Ahmadinejad v. Khatami

Few of us are fans of the Islamic autocracy in Iran today, but ever since that phony Khatami left office, at least things have been more transparent. Ahmadinejad, who, as this blog has stated over and over again, has absolutely no power, has two overriding qualities that are an improvement on Khatami: he is not a cleric and he does not claim to be something he's not.

Never trust the quiet ones and Khatami was as quiet a smiling mollah could be. When it came to Western Press coverage, that is. In Iran, he was well known for his wild praise for Khomeini, for his mistreatment of the 1999 student demonstrators, and for his now widely condemned misrepresentation of himself as a reformer. Now, he's even whispered his way to a guest speech at the Washington National Cathedral early next month as a guest of the State Department. Further proof, if such is needed, that the US's links to fundamentalist Islam (as commenced with their funding and support of the Taliban against those atheist communists from Russia) are anything but tenuous.