Mullahocracy

Hitchens/Slate

""Iran and its citizens are considered by the Shiite theocracy to be the private property of the anointed mullahs. This totalitarian idea was originally based on a piece of religious quackery promulgated by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and known as velayat-e faqui. Under the terms of this edict—which originally placed the clerics in charge of the lives and property of orphans, the indigent, and the insane—the entire population is now declared to be a childlike ward of the black-robed state. Thus any voting exercise is, by definition, over before it has begun, because the all-powerful Islamic Guardian Council determines well in advance who may or may not "run." Any newspaper referring to the subsequent proceedings as an election, sometimes complete with rallies, polls, counts, and all the rest of it, is the cause of helpless laughter among the ayatollahs. ("They fell for it? But it's too easy!") Shame on all those media outlets that have been complicit in this dirty lie all last week. And shame also on our pathetic secretary of state, who said that she hoped that "the genuine will and desire" of the people of Iran would be reflected in the outcome. Surely she knows that any such contingency was deliberately forestalled to begin with."""'

However irritating Hitchens may be on occasion, he may be correct, at least in this instance (though not when blessing Bushco, as he did in 2003). Objecting to muslim theocracy does not imply that one thereby supports Israel, however (not lacking in theocratic aspects, either). Dame Hillary's tame remarks on the Iranian vote did sound rather accomodating.

Political reality does not lend itself to truth functionality, to the facile dichotomies preferred by naive leftists (or rightists)--not dialectical, but poly-lectical.