ruhollah khomeini
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May: Iran’s latest unfree and unfair election
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The Islamic Republic isn’t a democracy, but a theocratic dictatorship News must be new but it needn’t be surprising. The decidedly unsurprising news out of Iran last week: There was an election (of sorts) and the winner was Hassan Rouhani, the incumbent president. An apparently mild-mannered cleric with a beatific smile, he has presided over…
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May: Letting freedom fade
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Surrendering liberty has become the Western response to Islamist threats Whatever happened to Charlie Hebdo? For years, the French satirical magazine threw spit balls at polite society. Its writers and cartoonists particularly delighted in ridiculing religions and pieties. Some people found that amusing and thought-provoking. Others were appalled and offended. Such is life in a…
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May: Defining violent extremism down
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There are Iranian moderates; Rafsanjai was not among them Death, where is thy sting? For Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, it certainly didn’t come from the mainstream media. The 82-year-old former Iranian president died of a heart attack earlier this month. The New York Times called him an “influential voice against hard-liners” and “a main voice…
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May: The search for elusive Iranian moderates
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They won’t be found among the ruling clerical elite Ruhollah Khomeini was a man of religious faith and revolutionary fervor, committed to waging jihad until, in his words, “the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country in the world.” But when he took power in Iran in 1979, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N,…
