http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=2758
It’s all about Iran
The Eid el-Adha holiday began Thursday. This is the “Feast of the Sacrifice” during which Muslims make their annual hajj (pilgrimage) to Mecca. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei prepared and aired a televised message to the global flock over which he claims patronage.
As is his wont, Khamenei took the opportunity to infuse his religious sermon with politics and radical ideology. And due to the abundance of current events relevant to the chief mullah and his “congregants,” he had more to stew and spew about than usual.
Let us not forget that Tehran is monitoring the lead-up to the U.S. presidential election with as much nail-biting anxiety as the rest of us. Tehran is not happy about the prospect of a changing of the guard in Washington on November 6. Indeed, if there’s one thing the Islamic republic knows, it is that U.S. President Barack Obama has been the best person to have in the White House since Jimmy Carter. While Carter sat by and let Iran fall into the hands of the mullahs in 1979, Obama has stood at attention as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s regime marches full-force forward with its nuclear program.
This is not to say that Khamenei has developed any fondness for the United States during the past four years. On the contrary, just as his predecessor Ayatollah Khomeini loathed Carter for being both American and weak, so, too, does Khamenei harbor nothing but hatred and contempt for Obama. This is particularly the case as he watches the U.S. president squirm over getting caught lying about his response to last month’s murder of four Americans, among them the ambassador, at the consulate in Benghazi on the anniversary of September 11. It is precisely Obama’s kind of pathetic posturing on behalf of the Islamic world, however, that serves Khamenei’s interests.
That is why he fears a Mitt Romney victory. He figures that the Republican contender would be more likely to get in the way of his grand plan for the Middle East (and beyond, eventually). He also worries that a Romney administration would be less inclined than the incumbent crew to put “daylight” between America and Israel. Such a possibility spells danger for him and his nukes. It also bodes ill for his alliances with the Arab Spring radicals whom he already controls, and those — such as in Syria —whom he is trying to defeat.
