quote:The head of Iran's security council said Tuesday that the re-election of President Bush was in Tehran's best interests, despite the administration's axis of evil label, accusations that Iran harbors al-Qaida terrorists and threats of sanctions over the country's nuclear ambitions.
Historically, Democrats have harmed Iran more than Republicans, said Hasan Rowhani, head of the Supreme National Security Council, Iran's top security decision-making body.
"We haven't seen anything good from Democrats," Rowhani told state-run television in remarks that, for the first time in recent decades, saw Iran openly supporting one U.S. presidential candidate over another.
Though Iran generally does not publicly wade into U.S. presidential politics, it has a history of preferring Republicans over Democrats, who tend to press human rights issues.
"We do not desire to see Democrats take over," Rowhani said when asked if Iran was supporting Democratic Sen. John Kerry against Bush.
The Bush campaign said no thanks.
Now, that's what I call hardball politics. Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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In other words Iran is endorsing Kerry in full knowledge that American voters will respond negatively to whom they believe to be endorsed.
Posts: 3446 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Do you suppose that's our strategy too? Endorse the candidate or leader in foreign countries that we'd most like to see lose or be assasinated? That might explain why we keep denouncing Castro, yet he's survived unharmed, right in our backyard, since the dawn of time. All our initiatives against him have been engineered to fail, and boost his credibility as an anti-American, when in fact he's our top choice for Cuban leader.
Seriously, though, human rights is an issue where Iran has many reasons to prefer Bush to Democrats. An example would be the debacle in April, 2003 when the U.S. and Iran teamed up in the U.N. to remove a ten-year-old clause from the declaration against violence against women saying that countries should "refrain from invoking any custom, tradition or religious consideration" to justify violence against women.
Another example is that Bush's zero-tolerance policy against funding abortions has often effectively meant no funding birth control or sex education abroad at all. I would guess Iran is happy about that.
So disregarding the question of whether Iran thinks they would be pressured more to change under Bush or under Kerry, I think it's safe to say they like Bush's global humanitarian agenda better than Kerry's.
Posts: 535 | Registered: Sep 2000
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I think it shows that, whatever else you may say, someone in Tehran has a sense of humor.
Seriously, it shouldn't affect anyone's vote, since the whole thing is really transparent. Still can't help but chuckle a little as I imagine Bush, Cheney and Rove getting this news.
This is reminiscent of the Cuban offer to provide election judges and monitors to help prevent the widespread problems in the 2000 election.
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So, it looks like the axis of evil supports Bush...
I suppose it should be no surprise, given that we took out their two crazy neighbors while distracting everyone enough to provide them (and their fellow axis-member North Korea) plenty of time to develop a nuclear weapons program. What fundamentalist country wouldn't be happy about that? Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
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