Now everyone knows today is Super Tuesday in our presidential election cycle. Today is a very integral day in the march towards whom will earn the respective political party nomination. But there were some elections elsewhere in the world that will have an impact on the next American presidential administration.
As reported by the Washington Free Beacon, “Early election results from Iran indicate that the country elected on Friday another crop of hardline officials, including those who have expressed hatred for the United States and Israel and who stand accused of planning the murder of political opponents, according to information provided by organizations that observed the elections.
As the names of those officials who won a seat on Iran’s Assembly of Experts and other governing bodies begins to emerge, experts say it is becoming clear that hardline extremists will continue to control the Iranian government.
While some western media outlets have claimed that reformists made inroads in the latest election, regional experts explained that this is not the case, as moderate political camps ultimately endorsed on their voting lists more hardline candidates aligned with the Iranian ruling regime.
Iran’s Guardian Council, which oversees elections, is believed to have disqualified at least 60 percent of the potential candidates, including around 99 percent of those billed as reformists. As a result, even moderate political camps were forced to include hardliners on their own voting lists. “Radicals dominated the Assembly of Experts, as expected,” said Amir Toumaj, an Iran analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “The Guardian Council engineered the field so it would be that way.” Most of those who were prevented from running include those who have advocated warmer ties with Western powers.”
How nice. Here we have yet another example that there’s no such thing as reform happening in the Islamist Republic of Iran. Now, one would have thought perhaps those sanctions and frozen assets should have stayed in place contingent upon what happened in these elections.
Ask yourself, what did Iran surrender, or what behaviors have changed about Iran and its ruling regime? The only surrender was that of our ten Sailors on their knees, held at gunpoint by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps Navy. This element takes direction from the Supreme Leader and the Guardian Council. So imagine this, the Obama administration just handed over billions of dollars to a nation that has a regime of electoral enforcers who manipulate candidate lists. Apparently the hardliners in Iran aren’t about to relinquish power. In fact, they have every intent to consolidate it.
I must ask a rhetorical question, what is the value of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the Iranian nuclear agreement)? I believe we need to stop operating in this delusional state of existence that there is some nuclear agreement with Iran.
Iran has done everything to convey a message to Barack Obama and John Kerry that they don’t give a good doggone about the United States. Iran has fired off ballistic missiles. Iran has sought acquisition of tanks, fighter jets, and surface to air missiles. Iran has deployed its terrorist list Quds Force to Syria and Iraq, and is supporting Shiite militias. And Iran continues to shout death to America and death to Israel. Our response? We give them billions of dollars. And pathetic enough was the story we shared about the major aircraft producer who lobbied for the end of sanctions only for Iran to award a contract to Airbus, the French.
You want a taste of the types of folks the Iranian Guardian Council advocated for electoral victory?
“Mohammad Reyshahri, for instance, a former intelligence minister who was elected to the assembly, is accused of organizing the murder of scores of political prisoners. He is a close ally of Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, and has served him in several capacities. Reyshahri received the backing of both reformists and hardliners. Ghorbanali Dorri-Najafabadi, another election winner and former intelligence minister, also is believed to be behind the killing of Iranian dissidents and anti-government voices. As with Reyshahri, he was backed both by hardliners and reformists.
Ali Movahedi-Kermani, a radical Iranian cleric, also received support from Iran’s moderate factions. He has threatened to “trample upon America,” as well as bomb U.S. and Israeli interests. Mohammed Emami-Kashani, another radical cleric who won a seat on the assembly with the backing of moderates, has blamed the U.S. and Israel for creating al Qaeda.
Other election winners backed by reformists include Ayatollah Yousef Tabatabaeenejad, a religious radical who has called on civilians to use violence in order to enforce strict dress codes for women.”
“Leaders of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have praised the election results as a sign that the country remains committed to revolution, according to reports in Iran’s state-controlled media.
“The big turnout indicates that Iranians have remained loyal to the values and aspirations of the Islamic Revolution and reaffirm allegiance to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei,” the IRGC reportedly said in a statement. “There is no doubt that those chosen by the nation will subjugate the global hegemony and arrogance to their perceptiveness and alertness.”
This is the result of a feckless and weak foreign policy as demonstrated by President Obama. However, it will make for a really nice exhibit in his presidential library.
The next president of the United States will take the football field and the scoreboard will have them behind by five touchdowns — Iran, China, Russia, North Korea, and Islamic jihadists. And it will be the second quarter. We have a choice: elect someone who will put us further behind or someone who will begin to score for America.
