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The mullahs have declared Carla Bruni, aka Mrs. Nicholas Sarkozy, aka France’s First Lady, a prostitute, in response to her letter to an Iranian woman sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery. If ever there were a case of the pot calling the kettle black, this is it. The Islamic Republic is a thoroughly corrupt regime that pauperizes its people while the top dogs live in luxury that would be the envy of a Hollywood star.
Carla Bruni and Nicholas SarkozyI use “top dogs” carefully, because in recent days a leading ayatollah has banned all advertisements for dogs, their food, stores that cater to them, or indeed anything having to do with them, in Khamenei’s domain. This is the latest in a series of ukases or fatwas devoted to the elimination of the pursuit of happiness. Music and fun haircuts have been recently banned, and of course the color green has been banished long since.
On the other hand, prostitution is blessed. It’s not called prostitution, mind you, but it’s hard to call the “temporary marriage” center operating out of a shrine in Mashad as anything other than that. The man pays some money and gets some sex. What do you call that?
Don’t forget that the Islamic Republic rests on misogyny. Khomeini, the founding tyrant, hated women and undid a century of Persian progress in a few years. Someone on Twitter the other night said that Supreme Leader Khamenei had counseled some of the regime’s torturers and rapists to make sure the women they violated were properly dressed. It may have been an attempt at humor, I don’t know, but it does reflect a state of mind.
It’s hard for Westerners to imagine what’s going on in Iran these days, namely a state that has lost all legitimacy in the eyes of its subjects, in which the rulers are fighting each other for shards of power and scraps of graft. Perhaps the most revealing recent anecdote comes from a newspaper report about the Revolutionary Guards spying on political leaders:
Rah-e-Sabz claims that the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps had installed monitoring systems in a seven-story building frequented by high-ranking politicians.
Last week some of the politicians detected the surveillance and, unaware of who carried it out, asked the Ministry of Intelligence to check the building. The Ministry denied responsibility and sent technical specialists, who inevitably discovered many IRGC cameras and microphones. As the specialists were leaving, they were accosted by a group of Revolutionary Guard. A fight followed, with guns even being drawn.
Every now and then, in one of these frequent confrontations, somebody pulls a trigger, and the press reports an “accident.” More often, the attacks against politicians or Revolutionary Guards take the form of automobile crashes, failed hydraulic systems on RG aircraft, or suicide attacks against large RG gatherings, as in the July terror assault on the mosque in Zahedan.
It was only a matter of time before some elements of the opposition would resort to violence against the regime, even though the leading spokesmen for the Green Movement, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, have constantly called for non-violent methods. Meanwhile, the regime slaughters its opponents at a fearsome rate, e.g.:
A Mashad human rights activist told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran of the secret group executions of hundreds of prisoners inside Mashad’s Vakil Abad Prison without the knowledge of their families or lawyers. According to the activist, there are some 2,100 prisoners on death row at this prison who might face abrupt secret group executions at any moment.
And so we head into the autumn. The first significant date is Friday, September 3rd, “Quds Day.” Many opposition groups seem ready to take to the streets. Karroubi has promised to join them, and the regime has surrounded his home with thugs. Four days to go.
Meanwhile, no Western leader has openly supported the opposition. Maybe the best way to do it is to join in solidarity with Carla Bruni, and declare ourselves Prostitutes for Freedom.
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