This is just incredible. The conservatrash that helped lie us into
Bush's war against Iraq want to maintain the status quo in Iran. This
roundup is from Huffington Post.


American neoconservatives have often used the presidency of Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad to bolster their case for aggressive action against Iran. So
the assumption might be that they would be rooting for Iranians to take
care of the problem themselves by electing reformer Mir Hossein Mousavi
in today's vote..

Instead, they're rooting for the anti-American bogeyman to stay in power.

Middle East Forum Director Daniel Pipes said in a speech at the Heritage
Foundation that he would vote for Ahmadinejad if he could:

American Enterprise Institute's Michael Rubin told National Review's
Kathryn Jean Lopez it might be better for Ahmadinejad to win, because a
loss might give Obama the impression that diplomacy was working.

LOPEZ: Should we want Ahmadinejad to lose the election this weekend?


RUBIN: The Obama administration tends to conflate advocacy with
analysis. They see in the Islamic Republic what they want to see, not
what the Iranian leadership's intentions really are. As such, should
someone more soft-spoken and less defiant -- someone like former prime
minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi -- win, it would be easier for Obama
to believe that Iran really was figuratively unclenching a fist when, in
fact, it had it had its other hand hidden under its cloak, grasping a
dagger. What Ahmadinjead did was to expose the ideology of the power
holders in Iran for what it actually is. Holocaust denial, for
example, is nothing new to the Islamic Republic. Both Rafsanjani and
Khatami also encourage it. Ahmadinejad's bluntness, however, forced even
the Europeans to react.

Other neocons, worried a shift in power will signal a fresh start
relations with Iran, are already deflating a Mousavi win. The same
pundits who constantly point out Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial,
anti-Semitism, and nuclear ambitions as reasons to confront Iran now
argue that the president doesn't matter. Martin Peretz wrote at the New
Republic, "We've known for a long time that elected leaders do not carry
the weight of those who have been anointed." Ilan Berman seconded at the
American Spectator, "Whoever ends up becoming president will have little
real power -- and even less influence over Iran's geostrategic direction."

In fact, Mousavi does disagree with Ahmadinejad on a key policy point.
Unlike the current president, he would back nuclear talks with Iran and
United Nations Security Council members.





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The modern GOP is little more than an army of moral absolutists led by a
gang of moral nihilists.