Ahmadinejad--The Best PR Israel Can't Buy

It is a fact. The present Iranian regime poses a great threat to Israel’s and to the world’s security. Its Islamic agenda calls for a holy war resulting in the annihilation of the Jewish state. Its rhetoric is not an empty talk. This evil leadership has been hammering its way tirelessly on the road to a nuclear status, and some of its high officials, including former president, speaker of parliament and commander in chief, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, have mused loudly about the icy arithmetic of a nuclear war with Israel: “The use of an atomic bomb against Israel would totally destroy Israel, while (the same) against the Islamic world would only cause damage. Such a scenario is not inconceivable,” said the former president.

When contrasted with Ahmadinejad, Rafsanjani is perceived as a moderate and as a supporter of human rights. Following the latest fake presidential elections in Iran, he became a backer of the “Green Movement,” his daughter was arrested by the existing regime and he was told to “behave” lest his fate would resemble hers.

Rafsanjani is not alone in this group of “reformists” look-alikes. An even more conspicuous actor is Mir-Hossein Mousavi Khameneh. Mousavi was the Iranian candidate for president whose victory in the recent (2009) Iranian elections was stolen by the incumbent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Mousavi, a former Iranian prime minister, headed the Green movement in Iran—a movement that attempted to introduce reforms while protesting the 2009 elections fraud.

In recent US elections debates, leaders and supporters of the Republican Party accused President Obama for standing by the sidelines in 2009 rather than actively supporting the Iranian Green Movement’s protesters headed by Mousavi, who demanded the removal of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from office.

This criticism aimed at the American administration may be an appealing elections tactics, but it fails to recognize a fundamental flaw in a strategy calling for replacing Ahmadinejad with a wolf dressed in a lamb’s coat.

Had Mousavi become president of Iran in 2009, he would have continued Iran’s clandestine quest for a nuclear bomb, which he had initiated and managed in 1980, while serving as prime minister. He even confirmed his intent to pursue that objective during his own presidential debates. Had Mousavi become president of Iran in 2009, he would have supported Palestinian terrorism against the state of Israel or against any other state as long as it was serving the revolution’s purpose. After all, he said so, while also referring to British diplomats as spies, and defending the taking and holding of American hostages by Iranian militants in 1979.

But there is a more imperative argument against rooting for an Iranian president who may be perceived as a moderate by the west, only because he does not come out of his leech-filled closet. In a state where the top-job is carried by a right wing extremist, Ayatollah Khamenei , the president can only serve by implementing policies outlined by that Supreme Leader. In other words, a Mousavi win could have enabled Iran to break the isolation, avoid western sanctions, grant legitimacy to the Ayatollah’s regime, then move it more rapidly toward the nuclear bomb. If you are smarter than a chess player who could conceive only one single move ahead, you could see the teeth of that jaw trap.

Ahmadinejad is a much preferred Iranian president than any other make-believe moderate because he is merely telling the truth of what the Iranian regime is all about, devoid of any camouflage makeup to cover its ugly imperfections. His bold rhetoric must have convinced himself and his followers that Iran can defeat America, can wipe Israel off the map, that the Holocaust is a Zionist plot, and that he is the smartest man next to Muhammad.

Most Americans are unaware of the upcoming danger Iran is posing to the world. Many Americans oppose any military action against the Iranian regime and its nuclear factories. Many Americans do not understand that Iran presents a great threat to the US economy and to US security. Some view Iran as merely an Israeli problem, not an American problem.

Ahmadinejad makes good where Israeli Prime Minister BenJamin Netanyahu, has had seen only a limited success —convincing many Americans that the Iranian regime is dangerously irrational, that the US could become a victim of its hate-driven, insane Islamic objectives — that it’s time for preventive action.

In addition to raising awareness of the upcoming Iranian threat to the US, Ahmadinejad is successful in stirring up emotions. His flaming rhetoric, lies, hypocrisy, denial of facts and history, his genocidal threats, and his annoying demeanor serves to convince the American public of the ugly truth — that the Iranian regime and its leaders are evil.

The only effective regime change in Iran is a replacement of the whole system of government. This includes the Supreme Leader (and the way he is elected) as well as the leadership of the Revolutionary Guards, with a democratic secular system. Removing the religious minority of the mullahs and the ayatollahs from their unpopular powers is a major requirement wished for by the majority of Iranians.

Replacing one loud-mouth Iranian president with a soft-spoken lipstick-wearing pig can only contribute to a faster growing untreated cancer. Masking a problem does not make it go away; it only wards off treatment; it only speeds up the emergence of its ugly end.

Avi Perry is the author of 72 Virgins—a popular thriller about a countdown to a terror attack on US soil. He is currently a talk show host at Paltalk News Network (PNN). He served as an intelligence expert for the Israeli government and was a professor at Northwestern University. He was a VP at NMS Communications, a Bell Laboratories distinguished staff member and manager, and a delegate of the US and Lucent Technologies to UN International Standards body. He is also the author of Fundamentals of Voice Quality Engineering in Wireless Networks. For more information, visit www.aviperry.org.