Iran's top dissident Grand Ayatollah calls for U.S. talks

Reuters ^ | 11/06/07 | Reuters

[golfisnr1]

The fact that Israel went into Syria undetected has them scared. They have the same useless radar system.

[tarheelswamprat]

You have to remember he was under house arrest for over a decade and he is not affiliated with the government. The only reason why they have not killed him is because they are afraid of retribution.

And the only reason he is being allowed to speak-out now is so the Mullah's regime can use him as a propaganda tool to delay or forestall action against them. He may indeed be sincere, but that is irrelevant since he has no power.

This whole exercise is simply "glasnost" Mullah-style in order to buy time.

[odds]

This Ayatollah Montazari is not a dissident.

Boroujerdi is a dissident who never had anything to do with IR, and wants state and religion separated.

Montazari is a reformist and personally I have no time for people like him who are suddenly & falsely labelled as “dissidents”. Does he want a regime change in Iran or does he want a kinder version of the current theocracy? Similar to other reformists, he wants his cake and eat it too i.e. keep the Mullah regime in Iran but be nicer and more “democratic”.

[ “Montazeri said Iranian authorities were mistaken if they believed “an attack would rally Iranians to the leadership as they did during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war”. ]

I believe in the above quote. The mullahs and their immediate cohorts, in particular, will be the first to run and some will jump ship should there be an attack by the U.S.

[odds]

“And the only reason he is being allowed to speak-out now is so the Mullah’s regime can use him as a propaganda tool to delay or forestall action against them. He may indeed be sincere, but that is irrelevant since he has no power.”

You are exactly right.

[nuconvert]

“He’s only proposing this to fool the international community into thinking Iran will cooperate in diplomacy, which will sway public opinion against bombing them. It’s all an act to try and avoid being bombed”

You’re wrong about Montazeri.

Read more about him here......

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1024256/posts

[odds]

P.S. “The Reformists” are the propaganda arm/faction of the Mullah regime as opposed to the hardliners such as Ahmadinejad’s faction of IR - together they play good cop, bad cop when deemed necessary.

see post #23

[G8 Diplomat]

That was interesting...didn’t know that. Thanks.

[G8 Diplomat]

Iranians are more pro-American. They value our freedom, values and culture much more than Italians and probably most European Christian countries

I can believe that. Iranians are oppressed by Ahmanutjob and his tyrannical regime, and they don't like it and would rather have freedoms like ours in the US. Italians, however, and many western European countries, have either never known oppression (or never completely learned from it, i.e. Hitler and Mussolini, and would rather experiment w/socialism and mock the Americans instead of thanking us for saving their asses) and are often smug elitists who hate the US. My sister has a friend who is an Iranian, and also one who is Pakistani, and they're both very nice people.

[tarheelswamprat]

P.S. “The Reformists” are the propaganda arm/faction of the Mullah regime ...

Yep, that's what I meant by my "glasnost" comment. Back in the days of the USSR the Western media insisted on dishonestly defining "glasnost" as meaning "openness" and "freedom of expression". The truth is that it simply means "propaganda" in Russian. The same template is being employed in Iran.

BTW, great pictures on your profile page! Are you a photographer?

[odds]

Thanks. I like photography as a hobby, am not a professional photographer.

About “glasnost”, do you speak Russian?

[tarheelswamprat]

I don’t speak or read any Russian. During that time I just learned from knowledgeable associates how terms such as “glasnost” and “perestroika” were being disingenuously defined and used. Of course, that is standard operating procedure for totalitarian statists of all stripes, whether Marxist/socialist or Islamofascist... /grin

Gotta hit the sack, it’s after midnight here and I have to get started early later this morning. Enjoyed the discussion!

[secretagent]

Related:

“MOHAMMAD ALI ABTAHI, Former Vice President: [through interpreter] The very least expectation we had, at the height of our struggles for real reform, was not to be branded like this. Politically, it was an odd thing to do. We helped overthrow the Taliban. Instead of opening a path for even greater cooperation, they turned to this slogan, the “axis of evil.” That was Mr. Bush’s biggest strategic and political blunder.”

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/showdown/etc/script.html

According to a recent “Frontline”, the US had help from moderates in Iran in kicking out the Taliban from Afghanistan, and then made the blunder of immediately naming Iran as part of the “Axis of Evil”. This discredited the moderates in Iran and strengthened the hardliners.