Iran: "Where Is Obama?"

Obama is rightly staying out of it. Making him the true heir of Republican calls for Europe to revert to pre-1914 borders and thus end the First World War. Of refusal to enter the Second World War until actually attacked by either side. Of Eisenhower’s ending of the Korean War, his even-handed approach to Israel and the Palestinians, his non-intervention in Indo-China, and his denunciation of the military-industrial complex.

Of Nixon’s pursuit of détente with China. Of the ending of the Vietnam War by him and Ford, an old stalwart of the America First Committee. Of the only two conservative things that Reagan ever did, to withdraw from Lebanon in 1983 and to begin nuclear arms reduction in Europe. Of Republican opposition to Clinton’s global trigger-happiness. And of the only conservative thing that George W Bush ever did, to remove American troops from Saudi Arabia after 9/11, thus ensuring that there has been no further attack on American soil.

On and on and on they are still droning about vote-rigging in Iran, just because the North Tehran Trendies’ unpreferred candidate won, even though the BBC had specifically instructed the common people not to vote for him. I mean, how dare they! Who do they think they are? Well, tell me, where in Iran did any ballot box or polling station record a one hundred per cent vote for Ahmadinejad, as some did for Karzai? And how many British soldiers died “to bring democracy” (the latest excuse in Afghanistan – how many is it now?) to Iran?

I wish that Ahmadinejad had not won. But he did. Iran is a country in which it is still possible for the electorate to vote against the direction of the BBC, and the BBC cannot contain its rage at what is, in itself, that happy fact. Non-Beeb candidates are not only on the ballot paper, but even receive proper coverage. The nerve! The sheer nerve! And for someone like that to win!

The North Tehran Trendies, whose opinions were the only ones sought by bone idle Western reporters in the run-up to the election (or, indeed, since), did not vote for Ahmadinejad. The BBC set up an entire “service” to instruct people not to vote for him. So the election must have been rigged. Mustn’t it?

Are we going to improve Iran as we have improved Iraq and Afghanistan, convinced that if only we removed Saddam, or “the Taliban”, or Ahmadinejad, then there would arise a sort of California but without Proposition 8? With very rare exceptions (Peter Hitchens, Scott McConnell), old student Trots never do grow up.

Is it just that when neocons look at these spoilt, super-liberal little rich kids stamping their feet at not getting their own way, then they see themselves at that age? And if it hadn’t been Ahmadinejad, then who do they think that it would have been? Dick Cheney? Hillary Clinton? Tony Blair? Mercifully, it would not have been.