He has been saying this all along, and he is increasingly being proven right. Only I and a few others, meanwhile, were saying this in the West. Yet the analysts and commentators who confidently hailed the dawning of democracy in the Middle East at the beginning of the uprisings have never apologized or retracted, or been called to account for their outstandingly wrongheaded analyses. “Supreme Leader Reiterates Islamic Identity of Regional Uprisings,” from the Fars News Agency, December 11:
TEHRAN (FNA)- Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei once again underscored that Islam was the main force behind the recent popular uprisings in the region.
“We believe that the current huge movement is a real Islamic Awakening (movement) and will spread and grow and won’t be derailed so easily,” Ayatollah Khamenei said, addressing participants in the International Conference of Muslim Scholars and Islamic Awakening here in Tehran today.
“People’s Islamic slogans in the regional revolutions and the role played by Muslim believers in encouraging massive rallies and overthrowing corrupt regimes altogether signify that the movement is Islamic.”
The Leader further said that people’s yes vote to Islamist parties in the recent elections was another indication of the Islamic identity of the recent uprisings.
Ayatollah Khamenei expressed confidence that if free and fair elections are held in other Islamic states and if Islamist politicians become a candidate in such elections, people will not doubt [sic] vote for Islamists….