Is Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad joking when he says he is willing to volunteer as an observer during the forthcoming US Presidential elections? Or is he being sarcastic? Or has the old terrorist gone mad?
Politicians all over the world irrespective of their nationalities and skin color are given to outrageous comments just to appear popular. Ahmadinejad has become the favorite bashing boy of the West after the fracas with Iran’s nuclear programme coming under the radar of white partisan groups. The Iranian President with his cocktail of radical Islamic polemics and Leftist talks has been able to rouse the Iranian people. The President’s personal charisma has been able to gain sympathy from the Western media, though Bush remains unmoved. In fact, Ahmadinejad has been successful in showing the international community the whole unfairness of the US approach towards the nuclear armament issues. He has been unremitting in his attack against Israel and how Judaism might pose the greatest threat in the region to Islam. We must keep these things in mind while appraising the Iranian President’s offer to oversee the US elections.
The UK Guardian reports Ahmadinejad speaking to a radical Islamic outfit where he is sure that if fair elections were to be allowed in the US, the people will bring to power a humane regime. His invectives were directed at President Bush’s regime. Also the Middle East Peace Talks are on at Annapolis now. By offering to become an election observer, Iran’s leader does two things. He negates the US democratic process as being self-serving and liable to failure. That is why there is a need for third party external observers in the first place. Then he wishes off Bush as being inhumane and biased against Islam and the Middle East. The Middle East peace process is being brokered by the US, especially Condoleezza Rice. So Ahmadinejad very tactfully has thrown a challenge to the entire Middle-eastern peace process by publicly defying the present US regime and making suspect the very government which has initiated the peace process.
Finally Iran does a service to the world by criticizing the US electoral process. The latter is often only a show of money and media-managed hype. Often there are no real issues to solve either US problems or global ones. Only an undercurrent of neo-imperialism and ethnic comment remains. It may not be such a bad idea to allow a controversial figure like Ahmadinejad to supervise the entire electoral process. For one thing, he will learn what it means to be in a democracy and for another; the US will get an opportunity to prove to the world its clean democratic image. As of now, none trusts either Iran or the US. Both are equally cunning.
Via: UK Guardian
Image: Lance Kennedy
