Iran Election 2009
Saturday, June 20th, 2009
Moorhead Kennedy, one of the 52 Americans held hostage in Iran 444 days in 1979 - 1980, had this to say about America speaking out about Iran’s 2009 Election:
Q: Do you think it is prudent for this White House to take the standoffish approach that it has for fear of potentially getting drawn into [the conflict over Iran's election]?
A: It’s not the fear of being drawn into a conflict. It’s expressing our respect for a sovereign state that we do not interfere in the internal affairs of another country. And I think part of the Iranian deep, deep resentment of the United States is that we have never treated them with proper respect. And, of course, that’s been furthered by some of the episodes in our relationship. Not only the famous CIA coup, but the fact that we…helped Saddam Hussein when he attacked Iran in 1980 and did not prevent him in any way from using chemical warfare against Iran. There are a great many resentments there. So if we have to hold back from interfering in any country, it should be Iran.
Iran: An Inconvenient History
Many Americans seem to forget, or don’t even know (perhaps because CNN doesn’t post timelines that go back longer than thirty years), that in 1953 the USA overthrew Iran’s democracy and replaced it with a puppet dictator in order to keep control of their oil. So, Americans should understand when citizens of Iran who DO know their history think we’re full of baloney when we speak of spreading democracy and promoting freedom.
Moussavi: An Inconvenient Challenger
Another thing I’ve noticed is that most Americans who have jumped on the bandwagon of Moussavi know very little about him. When the facts are on full display (as they often aren’t in the corporate main stream media) one wonders if Moussavi isn’t just as bad for the West as Ahmadinejad. Here are a few words about Moussavi, the guy we want so much to lead Iran:
Though the 67-year-old former prime minister is credited for successfully navigating the Iranian economy as prime minister during the Iran-Iraq war, he also was a hard-liner whom the Economist described as a “firm radical.”
He, like most Iranians in power, does not believe in the existence of Israel. He defended the taking of the American hostages in 1979. He was part of a regime that regularly executed dissidents. And as late as April, he opposed suspending the country’s nuclear-enrichment program but said it would not be diverted to weapons use.
A Closer Look at the Mirror
As with most things in life, the 2009 Iranian Election is a great opportunity to look at our own country. In particular, it’s a great opportunity for Americans to see their own country from an outside perspective because the 2009 Iranian Election has many similarities with a couple of recent American Elections.
Just like most of the world clamors for Moussavi to be elected, in 2000 most of the world (including the majority of voters in the US) clamored for Gore to be the next president, but he wasn’t elected.
And, just as many people believe the Iranian election was rigged, many believed — and we now know — that the US 2004 election was rigged.
The unelected members of Iran’s Guardian Council have the power to decide if Iran’s votes get recounted, just like the unelected conservative-leaning Supreme Court decided in Bush v. Gore that Americans could not count all the votes in the 2000 US election.
Even though most of the world wants Moussavi elected, to our astonishment and disbelief, most of the poor and rural Iranian population want Ahmadinejad to be reelected. This is what America looked like to the rest of the world when most of the poor and rural Americans still wanted George W. Bush to be their leader in 2004, even as he talked like a TV cowboy and rode his stick horse off the edge of a cliff.
So, to paraphrase a very wise philosopher, let’s pick the log out of our own eye and not cast the first stone.
Iran has never jumped into the middle of our election process — and they’ve yet to overthrow one of our presidents — so we should take a back seat, stop pointing self-righteous fingers, and despite the bluster of the main stream idiots, we shouldn’t get involved.

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