Iran and the fantasies of the western media

Rohani spells trouble for Israel

ISRAEL, June 22 ― If you ask any Average Joe, “Who poses more of a threat to Israel and the rest of the Western world? A radical extremist, or a moderate centrist?” ten times out of ten the answer will be, “radical extremist.” Most people would consider that an inane question.

Joe may be correct in the security sense, but  the election of Hassan Rohani as the new President of Iran makes it appear that “moderate centrists” may pose just as terrible a threat to Israel, if not more so, than extremists, especially in the international media and in the international arena. With the wrong decisions by its leadership, disastrous consequences for the Jewish state may very well ensue.

As predictable as clockwork, the Western media wasted no time turning Rohani into a symbol of new hope to the naïve people who believe Teheran’s not-so-slow and steady advancement to nuclear weapons can be stopped by conversation and “hard-hitting” sanctions.

In a cautionary piece in the Wall Street Journal, Sohrab Ahmari points out that “Western journalists quickly hailed the ‘moderate’ and ‘reformist’ Mr. Rohani. The New York Time’s Teheran correspondent couldn’t repress his election-night euphoria on Twitter: ‘Tonight the Islamic Republic rocks Rohani style.’ A BBC correspondent gushed: ‘The reaction of the people showed how much they trusted the electoral system.’”

Coming as absolutely no shock at all, Ahmari points out that “just hours earlier the [BBC] broadcaster had condemned Iranian security forces for threatening to assassinate a BBC Persian journalist in London, but such is the Western media’s hunger for good news in Tehran.”

The BBC’s long-standing history of biased journalism aside, has every other sane pundit, analyst and government official forgotten a small inconvenience of Iranian politics?

That would be the anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist, anti-Western, Islamic fundamentalist Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who has been calling the shots in Iran since the death of Ayatollah Khomeini. How can it be that so many well educated people that society puts their trust in daily not understand the meaning of the words “Supreme Leader”?

It is not comforting when it is reported that Rohani and Khamenei are reported to have close ties. It is absurd and merely speculation to think that, as Farnaz Fassihi, just five pages earlier in the same edition of the Wall Street Journal, suggests that the victory and the Ayatollah’s subsequent endorsement “is a sign that Iran’s leadership wishes to grapple with economic woes and political divisions that have plagued the country since its standoff with the West over Iran’s nuclear program and the 2009 antigovernment uprising.” In fact, past history indicates that this belief is completely incorrect and out of touch with reality.

The international media have been a continuing concern for Israel because of the amount of pressure they can generate on the Holy Land, but at the end of the day, newspapers don’t make policy; politicians, legislators and think-tanks make policy.

The politicians and political scientists are not free from the Rohani-mania that has been sweeping up every single naïve pathetic peace-nick who just can’t believe that there is evil in the world and if there is, it’s because we haven’t hugged them tight enough yet.

Nothing should be of greater concern to Israel than the responses of U.S. and European officials to Rohani’s upset victory. The Journal reported that the “U.S. and European officials said Mr. Rohani’s election offers Mr. Khamenei an opening to shift Teheran’s diplomatic course.” It quoted both the cautiously optimistic White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and a pie-in-the-sky Iran Analyst for the Rand Corporation who said “Rohani’s election may mean that Khameni realizes the extent of Iran’s crisis and is willing to let Rohani pave a way forward.”

Baffling statements all around from the people entrusted with making the decisions that keep, not just their own people safe, but the entire Western World. A college freshman studying modern Middle Eastern History or Radical Islamic Ideology can understand how grossly off the mark this optimism is, and just how deadly this misplaced faith can be.

The main concern is that whenever the Western media and politicians (erroneously) get behind a new Islamic hero of moderation and reform, somehow it is the state of Israel that must pay the price.

Israel will no doubt be pushed to make nice with the Palestinians, whom the Iranians pretend to care a great deal about when it is a convenient bargaining chip for them, and stop banging the drums against the Ayatollah and the Islamic Regime that daily calls to throw the Jews into the sea.

The last few years have seen quite a few regime changes in the Arab world, and not a single state in the region is better off than it was before, and more importantly, not a single western country is more secure because of it.

It is time for the woeful liberals, including President Obama, who are so desperate for “peace” that they are always at the ready to roll over and play dead ― scratch that, demand that Israel roll over and play dead ― to end this sickening obsession with underdogs and peace demagogues.

They may be willing to sacrifice themselves for “peace,” but their sickening naiveté, if it remains unchecked, will bring about the distraction of us all.