligentsia would rise-up and grab the reigns of democracy once Saddam was taken out? We’re still waiting for that one, eh?
Sort of like all that talk from DOD and State in the Carter Admin and their thinktank cronies who thought the Islamic Revolution would be short-lived because a country so attuned to Western capitalistic values and materials couldn’t endure Shiaria law? Yeah, really funny that one, eh?
Moderation is not a value in Iranian political culture; never has been. It’s the politics of the middle eastern bazaar.
If you think moderation is, you have failed to learn the most important lessons of the last 25 years of history in the Middle East.
Right, moderate forces will take over when this generation dies out in Iran… LOL. God, it’s great to see SandyBerger’s influence on modern political thought right here.
HT said:
Ooops – Too late!
Matt you are a little mistaken about Iran.
For example, how many other countries in the region have dissenters who are Pro-democracy and openness?
In countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and others, the dissenters are mostly Islamic fundamentalists. In Iran, like GP says, they are young students pining for real freedoms.
That is a hopeful sign and must be fostered, not bombed.
As for your example of the Iraq middle class, if we would not have invaded so haphazardly, perhaps that ideal could have come to fruition.
Unfortunately your president failed and did not foster those people. Instead he closed his eyes, attacked and fostered the extremists.
Don’t write off the whole middle east just because of failed the republican ideal of shoot first ask questions later.
#9
Can you translate that from dumbass to English please?
TGC, sorry gil can’t… no one can.
On point, gil: democracy and moderation are not values consistent with arab and islamic sensibilities. The religion (& culture) is autocratic, totalitarian and inflexible –the power in control is absolute and infalliable. Religion takes a much greater role in control of the culture in arab states than in any Western society… yes, even including those pesky religious rightwing types you and Christiane Amanpour like to slam in America.
Of course the students advocating for greater freedoms in Iran should be encouraged… but that’s a far cry from HT’s attempt to attribute some merit or positive spin to Iran’s future generation who will rise up in protest and throw off the shackles of islamic bondage because the current crop of leaders simply die off… the great lesson of our founders and countless other societies since 1787 is that freedom and democracy need to be earned if they are to gain roots in a society.
You couldn’t be more wrong about my understanding of the Middle East, Iran or Iraq, or America’s historic import for the world.
Iran isn’t going to be any better in the next generation than they are today… in fact, power should concentrate their ferevencies… not reduce them.
I wonder how many of those brave protesters will be killed when the US invades Iran.
Are Iranians better off than they were 20 years ago?
Will they be better off five years after a war?
Paul writes: “I wonder how many of those brave protesters will be killed when the US invades Iran.”
Paul, you’re just goading people, right? You can’t be THAT stupid to think an invasion of Iran by American military forces is imminent? Try to put down the Hillary/Obama talking points and touch base with reality once in a while. Your comments will be all the better for it.