[lbo-talk] Ahmadinejad's letter

Yoshie Furuhashi critical.montages at gmail.com
Wed May 10 17:13:57 PDT 2006


On 5/10/06, Sandy Harris <sandyinchina at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Juan Cole may not care, but I do. You see, there are two governments
> > in the entire Arab world that can claim electoral legitimacy and
> > popular mandate: the Iranian government and the Palestinian Authority.
>
> Iranians are Persians, not Arabs!
>
> And what about Egypt, Algeria and Morocco, none of which are purely
> arab, but all closer than Iran? I think they elect their governments.

True, I should have said the Near East or West Asia and North Africa or something like that, but you get my drift. As far as I'm concerned, the governments of Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco are even less legitimate than Israel's, and the Gulf States have less than zero legitimacy. Lebanon's elections are legitimate, but they are designed to produce a divided, power-sharing government, which is not meant to enjoy the mandate of "the Lebanese people" as a whole.

Looking at the Near East brings out my inner neo-con -- with a left-wing twist, of course: regime changes from the left NOW!

On 5/10/06, martin <mschiller at pobox.com> wrote:
> On May 10, 2006, at 4:14 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> > (as Martin and WKD suggest that he
> > is)
>
> Does your data support an equivalence between holocaust denial and USG
> intelligence complicity in events of September 11 '01?

No, but both types of speculation are a fool's errand. As Travis says, these are serious times, so the President of Iran CANNOT afford to look foolish (though the POTUS can and does).

Besides, the President of Iran (unlike the POTUS who looks like a chimp) has a charming face (or he did when he was young [cf. <http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/07/mahmoud-ahmadinejads-face.html>]) -- he ought to have brains to go with it.

-- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>



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