Somehow he doesn’t see the uprisings as a flowering of Western-style democracy and pluralism. Perhaps Nicholas Kristof or Reza Aslan should jet over to Tehran and straighten this guy out. “Cleric: Regional Nations Seeking to Revive Islam, Religious Populism,” from the Fars News Agency, September 16:
TEHRAN (FNA)- Tehran’s provisional Friday Prayers Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ahmad Khatami underlined the Islamic nature of the current popular uprisings in the region, and added that the regional nations are in pursuit of “Islamic values and religious populism”.
Addressing a large congregation of worshipers on Tehran University Campus today, Ayatollah Khatami pointed to the outcomes of the waves of Islamic awakening in the region, and stressed that the US that once sought to create the Greater Middle-East for the Zionist regime is now facing growing humility and disgrace.
“Among the other outcomes of the Islamic awakening is this official declaration of the revolutionary people that they want Islam and religious populism,” Ayatollah Khatami noted.
“And this is what the arrogance (the US) has been and is much worried about,” he continued.
He also said that popular uprisings also have this message for the other regional nations that they too can come to the scene and end (the life of) the Zionist regime once and for all….