Mahmoud A. on homosexuality

(originally posted on 9/26/07)

There are no homosexuals in Iran according to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He is, of course, wrong. There are plenty of homosexual Iranians. They likely live closeted lives with women they don't love due to the repression of the theocratic regime. Oh, yeah, that's another thing that people forget about Iran, the ultimate power rests in, not the president, but Supreme Leader Khomeni. Ahmadinejad isn't a dictator, because he doesn't ahve the power to be one. He's a mouthpiece, a figurehead. He answers to Khomeni, as presidents of Iran ahve since the revolution that deposed the Shah in 1978. Interestingly, it's US post-WWII foreign policy that ousted the democratically elected Prime Minister in favor of the (previously less powerful) Shah, whose autocratic policies led to the Islamic revolution. Another case of Cold War shortsightedness (see Vietnam, Cambodia, Nicaragua, et cetera).