While there is widespread global support for those battling for reform in Iran, it should surprise no one that even in the Arab/Sunni world, there is support for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his young apprentice, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
For Saudi Arabia’s Dar al-Hayat, in a particularly visceral defense of the reigning Iranian regime, Mostafa Zein writes in part:
“In Iran, the majority still believe in the ideas of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Ahmadinejad: the U.S. is in retreat in Iraq to escape the quagmire there. It’s bogged down in Afghanistan. It wages a direct war with the Taliban and a proxy war in Pakistan. And for the first time, its chief ally in the Middle East, Israel, senses an existentialist threat. Why make concessions now? Let Washington begin the bazaar if it wants to help us. Let it be the one to pay the price. Ahmadinejad is the best leader to implement this plan. Let him be the President. Let him continue the path with the Supreme Leader. ”
By Mostafa Zein
June 16, 2009
Saudi Arabia – Dar al-Hayat – Original Article (English)
The people of the Middle East and a many of their governments still can’t believe that President George Bush’s mandate is over. They act as though the United States still lives in the era of adventurism and military blunders that drowned the region in chaos. This feeling is heightened by the fact that successive American administrations, Republican and Democrat, have treated Middle East people with so much disdain; and that all American presidents depend on a balance of institutions controlled by Congress, weapon manufacturers and various other lobbies.
