One has to wonder what Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadenejad is leading up to now, with this latest speech of his which condemns the US and British forces in Iraq, and the 'war' they are conducting against the people of that country..
He also managed to get in a word concerning Islael's 'invasion' of Lebanon.. conveniently omitting the kidnapping of the Israeli soldiers by Hammas..
Marking the Persian New Year with a news conference, he condemned those countries which were responsible for the 'misery' and 'destruction' throughout the world.. again omitting those who strap on semtex vests and blow innocents to pieces in the name of Islam..
Ahmadenejad stated there appeared to be 'no one' who would stand up and 'defend the rights of those oppressed..' intimating that he was doing just that, with his New Years speech..
His oratory began with references to the Q'ran.. and followed with a wide-ranging attack on the West, and the history of the Middle East..
The focus, it appeared to be, that Iraq was originally attacked on the premis that there were 'weapons of mass destruction, and that indeed, there were none to be found..
This, amid growing international fears that his own country is developing the means to build it's own nuclear arsenal..
The man is playing to a public, that is willing to believe the West is responsible for the poverty of the Iranian man on the street.. while again conveniently omitting the fact that while Iran has a healthy trade in oil, little of the revenue filters down to the common man..
His rhetoric, one has to fear, has a willing audience.. and again, one must be concerned about his motives..
His country has backed itself into a corner, with the kidnapping of British Servicemen, and this speech does not bode well for the fate of these captives, nor for any developing diplomatic relations which might be develping between Iran and any Western country, or culture..
He is working his people into a frenzy of hatred for anything non-Islamic, or indeed anything which might have cordial relations with the US, Britain, the EU... anything which might show any tolerance for 'the Great Shaitan'..
This man is dangerous.. as is his rhetoric..
And he appears to have a willing audience.. a people who are willing to lay the blame for their poverty, and their lack of standard of living, on any but those who lead them...
He appears to have chosen a path which we will be forced to follow.. if for no other reason, but for our own defence.
And either way, in the eyes of the man on the street in the Middle East, we will be the agressors, the oppressors..
The bad guys..
There was a statement made by someone in a chatroom yesterday.. by someone who called himself 'NotJustAnotherPoodle'.. that the capture of the British Naval personnel was in retalliation for a 'terrorist attack' in Iran, in which a covert operation led by an un-named power, blew up a busfull of the elite Revolutionary Guards Corps last month..
This event simply did not happen, and when challenged, this chatter disappeared..
However, if such lies are repeated in rooms less informed, they might well be accepted as fact..
Disinformation, misrepresentation, downright lies, are what fuel fanatics..
And we are caught between a rock and a hard place, simply because we are successfull, and they are not... We are affluent, and they are poor.. We have at our fingertips a myriad of sources of information representing all sides of any argument, and they have but one..
We cannot win, when those massed against us, have been convinced by their only source of information, that we are at fault..
We can only react, and face the eternal hatred of those convinced of our desire to take from them, what their government has convinced them we covet.
Even though the average income of those in Iran is a fraction of what it could be if their own government allowed them the benefits of their oil revenue.. we will be blamed for their lack..
And there is effectively nothing we can do about it.