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Iran’s Supremo warns of “U.S. infiltration plot”

Feb 24, 2016 6:22 pm By Robert Spencer

Ludicrous? Yes. Especially in this age of the appeaser Obama.

Ali Khamenei

“Ahead of election, Iran’s leader warns of Western ‘plot,'” by Samia Nakhoul, Reuters, February 24, 2016:

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran’s top leader warned voters on Wednesday the West was plotting to influence elections pitting centrists close to President Hassan Rouhani against conservative hardliners in a contest that could shape the Islamic Republic for years to come.

In remarks reflecting an abiding mistrust of Rouhani’s rapprochement with the West, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said he was confident Iranians would vote in favor of keeping Iran’s anti-Western stance on Friday in the first elections since last year’s nuclear accord with world powers.

Rouhani’s allies, who hope the deal will hasten Iran’s opening up to the world after years of sanctions, have come under increasing pressure in the election campaign from hardliners who accuse them of links to Western powers including the United States and Britain.

Those accusations seek to tap into Iranians’ wariness of Western motives and memories of a 1953 coup against nationalist prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh that was orchestrated by the United States and Britain and strengthened the Shah’s rule.

Rouhani on Wednesday denied accusations from hardliners that the candidates close to him were affiliated with Western powers, calling it an insult to the intelligence of Iranians.

In remarks on his official website, Khamenei was quoted as saying he was certain the United States had concocted a plot after the nuclear deal to “infiltrate” the Islamic Republic.

“When I talked about a U.S. infiltration plot, it made some people in the country frustrated,” said the Shi’ite clerical leader, who has final say on all major state policy in Iran.

“INFILTRATION”

“They complain (about) why we talk about infiltration all the time … But this is a real plot. Sometimes even the infiltrators don’t know they are a part of it,” he said.

“One of the enemy’s ruses is to portray a false dichotomy between a pro-government and anti-government parliament,” Khamenei was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.

“The nation does not want a pro- or anti-government parliament, but rather a strong and faithful parliament that is aware of its duties and is not intimidated by the United States,” he said.

Supporters of Rouhani, buoyed by Iran’s nuclear deal, aim to gain influence in the elections for the 290-seat parliament and the 88-member Assembly of Experts, which will choose the country’s next supreme leader.

But potential detente with the West has alarmed hardliners, who have seen a flood of European trade and investment delegations arrive in Tehran to discuss possible deals in the wake of the nuclear agreement.

Since then, hardline security officials have arrested dozens of artists, journalists and businessmen, including Iranians holding joint U.S. or British citizenship, as part of a crackdown on “Western infiltration”.

Rouhani had criticized the arrests before, saying some “play with the infiltration word” to pursue their own political goals.

Moves by hardliners to block moderate candidates and portray them as stooges of the West have soured the mood in the final days of campaigning, and Rouhani complained on Wednesday of a public discourse rife with “abuse, accusations and insults”.

Addressing political activists, former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of Rouhani’s most powerful allies, said Rouhani’s election in 2013 “was Iranians’ first step to bring the country back to a path of moderation”.

“I hope people take the second step in Friday’s elections,” he said.

In an apparent reference to hardliners’ accusations that moderates were under Western influence, Rafsanjani said in a statement published on ISNA news agency: “Labeling rivals, in order to turn people’s hopes into despair, has no results.”

“The Iranians … will prove that they are seeking Iran’s political independence and will say no to colonialism, extremism and tyranny.”

Opposition figure Mehdi Karoubi, under house arrest since 2009, will cast his vote in elections on Friday, his son Taghi said in a Facebook posting, a move that may provide a boost to reformist candidates close to Rouhani.

It would be the first time Karoubi has voted in an election since his arrest. His son said a mobile ballot box may be taken to his father’s house….

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Filed Under: Featured, Iran, United States Tagged With: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei


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Comments

  1. Dennis says

    Feb 24, 2016 at 6:34 pm

    They have a supreme leader. No one has more control that that guy.
    Pro or anti Government means nothing. It’s Sharia law pure and simple.

    How great is a country when they jail a man when he’s there to visit his grandmother? I wonder what dark state secrets she shared.

  2. Angemon says

    Feb 24, 2016 at 6:41 pm

    TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran’s top leader warned voters on Wednesday the West was plotting to influence elections pitting centrists close to President Hassan Rouhani against conservative hardliners in a contest that could shape the Islamic Republic for years to come.

    American-hating, anti-Western, conspiracy-theorists fear-mongering to remain in power – language and nukes aside, what’s the difference between them and Putin?

  3. Christine Roy says

    Feb 24, 2016 at 7:11 pm

    Paranoia or pandering? Who knows?

    • gravenimage says

      Feb 25, 2016 at 10:51 pm

      Yup–that sums up the possibilities, Christine.

  4. mortimer says

    Feb 24, 2016 at 7:12 pm

    Iran has the show of democracy, but without the reality. It is hard to know what anyone thinks. But Rouhani has consistently said a lot of things that add up to a commitment to more rationality and human rights.

    On 7 May 2013, Rouhani registered for the presidential election that was held on 14 June 2013. He said that, if elected, he would prepare a “civil rights charter”, restore the economy and improve rocky relations with Western nations. Rouhani also called for an improvement in freedom of information and human rights and equal opportunities for women.

    However, little has changed in domestic policy since Rouhani took office. Iranian authorities executed 599 people during Rouhani’s first 14 months in power, compared with 596 during the last year in office of his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran has the highest number of executions anywhere in the world, apart from China.

    Surprisingly, in an interview, Rouhani said: “We want the people, in their private lives, to be completely free, and in today’s world having access to information and the right of free dialogue, and the right to think freely, is the right of all peoples, including the people of Iran.”

    Rouhani is considered to be a moderate and pragmatic politician.

    Rouhani married his first cousin.

    • gravenimage says

      Feb 25, 2016 at 10:53 pm

      I’m afraid Rouhani is no “moderate”:

      “UN: Iran’s human rights record worse under Rouhani than Ahmadinejad”

      http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/11/un-irans-human-rights-record-worse-under-rouhani-than-ahmadinejad

  5. Wellington says

    Feb 24, 2016 at 7:42 pm

    If this asshole isn’t a malevolent old fool then no one is a malevolent old fool. If comics in the West had their act together (which they don’t), this old bastard would be parodied on a regular basis. The fact that he isn’t says much more about today’s Western world than it does about the never-going-anywhere Islamic world.

    • mortimer says

      Feb 25, 2016 at 12:39 am

      Supreme Supremacist Khameini is an old goat who should have been retired long ago.

  6. Marie Barf-Bague says

    Feb 24, 2016 at 9:24 pm

    Dear Mr. Khamenei,

    John Kerry is currently engaged in bringing peace in our time to the Levant, but he has asked me to provide a nuanced respond in his absence.

    The United States Government can categorically affirm that there are no plots whatsoever to infiltrate our friends and allies in Iran. It would be contrary to U.S. Government to try to undermine a foreign government. Minor exceptions in countries such as Libya, Egypt, Ukraine, Honduras and a few others which we are still working on.

    Also, please rest assured that we would never dream of communicating behind your back with IRGC commander Jafari. He was just no fun at the last party in Beirut.

    By the way, please say hi to Ali in the kitchen.

    Sincerely,

    Marie Barf-Bague
    Senior Advisor for Strategic Communications
    Department of State
    Washington, D.C.

  7. Salah says

    Feb 25, 2016 at 12:37 am

    Off Topic

    Congress Moves to Label Muslim Brotherhood a Terrorist Group

    http://freebeacon.com/national-security/congress-moves-to-label-muslim-brotherhood-a-terrorist-group/

    On June 2013 I wrote:
    ” What’s happening in Egypt is huge; it’s huge BECAUSE of its domino effect.”

    http://crossmuslims.blogspot.ca/2013/07/the-end-of-muslim-brotherhood.html

    Thank you, fellow egyptians. You were the first.

    • Angemon says

      Feb 25, 2016 at 1:11 pm

      Hi Salah, good to hear from you. Because of your professed religion and country, whenever you stop posting for a while I fear for your safety. Anyway, good to see you posting, and carry on fighting 🙂

    • gravenimage says

      Feb 25, 2016 at 10:55 pm

      Good to see you posting again, Salah.

  8. Champ says

    Feb 25, 2016 at 2:05 am

    This guy has always had a few loose screws …

  9. dumbledoresarmy says

    Feb 25, 2016 at 5:14 pm

    I bet he’s projecting.

    This speech should be a *big* hint to some intrepid investigative journalist or journalists to start snooping around with a view to finding out what influence *Iran* has or is trying to have upon the *American* presidential campaign and, more broadly, upon *American* politics both at state and federal level.

  10. Denis says

    Feb 25, 2016 at 8:17 pm

    What kind of government does Iran want? Its run by the ayatollahs and the mullahs. It is a military theocracy plain and simple. If there is a danger in Iran of a take over or a coup d’etat it may be the Iranian military who would act independently of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard.(RG) All the military in Iran has the adjective Islam in front of their military designation. The RG soldiers are all suicidal soldiers who hold comfortable army positions but even more are dedicated to Iran as a Shia Muslim republic. The people want freedom. The Mullahs and Ayatollahs want power and control of the thoughts of the people of Iran. Hence an Islamic state. Islam clerics just want power and control to assert their religious views on people through brain washing. Without this control Islam would die the death it deserves in Iran. It almost happened with the late Shah.

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