Is Ahmadinejad a "Petty And Cruel" Dictator?

Columbia University President Bollinger challenged Iranian Orator-in-Chief Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as possessing the hallmarks of a "petty and cruel dictator" prior to the Orator's speech today. The Geek questions the accuracy of president Bollinger's description.

"Hold on there, Geek! You about to defend that Iranian creep?" You ask as you roll up your sleeves.

"Ease off, partner." The Geek replies. "No way am I going to switch sides on this one."

And there isn't anyway that a defense of Ahmadinejad can be offered without insult to reality, the reality of history and the reality of today. Neither can the Orator be characterised as a dictator, cruel or otherwise, without offense to the reality of Iran today.

In simple fact Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has no power that is not purely derivative from the Chief Cleric and Protector of the Revolution, Ayatollah Kahmenei. As long as the ayatollah supports Ahmadinejad, the fifty year old president has some semblance of power. The instant the (prayer) rug is pulled out from under Mahmoud, his seeming power is one with that of the late Shah.

A couple of years ago when Mahmoud was stumping for the Iranian presidency he posed as a reformer, a man of the future. Heck, as the Geek recalls it, the Ahmadinejad of the campaign days promised such reforms as allowing women to attend soccer matches. That would have been a major shakeup for the mullahocracy.

Too much of a shakeup, it appears.

Once Ahmadinejad had been elected, the reforms became, like most American campaign rhetoric, something to be forgotten--as quickly as possible. It may be that Mahmoud was honest in his reformist guise. That's not for the Geek to decide on the information currently available.

Even if the man had been honest as he sought election, he would have discovered very, very quickly that his office came empty. Empty of power that is. Empty of any power except that which was granted by two sources. The first, most important source is the Protector of the Revolution (to use one of the most important job titles) Ayatollah Khamenei. The other fountain of power can be charitably described as "public opinion" but is more accurately understood as "the opinion of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps."

Although Ahmadinejad's grasp of some minor matters such as the reality of history, particularly that of the Nazi committed Holocaust, is nonexistent and his grip on some matters of present reality, such as the right of Israel to exist or the nature of the United States, is no better, his understanding of the actual nature of power in Iran is quite good.

At least it is good enough that Ahmadinejad realises that his outrageous statements (his shows of bellicosity alternating with fox-guarding-the-chicken coop protestations of loving peace) are guaranteed to do two things: Twist Uncle Sam's beard and be crowd pleasers back home.

The Geek has no difficulty visualizing the Protector of the Revolution and the capo de tutti capos of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps stomping their feet with pure delight every time some high US official hyperventilates over the latest Ahmadinejad verbal assault. Even some Iranian "politicians" who voted for Ahmadinejad-the-Fearless-Reformer state they regret having done so nonetheless give him thumbs-up for his performance as National Orator.

The combination of Ahmadinejad's oratory and the reactions by the US and other governments which give the words a reality they would otherwise lack have combined to invoke the law of unintended consequences.

The what?

The law of unintended consequences, an often overlooked component of life which rivals the law of gravity in importance.

You see, by pretending that Ahmadinejad is an independent locus of power in Iran, he is given a status that he doesn't deserve. He is not a center of power in the sense that the president of the United States or prime minister of the UK is.

Ahmadinejad's power is bestowed. We give it to him. We make him useful to the Ayatollah Khamenei and the mullahocracy. Our reactions make the Orator-in-Chief useful as a crowd pleaser, a diversion for the Iranian people from the very real problems that confront them today.

Far from presiding over a period of reform as he promised (and perhaps hoped), Ahmadinejad is overseeing an economy that is in near meltdown, to say nothing of a society in which the heavy hand of the moral purity wing of the mullahocracy weighs heavier by the passing week. The only force that keeps Ahmadinejad in "power" is his value as a diversion.

The Iranian "president" is no dictator, no tyrant. He is as far from Adolph Hitler or Joseph Stalin as possible to imagine. The real power, the actual dictator, the genuine tyrant, is the Protector of the Revolution, Ayatollah Khamenei.

Get a grip on this. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is an orator, which is to say an amusing or infuriating puppet. In so far as we, Americans and others, huff, puff, and bloviate about Mahmoud, The Threat to Peace or The Insidious Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Evil Genius, we make him a useful tool for the dictator(s) pulling his strings.

Ahmadinejad is a celebrity of sorts. Like all celebs without real talent, he needs constant publicity to continue in celebrity status. If he were ever to be ignored for a month or two, he would go away.

That would make the Protector of the Revolution and the mullahocracy more visible--at least until they found another stooge.