America’s Khamenei

The West, and particularly, the U.S. are extremely loud when it comes to defending their ‘democratic’ systems. Iran’s regime is, in their opinion, the best example of an oppressive, non-democratic system, standing in stark contrast to the ‘democracies’ of the U.S. and allies.

Yet, as time goes by, and thanks particularly to George W. Bush, it is becoming more and more clear that this democracy is little more than illusion. The current president of the United States was elected by a very marginal majority in his both terms, and is constantly being criticized by other popularly-elected wings of the state, as well as the public and intellectuals. Yet, he has shown that his power is almost indefinite and unreachable: he can easily veto any legislation by the Congress and the Senate that he doesn’t like, he is the Commander-in-Chief, and more recently, he has shown that he can reverse a court’s verdict by pardoning one of his servants, Lewis Libby. What’s more, he has several intelligence agencies under his control and can manipulate one with the other; he also gets all the support typically given to the president in times of war, thereby, opening places like Guantanamo Bay and undermining justice and human rights in the name of the war on terror (the so-called “state of exception“).

Makes you wonder what really makes the Supreme Leader of Iran different from the President of the U.S. in terms of the concentration of power, and what distinguishes between the democratic republic of America and the oppressive Islamic Republic of Iran…

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Politics, Thoughts, Freedom of Expression, Iran, Nuclear, Middle East, Oil, War on Iran, Bush, Ahmadinejad, Larijani, Iranian Society, Media, U.S. Congress, Islamic Revolution, Persian Gulf, UK, Blair, Britain, Mullahs, CIA, Guantanamo