I let the words of the author of the article Ahmadinejad, an anti-imperialist – really? explain where he is coming from. The author is an Iranian exile Soheil Asefi.

As a young writer and I’d like to think, a progressive, I have been giving this a lot of thought. Is Ahmadinejad really ‘anti-imperialist’?  This question has provoked extensive debate not only among the Iranian left and democratic forces, but between these forces and the extremist neo-liberal forces in Iran.

Perhaps my Google+ friend, Hassan Moradi, would like to step in and express an opinion.

Progressives in the west have two battles to fight with respect to Iran.  It is hard to know which one to concentrate on first.

The primary battle these days is to try to prevent the USA from starting a war in Iran to gain control of Iranian oil.  We also want to prevent Israel from dragging us into a war even faster than some in the USA oil industry want.

The second battle of course is for freedom in Iran.  How do we fight that battle without our injecting our prejudices into Iranian politics?  Perhaps the religious right in Iran wants to drag the country back 1400 years and many Iranians do not want to take that trip.  We are fighting the same battle in the USA with our purportedly religious right (and co-opted by the ultra wealthy).  With the USA split on this issue itself, I think it is not realistic for Iranians to think we can tell them how to solve their problems over this issue.

I really don’t think that Iranians on either side of their internal conflict really want the USA to come in and install another Shah. So hard hearted as it may seem, the Iranians are going to have to figure this one out on their own.  If there were a clear cut, democratic direction in Iran, we could encourage it, but I do not think anyone inside Iran who can think clearly about the consequences wants us to intervene militarily.