Just posted in the LA Times, the following headline: Ahmadinejad a hero for Arabs
Not just Sunnis either, but...
What's striking in Ahmadinejad's case, however, is that the leader of a non-Arab Shiite nation has ingratiated himself with the Middle East's predominantly Sunni Arab population.
How dare they post an article like this right after journalist Scott Pelley pitched him all of those spit-covered fastballs on 60 Minutes (see Richard Cranium's diary). Now he's a hero?! Great timing, LA Times!
Wait a tic... blimey, this redistribution of wealth demonizing of political adversaries is trickier than I thought.
Serious implications, after the jump...
Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a flinty populist in a zip-up jacket whose scathing rhetoric and defiance of Washington are often caricatured in the Western media, has transcended national and religious divides to become a folk hero across the Middle East.
source
Wait a minute, now he's a folk hero?! Get me John Rendon on the phone right now!
The LA Times piece, which has a great photograph of his zipped-up-ness, includes interviews with Egyptians and Jordanian from several walks of life, all but one of whom praised the Iranian leader (the dissenter said Ahmadinejad was too audacious). Egyptians, according to the article, compare him to revered President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Hmm, according the Nasser wikipedia entry, Nasser was only one of the most important political figures in Arab history. Dang, that hurts!
What is Ahmadinejad admired for the most? Why standing up to the United States, of course.
Back home in the USA, republican presidential candidates know how best to deal with flinty populists like Ron Paul. They cover their ears and say "lalalalalala I can't hear you." Unfortunately that strategy doesn't work so well in the world of international diplomacy. Worse still is the miscalculation in setting up the wily populist for an ambush on 60 Minutes by a sanctimonious scold who relayed the following "question" for Ahmadinejad:
I asked President Bush what he would say to you if he were sitting in this chair. And he told me-quote-speaking to you, that you’ve made terrible choices for your people. You’ve isolated your nation you’ve taken a nation of proud and honorable people and made your country the pariah of the world. These are President Bush’s words to you," Pelley said. "What’s your reply?
source
So, if Ahmadinejad is a folk hero in the mideast, I wonder who the pariah nation is...oh never mind.
Which leads me to the serious implication: attacking a middle eastern folk hero using the same flimsy causus belli that was employed in Iraq, thanks to the PR geniuses behind the blitz on Iran, has gone from being a bad idea to being a really bad idea:
Just ask Ibrahim Sufa, a Jordanian shop owner:
"He's good. I feel he's really a moderate. He talks in the extreme, but he acts with restraint," Sufa said. "If America hits him, the whole region will go on fire."
Now that's how you catapult the blowback!