Juan Cole: new Iranian president used Bush/Rove tactics to win

[Cocoa]

http://www.juancole.com/2005/06/ahmadinejad-uses-bushs-tactics-supreme.html

<snip>


Newly elected Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad won in some part by using the same electoral tools as George W. Bush and Karl Rove.

1. Smear Tactics

Ahmadinejad's supporters smeared his chief rival, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani by spreading all sorts of false rumors about him. Negative campaigning is illegal in Iran, but complaints to the rightwing judges went nowhere because they support Ahmadinejad. (See below).

Bush supporters in South Carolina in the 2000 elections smeared his Republican rival for the nomination John McCain by falsely suggesting (via a phony telephone poll) that he had had an interracial affair that produced an illegitimate child. In the 2004 campaign, the White House directed the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to smear John Kerry as a liar and coward with regard to his distinguished military record, while chicken hawk Bush, who did not even properly serve out his time as a reservist back in the US, was depicted as some sort of war hero.

2. False Consciousness

Ahmadinejad, a rightwinger, poses as a champion of the common people, and once dressed up as a street sweeper. He thus got a lot of working class people to vote for him, even though he will do the bidding of billionaire clerical hardliners who have done little for ordinary folks.

Likewise, George W. Bush affects a southern drawl (he is from Connecticut) and makes himself out to be a friend of the common man, with his "tax cuts" and program to "save" social security. In fact, everything Bush does primarily benefits the rich and actually hurts the interests of workers and farmers. Nevertheless, as with Ahmadinejad, he gets many in the working classes to vote for him.

3. Posing as a Critic of the Government You Run

more...

[leftchick]

1. woohoo! he really rakes Michael Ledeen (neo-freak) over the coals

Go Juan..

~snip~

By the way, speaking of cadets, Space Cadet Michael Ledeen over at the American Enterprise Institute alleged last week that hardliners brought two million Pakistanis over to vote for Ahmadinejad. Presumably they would have been brought in to Zahedan in Iranian Baluchistan from Quetta.

Ledeen fancies himself a Middle East expert and is trying hard to get up a US war on Iran, having been helpful in getting up the Iraq War, which he promised us would go so well.

Let me explain a few basics to Mr. Ledeen.

1. You can't move 2 million people through the Baluchistan desert in a short period of time. A population movement that massive could even be seen by satellite.

2. Pakistanis are largely Sunnis. They don't like the Iranian regime, which is their rival. They would not go vote in Iran. Even the Shiite minority would not, and it wouldn't vote for Ahmadinejad if it could.