Iran blames Morsi's US stance for crisis

Asia Times ^ | 07/08/2013 | Golnaz Esfandiari

[TexGrill]

"Islamic Awakening" was the Iranian establishment's term of choice for the popular uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa that began in late 2010. Tehran described the unrest as a sign of the defeat of US influence and of people's desire to embrace Islam. Now, the crisis in Egypt has posed a fresh challenge for Iran, sending it scrambling to explain how Egypt's "Islamic Awakening" went wrong.

Tehran has so far said little about the crisis, with the Foreign Ministry calling simply for the Egyptian people's "legitimate demands" to be fulfilled and warning of "foreign and enemy opportunism".

Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has not yet publicly reactedto president Mohamed Morsi's ouster. But a likely sign of the Iranian establishment's wariness came during Friday Prayers on July 5. Hard-line clerics throughout the country, who are said to receive their talking points from the supreme leader's office, suggested that Morsi's alleged pro-US and pro-Israeli stances were to blame for his deposition.

In his sermons at Tehran's Friday Prayers, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami said, "Instead of inviting the Islamic world to unite, [Morsi's government] supported the murdering infidels. On the political front they dealt with the Zionist regime in a way that was against their previous principles".

"They confirmed the Camp David Accords and spread fear of Iran and Shi 'ite Islam," Khatami said, referring to the agreements that paved the way for a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel in 1979. He said Iran hopes the people who supported Egypt's "Islamic Awakening" will not allow the country to return to being Israel's "backyard".

[TexGrill]

Morsi is learning the hard facts that Barry's Rainbow Wariors are not and never will be 'battle ready.'

[Berlin_Freeper]

A barbarian needs to be barbaric. Anything less is untenable.

[TangoLimaSierra]

[SunkenCiv]

Just shows what putas head the mullahacracy — Syria’s Assad already pointed and laughed about Morsi’s downfall. Now Iran has to say something like this to hide the divisions between themselves and Assad’s dictatorship, while they continue to carry out atrocities against Syrian Christians — something that is part and parcel of longstanding Iranian policy — to blame on the Syrian opposition.