Daily Kos: "The Big Lie About Iran's Nukes"

Here is an interesting specimen of the Ad Ayatollum argument that Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons.

You know sometimes it drives me absolutely bonkers when so-called "journalists" fail to report on obvious, easily-discoverable and CRITICAL facts about current events.

The looming war or strike or conflict with Iran is clearly something that affects the entire globe. Yet journalists consistently forget to mention something absolutely critical about Iran's potential to acquire/develop/build nuclear weapons.

Our intrepid author, someone calling himself "Soj," now offers the "The ultra-short version" of his argument:

The SUPREME LEADER of Iran (yes that's his title) is the guy with all the power NOT the president. And the Supreme Leader has issued a fatwa which SPECIFICALLY forbids Iran (and Iranian scientists) from ever building, acquiring or using a nuclear weapon. Ever . . .

It is against the law to even criticize the Supreme Leader in Iran. People have gone to jail for making even oblique remarks that seem critical of him. It is pure lunacy to think that the Revolutionary Guards, the regular Iranian military or any other government agency is going to contradict one of his fatwas.

Is this ever mentioned in the western press? Almost never.

It has been mentioned on Judeopundit, but I think the Ayatollah is lying. Soj is at least right about the Supreme Leader's power, or is he? Here is the beginning of the "Longer version":

Iran is a kind of a democracy but it is set up on theological lines and therefore the religious leaders have the ultimate power in the country . . .

Hmmm, a "kind of democracy"? After quoting a statement from one of those offical Friday sermons that the "very idea of an atom bomb is forbidden, the very deed is a sin," he comments:

I don't know how much clearly the religious rulers of Iran need to make it that they have zero freaking interest in owning, building or using a nuclear weapon . . .

Mr. Soj appears to be the ideal audience for these official nuclear renunciations. Why is he wrong? The answer lies in the obvious unreality of the Party Line in a dictatorship. The government of such a state projects a false, but constantly asserted view of reality: Prosperity for North Korea is just over the horizon, Bashar Assad was overwhelmingly reelected, anyone who dared to attack Iran would be totally destroyed, etc. That suppression of all criticism that Soj notes leads to what we might call a consistency drift in the regime's official utterances. It is so unthinkable that the official line might false, although it is, that government pronouncements are actually free to unconsciously contradict details of the party line. The underlying reality keeps breaking through. Here is an example from the mouth of Ahmadinejad, as reported in Iran's Press TV in June:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said even Iran's most powerful enemies are unable to launch any form of attack against the country.

“The enemies of the Iranian nation will be given such a heavy blow they would not even consider attacking Iran,” he said on Wednesday addressing a group of martyr's families killed in a bomb blast by the Mujahideen Khalq Organization in 1981.

“All relations and equations will change in our favor once Iran is stabilized as a nuclear nation,” he added . . .

Kind of implies they are seeking nuclear weapons, doesn't it? And as Soj suggests

Let's put it this way. The current president of Iran and every other president since the 1979 revolution can't even run for office without first being approved by the Supreme Leader - he can't even get on the ballot.

So Ahmadinejad's more bellicose and threatening-sounding statements are undoubtedly Supreme Leader-approved, or he couldn't make them. Now isn't that reassuring?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

Tags: Iran, nukes, Ahmadinejad, Ayatollah