Iran: Mousavi a US agent

posted at 8:15 am on July 4, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
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Well, of course Mirhossein Mousavi is an American agent.  After all, what do we seek in stooges for our clandestine service?  Men who have helped collaborate to kill over 240 Marines in Lebanon get right past the written exam and have their SEIU application fast-tracked.

It does look like Mousavi has been kicked out of the Mullahs Club, though:

A top aide to Iran’s supreme leader called the country’s main opposition figure a U.S. agent and said in an editorial Saturday he should be tried for committing crimes against the nation.

While hard-line figures had previously demanded Mir Hossein Mousavi to be prosecuted for describing Iran’s June 12 elections fraudulent and leading demonstrations afterward, the editorial was the first public declaration that the opposition leader was a foreign agent. …

“It has to be asked whether the actions of (Mousavi and his supporters) are in response to instructions of American authorities,” said Hossein Shariatmadari in an editorial appearing in the conservative daily Kayhan.

Shariatmadari doesn’t hold a government position but is the powerful director of the Kayhan newspaper group and a close adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He added that Mousavi was trying to “escape punishment for murdering innocent people, holding riots, cooperating with foreigners and acting as America’s fifth column inside the country.”

This isn’t desperation as much as it is rote.  The mullahs have followed their usual pattern of discrediting their opposition, which they routinely cast as foreign influence designed by demons to destroy Allah’s anointed kingdom.  The Great Satan usually gets cast in this role — after all, it wouldn’t do to have some third-string demon attacking something as divine as the Iranian mullahs — but the Iranians have taken no chances over the last three weeks.  They’re using the shotgun approach and blaming everyone.

Iranians may have trouble swallowing that this time.  In order to believe that, the mullahs had to have been duped into working with Mousavi as Prime Minister in the early days of the revolution.  Khamenei himself partnered with Mousavi during that time.  Is Khamenei so gullible as to work with the Great Satan’s minion?  Even more difficult will be selling Mohammed Khatami as an agent of one of the pantheon of satans the mullahs like to reference, since Khatami worked closely with them as late as last year.

This probably wasn’t written to convince anyone Mousavi was a foreign agent.  It’s the signal that Mousavi has been removed from the ruling clique forever.  Mousavi has little to lose politically by challenging the mullahs’ power now — although certainly he has plenty to lose physically, as does his family. (h/t: Steven G)

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