What do the hardliners want?

ET, View from Iran:

The differences between the reformers and the conservatives seem tiny when compared to the differences between the hardliners and the hardliners. The reformers just wanted a kinder, gentler Islamic government.

What do the hardliners want? You tell me.

I’m serious. Tell me. READ MORE

I was riding downtown when I saw the giant posters “World Without Zionism.” A couple of days later, AN makes his firebrand speech. I am so sick of anti-semites (you know I don’t mean Arabs, right folks?) pretending that they are just anti-Zionists. Jezuee, you do business with the Russians for f***’s sake. Oh yeah, and the Chinese.

The weird thing is that most Iranians would be shocked to discover that the rhetoric of their various leaders makes me, at times, physically ill. They would never take it as seriously as I do.

They laugh it off. And I do not want to find out more. I do not want to know if they find AN brave (like a friend told me that many do) or honest or whatever. The Iranians I have met rarely make any connections between their hatred for Israel and anti-Jewishness. Jews are, after all, people of the book. The children of Ibrahim. Right?

Of course, many of the Iranians I have met have never heard of the holocaust. They still appreciate the Germans for fighting those evil Brits. They know next to nothing about World War 2.

Ramadan should be a spiritual time for Muslims. Right? But every f***ing year, all over the world, it is used as a time for increased holy violence and vitriolic speech.

This year I stayed away from all Iranian media. I knew that if I watched it, I would be subjected to too much casual hatred.

But, like last year, I am sure that the day after Ramadan, everything will be back to normal. The vitriol will get watered down. Rafsanjani claims that the leader agrees that Israel should not be wiped off the map. If that’s true… what’s next from here?