Khamenei's Speech: Invoking the West

Khamenei's speech made numerous references to the West: the US, the EU, the UK and Israel. Using this translation and the "find" function in my web browser, I'm going to try to find all the references to the US. Why? Because I want to demonstrate that Obama's policy of basic silence on this matter is the correct stance to take.

First he says, "The Zionist, American and British radio are all trying to say that there was a competition between those who support and those who didn't support the state - everyone supported the state." By "everyone" Khamenei means all the candidates. He is complaining that the Western media is saying that the dispute between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi is a dispute between those who want to preserve the state and those who want to overturn it. He's saying that that's simply untrue. Notice what he's trying to do here. He's trying to force people in the opposition to acknowledge, even if only in their hearts, that they don't want to overturn the state. He's saying, "You don't want to be like the Americans or the Zionist dogs do you? You don't want to overturn the state." It seems like such a small thing he's asking the Iranians to acknowledge, but this is actually a very important psychological move. He's trying to get people to draw lines in their own mind and say to themselves, "Well, I may protest, but I'm sure not gonna cross that line!" He's trying to keep protests from turning into a revolution. So Khamenei agrees with me that revolution is in fact in the air, and he's trying to stop it, invoking powerful images of the evil Wicked Witch of the West to do so.

Next, he says, "First, before the elections, their [US and EU] media orientation and their statements made was they wanted to cast out the hearts of the people a feeling that the election was useless to cut the turn out..." His point here is that prior to the election, Western media was trying to convince people in Iran not to bother voting, because the election was largely meaningless. He goes on to praise the huge 85% turnout on election day, praising Iran for proving the Wicked Witch of the West wrong. Then he goes on to say that when the evil West saw the results (the protests), that they saw an opportunity, and their masks came off and they revealed their true nature.

He said, "a number of heads of states and other leaders of EU and America made statements that clarified the true nature of those leaders. It was said on behalf of the US president that he was waiting for a day that people came out to streets." What he's saying here is not entirely clear to me. President Obama said no such thing, nor nothing that implied it. Yet notice how he says that someone said it on behalf of the President. See how careful Obama must be in what he says? So even though publicly Obama has said that there isn't much difference for the US between the candidates, Khamenei is trying to impute statements to him. He's trying to associate him with the opposition movement. He is a seasoned veteran deceiver and his rhetoric seems pretty powerful to me. It's easy for people who don't know better to believe this stuff. But it's even easier if there's actual sound bites and video footage of President Obama saying things in favor of one side or the other. He goes on to blame European and American "agents" on the "riots" vandalism and starting fires, etc. But a picture is worth a thousand words:

Then Khamenei gets bizarre. He said, "An American Zionist capitalist some time ago claimed that he had spent ten million dollars and created velvet revolution in Georgia. They are comparing the Islamic Republic with GEORGIA!?" Now, that's very odd, because the Velvet Revolution is the name for the "Gentle Revolution" that happened in the old Czechoslovakia in 1989. Understanding exactly what he means is probably impossible. He is, after all, a madman. But his point isn't so hard to understand. He's trying to say that the US has already admitted to being involved in a revolution involving Muslims, and he's saying that WE are saying that we'll be more than happy to do the same thing here. Our capitalist greed by which we amass wealth to ourselves will be put to use in service of buying a revolution in Iran. He's just trying to build suspicion in the hearts of the gullible. Now, at first gloss, we might say, ah, what a loon, and blow him off. It's much harder for Iranians to just blow him off, even if they think he's out to lunch. He's like the Pope in Iran. He's the Supreme Leader of the whole country. It's hard to just ignore him. And yet I think many will, because he does not cite evidence for it. He only says that someone, somewhere, once upon a time, made some claim....they are paranoid rantings of a madman, and anyone with common sense can see that.

He goes on to say that Americans have no moral high ground because we are oppressing the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, and...then there was that Waco, Tx incident: "What is the worst thing to me in all this are comments made in the name of human rights and freedom and liberty made by American officials they said that we are worried about Iranian nations WHAT? Are you serious? Do you KNOW what human rights are?! Who did that in Afghanistan? The wars and bloodshed Who is crushing Iraq under its soldier's boots? in Palestine? Who supported the Zionists? even inside America During the time of the democrats Time of Clinton 80 people were burned alive in Waco? Now you are talking about human rights?" I leave it to the reader to sort this out.

Well, my whole point is just to say that in Iran, it's kind of cool to invoke the West, especially the US. However, there is one very unusual thing about Khamenei's speech. There's one place where we would have thought he would mention the US, but he didn't.

He said, "I will tell you, diplomats of other countries in the past few days have taken away their masks and showing their true image. The most evil of them all is the British Government." Now I'm sure that when he said that, the Brits were positively choking on their crumpets and reaching for their tea to wash it down. But notice that for once it wasn't the US who was named as the most evil. I think that's significant, given the fact that Iran is literally surrounded by US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not proud of the US that we're somehow thought of not quite so badly by an evil dictator. Far from it. Nonetheless, it shows that the US is a little bit less of a "political football" as Obama called it. This is good. It means Obama is successfully avoiding fueling Khamenei's rhetoric. It's a little bit harder for him to paint the opposition as another "velvet revolution in Georgia". Stop that giggling.