On Apr 20, 2007, at 3:16 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> Doug probably agrees with Fred Halliday that leftists should line up
> with liberals, even if they are imperialists ("Cooler Elites"),
> against religious, anti-imperialist populists who are fundamentally or
> may become illiberals:
>
> The events of 1979 bring out what was, in my view,
> the central avoidable error of most of the Iranian Left --
> its catastrophic stand on 'liberalism'.
In retrospect, Halliday's position seems hard to argue with, but who knew at the time? Who knew that Khomeini would turn out so clever & treacherous that he'd turn so effectively on his former allies? What is inexcusable, however, is 28 years after the fact, making excuses for him & his heirs - to the point that you're claiming that Ahmadinejad is reclaiming the anti-imperialist and social justice agenda of Khomeinism. Yuck.
Doug