The bitter fruit of theocratic illusion

When the ringmaster of the circus comes out saying a ballot is valid and the opposition should stop protesting, your gut usually reminds you it's rubbish. Over the past week I've heard from many whose knowledge of Iran and regional affairs far exceeds mine, and it's clear that the ballot is stolen and the ayatollahs have dropped their mask and merely made explicit what has been the truth all along: there's no such thing as a theocratic democracy.

My hopes rest on the demonstrators and the combination of courage and resolve I stereotypically associate with anyone Persian. They put the fundamentalists in power in the first place, it's their duty to throw them into the dustbin of history. No foreign power should do it on their behalf, as we've so catastrophically tried and bungled in Iraq.

The buzzword I heard most in the first days after the election was stolen was "shock". The shock horror of being denied the freedom to choose your country's number 2 and denied the regime-approved President you actually wanted. Yet with the political system Iran gave itself, this was simply waiting to happen. From an ignorant's viewpoint, a key lesson of people power was tragically left at the scene of the 1979 Revolution: if you trust yourself to discern right and wrong, you should never yield that power to anyone, let alone an unelected mullah. If you do, expect to be trampled.

Today, Iran is at a crossroads (duh!). Whatever direction it takes, the world in its entirety won't be the same again. With the myth of theocracy-democracy coexisting demolished, mainstream political Islam will look for another model order. What this order shapes up to be will determine the course of the next five decades. If it veers to Mosque-State dialectic rather than fusion the paradigm shift will be comparable to Reformation.

In the meantime, we will have to sit and wait for the turmoil to conclude.

What game is Iran playing?

After Roxana Saberi was found guilty of espionage by an Iranian court, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad himself calls for a fair appeal hearing, allowing Saberi to mount a full defence. Something is fishy.

If the Iranian President wanted a truly fair trial of the reporter, he would have invoked fairness right from the beginning of proceedings. An Obama administration would be incapable of reacting strongly to her sentencing, and Iran could have continued on its path of oppression and international disgrace. Why this politically unwarranted sudden turn?

Bloomberg suggests Iran may wish to reverse Saberi's conviction on appeal "to show magnanimity". Call it what you may, it isn't justice. True justice and fairness are independent of political expediency, and if Saberi is innocent she should be free now, not later on a whim of politically motivated magnanimity and a smoke screen of false and una tantum fairness.

This call for fairness smells of machination. Her appeal will probably be fair, she may well be freed and have the charged against her overturned. The outcome will be disastrous for the US either way though. A seemingly fair trial orchestrated to return a guilty verdict will discredit Obama's allegation of the original charges being baseless. An aquittal will instead lend Ahmadinejad credibility in the eyes of many Ayatollah apologists in the West.

I do hope the appeal is successful, but the price to pay will be steep. Ahmadinejad will expect quid pro quo, and the upcoming nuclear negotiations will provide the excellent opportunity for the godfather to clain the return of a favor. I can bet five bucks the appeal hearings will be scheduled during or right after the nuclear negotiations, and Saberi will be used to put pressure on the US envoys.

The only way for the US not to be indebted is to reject this opening as vehemently as they can, and I don't have the guts to advocate such a course of action.

Iran pledges to bankroll murder

Iranian leaders are reassuring Hamas that it will continue receiving weapons and funds even if Syria strikes a deal with Israel, provided the masked thugs in Gaza do not negotiate with either Israel or the Palestinian Authority.

The article proceeds to examine reactions to Israeli-Syrian negotiations in Teheran, which are generally negative. The flow of weapons to the armed Palestinian faction are set to lose a key transit port, and the ayatollahs are upset.

Unlike the PA, Hamas is an international pariah. The funds ready to be poured into the PA's coffers outnumber Teheran's at least 10:1. What it does show, however, is that Syria isn't as stupid or as butcherous as many portray it to be. Maybe the latest round of talks won't yield much, but it certainly sends a cold shiver down the spines of the Jewish State's avowed enemies.

If there ever wasn't a sufficient case to rally our support behind Israel, now there is a compelling one. Iran's assasin rhetoric isn't just words: they systematically subsidize rockets that kill innocent Israelis. If, God Forbid, appeaser Obama entered the White House he'd better be ready to take the O'Bomba nickname if the time came to defend our only staunch ally in the Middle East.