We love to demonize Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, mostly because he’s a truly reprehensible Jew-hater. But sometimes the liberal media likes to point out that Ahmadinejad doesn’t really have the power in Iran, and he’s not speaking for the Mullahs.
Well, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei does speak for Iran. See if you can find anything in his words that may remind you of Ahmadinejad’s.
“Another big mistake is to say that the only way to save the Palestinian nation is by negotiations,” Khamenei said.
“Negotiations with whom? With an occupying and bullying regime, who does not believe in any other principle other than force? … Or negotiations with America and Britain who committed the biggest sin in creating and supporting this cancerous tumor … ?” he added.
Sound familiar?
In a blistering speech before the United Nations General Assembly, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blamed “a few bullying powers” for creating the world’s problems and said the “American empire in the world is reaching the end of its road.”
And then there’s this:
Khamenei also said the Holocaust, in which six million Jews died at the hands of the Nazis, was used to “usurp” Palestinian land and said the West and Israel showed the weakness of their cause by not allowing anyone to question the Holocaust.
Sound familiar?
“The Holocaust was fabricated by the West in order to reach its goals,†state television quoted him as saying.
When people (yes, we mean you, Juan Cole) say Ahmadinejad isn’t the true power in Iran, they’re right. But he is doing—and saying—exactly what the true power wants him to.
AP Addendum: As usual, the AP whitewashes the Iranian Jew-hatred. The very last paragraph of the AP story on the above:
Iran does not recognize Israel and has called for its destruction. Khamenei called Israel a “cancerous tumor” Wednesday that is on the verge of collapse.
The last paragraph is the one most frequently cut when newspapers need space. That fact, and the placement of the quote, speak volumes about AP’s editorial policy.