Iran Update

Here's a few updates on events in Mullahland. First is the text of "President" Ahmadinejad's interview with Der Spiegel is here. Some choice lunacy:

SPIEGEL: First you make your remarks about the Holocaust. Then comes the news that you may travel to Germany -- this causes an uproar. So you were surprised after all?

Ahmadinejad: No, not at all, because the network of Zionism is very active around the world, in Europe too. So I wasn't surprised. We were addressing the German people. We have nothing to do with Zionists.

SPIEGEL: Denying the Holocaust is punishable in Germany. Are you indifferent when confronted with so much outrage?

Ahmadinejad: I know that DER SPIEGEL is a respected magazine. But I don't know whether it is possible for you to publish the truth about the Holocaust. Are you permitted to write everything about it?

SPIEGEL: Of course we are entitled to write about the findings of the past 60 years' historical research. In our view there is no doubt that the Germans -- unfortunately -- bear the guilt for the murder of 6 million Jews.

Ahmadinejad: Well, then we have stirred up a very concrete discussion. We are posing two very clear questions. The first is: Did the Holocaust actually take place? You answer this question in the affirmative. So, the second question is: Whose fault was it? The answer to that has to be found in Europe and not in Palestine. It is perfectly clear: If the Holocaust took place in Europe, one also has to find the answer to it in Europe.

"Did the Holocaust actually take place." Lovely. More:

Ahmadinejad: But the other side is that there are a number of countries that possess both nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. They use their atomic weapons to threaten other peoples. And it is these powers who say that they are worried about Iran deviating from the path of peaceful use of atomic energy. We say that these powers are free to monitor us if they are worried. But what these powers say is that the Iranians must not complete the nuclear fuel cycle because deviation from peaceful use might then be possible. What we say is that these countries themselves have long deviated from peaceful usage. These powers have no right to talk to us in this manner. This order is unjust and unsustainable.

In answer to the question, "does your country want nuclear weapons?" I guess this constitutes an uequivocal "yes." And, oh by the way, he'll use them to "wipe Israel off the map." With talk like this, Ahmadinejad should be on his way to becoming a darling of the Western Left.

Michael Ledeen has some good words of warning here.

Meanwhile, in Tehran and around the country, the high arbiter of "justice" has ordered his troops to shoot the ever-increasing numbers of protesters -- college students, ethnic Azeris, and Turkmens. Gateway Pundit has a wrap-up:

Pan Armenian News is one source reporting a slaughter of Azeri protesters in Tehran:

The elemental rally of South Azerbaijanis next to the Iranian Parliament building on May 28 was suppressed with special cruelty. Iranian authorities used (Yegani Bizhe) the Special Punitive Guard, which opened fire to suppress manifestations of Azerbaijanis, says a statement of the Committee for Protection of Rights of South Azerbaijan. The message says that during mass protest in Iran 50 Azeris were killed, 600 were wounded, over 1000 are arrested.

Iranian authorities used force against peaceful rally participants in Tabriz, Teheran, Urmia, Parsabad, Meshkina, Sulduz. The rally of Azeris scheduled in Tabriz May 28 was drowned in blood.

The "special punitive guard." Again, lovely. This is "justice," Iranian style. More:

The Iranian Turkmens Society issued a statement today is support of the Azeris protesters in Iran:

The Iranian Turkmens consider the insult to the Azeri people as done to them, the Turkmensahra Liberation Organization told APA. The statement reads that the caricature published on the Iran Daily, which is insulting the entire Azeri nation, has been purposefully prepared.

"As a matter of fact, the expressions in the article display the viewpoint of the chauvinistic Farsi dominance in Iran towards the Turks. Farsi chauvinists try everything possible to prevent the Iranian Turks learn and use their native tongue.

Local sources in northwest Iran report that the slogans seen on the display banners were unprecedented during the past quarter century!

The mainstream media may be ignoring this news but Cox & Forkum did not.

What's that you say? You haven't heard about massive protests in Iran? Just about our Marines shooting innocent women and children in Iraq? If these protests had occurred in Iraq and been suppressed by the government or US troops, they would be the talk of the world for months. You'll see numerous stories about US shootings in Haditha and Kabul in the WaPo and the NYT, but not a word about Tehran. That is why the blogosphere is necesary.

Monk