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Saturday, May 30, 2009

Gunning for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad 

By TigerHawk at 5/30/2009 08:24:00 AM


In a corner of southeastern Iran, near a part of Pakistan that nobody much controls, somebody tried to blow up the local campaign headquarters of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Obviously, the Great Satan was behind it:


Preelection tensions rose Friday in Iran's religiously and ethnically mixed southeast after gunmen opened fire on the president's campaign office and a radical group claimed responsibility for the bombing of a mosque the day before that killed up to 23 people and injured scores.

Iranian authorities blamed the United States for the violence in Zahedan, on the border with Pakistan.

Right. We cannot find al Qaeda central command, but we have plenty of time to blow up Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's phone bank.

Naturally, I have at least two reactions.


  • Apparently it remains political advantageous, during an Iranian presidential campaign, to blame the United States for anything and everything. This implies that the Iranian electorate is still fairly anti-American (notwithstanding claims to the contrary from Western doves), and that the election of Barack Obama and his numerous overtures have not really altered the political calculus inside Iran. Bashing the Great Satan still gets votes.


  • Wouldn't it be great if we really were blowing stuff up in Iran? Not mosques and campaign headquarters and so forth, but, say, centrifuges, refineries, and power substations? But who am I kidding?

    • Goddamn.

    Permalink - - Main

    3 Comments:

    By Blogger Viking Kaj, at Sat May 30, 09:43:00 AM:

    How about a friendly flag operation designed to garner sympathy for the candidate? Or justify further repression once the election is over?

    Just a thought.  

    By Blogger Dawnfire82, at Sat May 30, 10:47:00 AM:

    "How about a friendly flag operation designed to garner sympathy for the candidate?"

    That was my first thought. They opened fire on a campaign office (?) yet managed to not actually kill anyone, then stormed in and tore up some papers and yelled a lot, and then left, and this is immediately and proudly released by the state news agency, which also claims that the perpetrators were captured but does not supply any further details...

    Hmm.  

    By Anonymous Boludo Tejano, at Sat May 30, 12:31:00 PM:

    The Baluchis in SE Iran have long been anti-Tehran. They are Sunni and not Persian.Back in the day there were reports that Saddam had some Baluchi operatives.

    Here is news from 2006.
    Only about half of Iran is Persian.A long-simmering pot.  

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