Ignatius Fudges on Iranian Opposition Leader

David Ignatius is a pro, and I generally respect his editorial views. I have to quibble with him on this piece though.

Both Ignatius and I generally approve of the Obama Administration's handling of the Iranian election issue. I believe we have few good options, and so waiting and seeing remains at the top of the list. As Ignatius says, these are the early innings of what will be a long game.

One problem here though (and one seen throughout media reporting) is the extent to which the leader of the Iranian opposition (Mr. Mousavi) is legitimized as some sort of democratic icon (though somewhat undercut by Ignatius). Nothing could be further from the truth--he's an opportunistic politician riding a wave of youth-fueled enthusiasm. President Obama's statement last week alluding the the very real likelihood that a Mousavi government wouldn't be much different from an Ahmadenijad government is hinted at here by Ignatius:

"But the opposition has tough leaders, too, with deep roots in the 1979 revolution. Mir Hossein Mousavi, the defeated presidential candidate, is no starry-eyed democrat. As prime minister, he supervised the Department of Investigations and Studies, which ran some Iranian operations in Lebanon in the early 1980s."

"Ran some Iranian operations in the early 1980's" is a nice way of putting that he was one of the founders of Hezbollah, the Iranian backed terror movement that dominates Southern Lebanon and acts as an agent of Iranian mayhem in the region.

There is a really good chance that the only well-intentioned people in the Iranian electoral battle are the ones dying in the streets. The politicians they support seem cut of whole cloth.