Let us give you all that. But remember that its Ahmadinejad who takes this position, not the Iranian people. Should the [educated] Iranian people be embarrassed by his taking this position? Sure, perhaps in a cocktail party or some such. But in more serious terms, how does it make a material difference?
The Holocaust has nothing to do with Iran or most of the world, it does not affect the world today except in negative terms (i.e., what I call Holocaust affirmation). Your statement above makes Khatami's point. You see Holocaust denial as a "particular" kind of lunacy (which is only, it seems to me, a step away from the special exceptional status claimed for it by the industry it has fostered) and identify it with anti-semites. But Khatami would point out that this sort of theoretical anti-semitism (as opposed to real opposition to Jewish actions or support for such actions, in Israel or in the USA) is again a Western notion. To put it in a bit of an exaggerated manner, in the rest of the world, it seems to me, this position-taking is not malignant but irrelevant, similar to Ahmadinejad or Rabri Devi's views on whether P = NP or whether the Cambrian explosion happened in a period of 3 million years or 15 million years.
Obama has an education from Harvard and believes in "god" and some version of the idea that marriage is a special relationship between a man and a woman, etc, etc, etc. So it's not just Bush (whom you referred to in your previous message) who should be embarrassing. And yet Obama is celebrated all over the Western world as if he reconciled the general theory of relativity with quantum mechanics (again, I believe it does not matter what you or I are embarrassed about -- we are inconsequential specks, laughable leftists -- but what the "educated" masses of the West are proud or embarrassed by).
> Dabashi identifies the Holocaust denial as a symptom of the decay of
> pro-Palestinian sentiment among some Iranians. Unable to voice some
> positive vision, they embrace instead a degenerate form of anti-
> Zionism. That anyone on the foreign left would take even a half
> second to excuse it is disturbing
Is that the case? Is there a lot of Holocaust denial in Iran? In fact, wasn't Holocaust denial used as an issue against Ahmadinejad in the elections?
I have one more question: where from the thinking that Mousavi represents some sort of socialism? The guy did rule Iran during the 80s right? Is there something from that record that attests to the portrayal as the leader of a genuine people's revolution? How is this any different from those protesting Al Gore's loss in 2000 (other than the spirit and commitment)?
--ravi