Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Iran's Referendum on Crazy

Mamhoud Ahmadinejad is accusing opponents of tampering with his pronouncements to make him look loony but, as Friday's Iran election nears, that would be overkill.

Nothing could improve on his own YouTube classic claim that a halo surrounded him at a UN appearance in 2005 and that "the crowd stared without blinking during the entire speech.”

In what is shaping up as a close contest, the opposition is appealing to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei over the campaign debates, arguing that "millions of people were witness to lies and distortions of the truth, which were against religion, law, ethics and fairness and were aimed at the achievements of our Islamic System."

Meanwhile, thousands of young people have been filling Tehran streets with a symbolic green protest, holding green posters with green ribbons on their wrists and car antennas and holding up green fruit drinks.

The unspoken X factor in whether Ahmadinejad stays or goes could well be the ripple effects of President Obama's Cairo speech last week, which may have helped a pro-Western faction win in Lebanon.

Is Change in the air, even in the Middle East?

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