Posted on 09/23/2007 11:29:50 PM PDT by james500
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a flinty populist in a zip-up jacket whose scathing rhetoric and defiance of Washington are often caricatured in the Western media, has transcended national and religious divides to become a folk hero across the Middle East.
The diminutive, at times inscrutable, president is a wellspring of stinging sound-bites and swagger for Muslims who complain that their leaders are too beholden to or frightened of the Bush administration. Ahmadinejad, who arrived in New York Sunday ahead of a U.N. General Assembly meeting, is an easily marketable commodity:a streetwise politician with nuclear ambitions and an open microphone.
"I like him a lot," said Mahmoud Ali, a medical student in Cairo. "He's trying to protect himself and his nation from the dangers around him. He makes me feel proud. He's a symbol of Islam. He seems the only person capable of taking a stand against Israel and the West. Unfortunately, Egypt has gotten too comfortable with Washington."
...
"He's a brave man," said Tayseer Ibrahim, an employee of the Egyptian Education Ministry, who was hurrying toward the subway the other day. "He's standing up to the U.S. He could have been intimidated after what happened to Saddam Hussein in Iraq, but he's not. The Iranian people must love him a lot. Hopefully, our Arab leaders will see that you can defy the West and nothing will happen to you."
Munther Farrah, who sells nuts and chocolates in Amman, the Jordanian capital, said he and other Sunnis are troubled by Iran's Shiite theocracy. "But Ahmadinejad is still liked," he said. "We are with him as long as he's against Israel and the U.S."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Let him enjoy it while it lasts. I expect he’ll be gone from this earthly realm within the year.
Heh. Stick around. Let's find out.
Okay, they probably would have.
Last time I checked he was at the wrong end of a noose courtesy of Uncle Sam.
This little SOB is going to wish he was that lucky.
The same can be said about Jesse Jackson, “protecting” “African, ex-American slaves” from “the man”. Meanwhile those “black Americans” who have adopted American values have prospered.
Hilarious. In the first sentence he points to a defiant Saddam's death at the hands of the U.S. and in the very next sentence claims that defiance aganst the West goes unpunished, as proved by Ahmadinejad still breathing. Islamologic for ya.
The title seems wacky. Ahmadinejad is Persian, not Arab ... and the article states several times that he is a hero to Muslims, not Arabs.
“Ahmadinejad a hero for Arabs”
How about:
“Ahmadinejad a hero for Academic Liberals.”
Yeah right. He may as well be the hidden Imam. Bush is bending over backwards to kiss his @ass, and the RATS and their leftist lunatic followers are throwing down rose petals for him to walk on.
He's already proved that "the great Satan" is powerless against him and he can walk freely in the great Satan's lair without fear.
Now we will have Jihadists running like mad trying to get into Mohammad's heavenly whore house in numbers we never thought possible.
Arabs are mostly Sunni and they hate the guy.
Will someone please tell the LAtimes that all Mid-easterners are not alike.
Moomound Amadjihadist is an Arab.
Anyone who follows Islam is called a Muslim, regardless of race; Persian, Arab, Semite, African, Turk or otherwise. "muslim" is not a race.
Iranians used to be "Persians", true, but Islam destroyed their culture centuries ago, and through the Mohammad example of slavery and large amounts of female sex slaves, bred the Persian out of them.
The Persian "sun god" culture is long gone.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a criminal and should be indicted for his envolvement in the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
Absolutely. Anyone who mocks the USA, it's freedom and the constitution which grants it is a hero for Liberals/ Marxist/ communist/ triators
Oh, don't worry, they will, and then we'll really be in trouble.
I know what newspaper / Internet headline I would like to read in the morning....
Ask the Isrealis the same thing lets see what they will do in the course of a year’s time.
These folks are idiots. President Nutjob is Persian, not Arab. The latter cannot stand the former.
That’s because Islam isn’t a religion - it’s an Arab superiority cult aimed at violent overthrow of all other societies and governments and their subjection to Arab rule through a law that is cloaked in religious language and regulates every aspect of human behavior. And, of course, prevents the slaves from rebelling against their Arab masters.
Well, they seem to be doing a pretty good job of swallowing their disgust...
The article appears to be using “Arab” as a generic term for Middle Easterners. Of course, Mad Mo’s first conquests were his non-Arab neighbors, such as the Persians and the Babylonians, and the latter groups certainly internalized their identification with the “Arab” nationalism and supremacy cult that is Islam.
However, one of the reasons for inter-Muslim conflicts is that the Arabs (particularly our friends the Saudis) are really the top dogs in the Muslim world and have to keep asserting it. Being a descendant of the family of Mohammed gives them special brownie points, but even those who are not related to Mad Mo are better than other Muslims simply by the virtue of the fact of being Arab. Arab Muslims have frequently “reconquered” non Arab Muslims when they felt the latter were growing too lax (not Arab-identified enough!) or too uppity. And of course the Arabs despise African Muslims, as we can see in the Sudan and elsewhere.
Arabs at the time of Mohammed were a backward, semi-nomadic group of tribes that survived by a combination of herding, small trade, and banditry. The Persians and other groups, of course, had legal systems, stable societies, creativity, productive economies, and art, architecture and science. The Arabs overran them, taking advantage of the power vacuum after the fall of the Roman Empire, and initially stole what these societies had. But because Islam is a dead hand, the Arabs crushed the life out of these societies and were not themselves capable of using what they had stolen.
So the relationship between the different Muslim groups is always a bit touchy. But Arabs are always on top in Islam, and the other groups obviously identify with them, regardless of their historical differences, simply because the Arabs are the founders and leaders of Islam.
Well he certaily has the LA times under his magical spell
The LA Times is not a credible news source.
True, but there are serious rifts between Sunni and Shia.
Even though they hate each other more then they hate non-Muslims, they combine hate non-Muslims.
Agreed, it seems to me that the only thing that unites them is their shared hatred of Jews/Christians/the West. But right now, despite the shared hate, they’re still fractured - currently the Sunni majority sees Shia Iran as a threat rather than an ally, for example (plus they like western income in the form of foreign aid and oil revenue).
Enter the mythical figure called mahdi - I think that one of the main reasons that Ahmadinejad talks about him so much is because he knows he’ll unite Islam, and by itself, a nuclear Iran IS more of a threat to the mideast than anything else.
al Qaeda has acted as a unifying force in recent months. The Wahhabi based al Qaeda is virulently Sunni but Zawahiri has been astute enough to try and halt the Shia/Sunni rivalry and get all Muslims to pull together to defeat the West. His letters to Zarqawi trying to get him to stop killing Shia in Iraq was evidence of that fact.
If they are successful, the eventual Shia/Sunni donnybrook will be something to behold....if we are still around.
That’s because he looks like a goat..
It sure will be, downright frightening, especially considering how we are largely clueless in this country to the threat of Islam.
..if we are still around.
What do you mean by that?
All the more reason to apply the .50 caliber solution to the little Hitler wanna be, before he is a bit more than a wanna be.
All the more reason to apply the .50 caliber solution to the little Hitler wanna be, before he is a bit more than a wanna be.
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