Salad Shirazi
While many of us spent the entire last year arguing if Ms. Aghdashlou is prettier or Googoosh guess what happened? The British team won again!

July 1, 2005
iranian.com

In recent days there has been many complaints about the result of the presidential election in Iran. Calm down fellow Persians and ponder on this Persian poem:

Nekouhesh makon charkheh nilofaree raa
Boroon kon zesar baadeh khiresaree raa
Toe chon khod konie akhtareh khish raa bad
Madaar az falak chashme neak-akhtaree raa

The English translation is something like “when you voted for the Islamic Republic back in 1979 did you really think you bought a goose that lays golden eggs?”

When Islamization of the west Asia started in early 70’s one word of caution to the wise man was to not set his expectations too high. Did you really think there would ever be a realistic presidential election in Iran under this adulterated constitution where facial hair is the ruling party’s platform? And were we all so naïve to think that there would be changes for the better?

First of all let’s dissect the election process in Iran and then we touch on other issues. Iran proved to be the only country in the world that the number of its presidential candidates is larger than it’s population! For god sake did you see the pre-election confusion that they created by dropping all those names? Well it was only to numb your senses, the same tactic that FOX television uses in this country!

While many of us spent the entire last year arguing if Ms. Aghdashlou is prettier or Googoosh guess what happened? The British team won again! Yes, you snooze you lose. The election came down to two final candidates the American favorite Mr. Rafsanjani and the British underdog Mr. Ahmadinejad. The last few days were spent with huge sums of money distributed among the poor in southern Tehran and the rest of the country to buy votes -that you will only hear about 35 years from now (see Time magazine of July 2040 for details).

The name of the game was which powerhouse can cheat more on vote tampering and they even went as far as inviting several consultants from Florida’s Election Committee to learn from them about the art of winning a losing election. But then again Iranians themselves wrote the book on how to cheat on anything. Ask Jack Straw the British Foreign Minister he will tell you how every time he visits the Iranian Embassy in London his pocket gets picked and he loses his wallet, poor chap!

Don’t despair my friends, time is on your side. You see when you get old you will forget about all of these just like our parents did and the ones before them. When Islamization started by the British the goal was to give the nations of the west Asia the choice of having “Islam” or the “oil and uranium” and the understanding was that you can’t have both. As we say in Persian “you can’t have both -to eat the dates and to keep the donkey.” And since we were dubious about our choice the British decided on our behalf and told us that the best is if we choose Islamic government and they keep the access to the cheap oil and the abundance of the uranium and other resources in Iran.  

So what you see is not the result of apathy by a nation that failed to vote, the nation did vote, but their votes were all seized and are archived at the British embassy and instead duplicates were provided that showed Ahmadinejad won. In other words you did put your bet on a rigged horse race and lost your money. Poor Ahmadinejad, did you see his smile, even he was astonished and shocked himself of winning! He thought when they told him we want you to be the next president they were kidding, but no sir the British don’t kid you and they stay by their promise as long as you are willing to sell your country!

But let’s not spread rumors on Mr. Ahmadinejad. If you read the lopsided news out of BBC website that serves the British government they claim that “some say Mr. Ahmadinejad has ‘blood on his hands’” But I don’t think that is true and most likely the only blood on his hands was when he sacrificed a lamb a few years ago when there was a circumcision ceremony in a relative’s house, so that should make you relax now. And for all practical reasons he may end up to be a good president if he only shaves a little bit around his cheeks. Trim it a bit and he will be socially acceptable and that is what matters because we know he is not going to have any powers anyway.

Here is what was really funny? How bad can it get that even Mr. Rafsanjani complained of vote tampering after the election? He should have taken his complaints to the heads of the Free Masonry lodges in Iran and the Ekhvanol Moslemin that are running the shows behind the scenes!

Now you may wonder why Ahamadinejad? First of all he is fairly unknown and offers that little chance of a change from the status quo, even if it’s for worse. He is also anti-American (what the British want and in-line with their doctrine) and he has the capability of projecting a radical anti-west religious zealot that can sustain the hostility towards the west leading to further sanctions by the US and to better oil contracts for the British in the Caspian Sea were the British Petroleum is currently running the shows.

Most importantly for as long as this Islamization continues, Iran will not be able to tap its uranium to create enough electricity to sell to all the neighboring countries and to become an economic powerhouse. The issue is not the “bomb” my friends; the problem is that Iran is sitting on diverse natural resources that if the Islamization goes away it will become one of the most economically advanced countries in the world. Iran is not and should not look for the kind of economic mobility that India and Pakistan is looking for and are engaged in, which is to become textile manufacturing for the west and call centers of the western credit card companies.

The scarecrow of the nuclear bomb has created havoc on Iran’s progress and the only solution to that is that Iran voluntarily allows hundreds of western observers to attend its facilities periodically and monitor the progress, yet with the condition to not interfere with Iranian affairs if it indeed intends to create energy and not the bomb. You see a pragmatic president would have done that, and that is why the British installed their man on the job to make sure hostility with the US continues.

All of these puppet shows are in the name of “democracy.” Yet for the price of all the daisy and cluster bombs that were dropped on Afghanistan, Iraq and the Balkan’s in the past decade, we could all be sitting in Bali sipping on pena colada on our retirement with enough money left over to play bingo! Forget about democracy, viva Samuel Adams light!

Afghanistan is heading full speed towards democracy. Under the auspices of the allies Afghanistan now boasts and enjoys the freedom of having a few women not to cover their hairs, but at the same time they are back to be the number one opium producing country in the world with its biggest market, Iran! So you can clearly say that the Afghan democracy is spreading through Iran and Turkey in form of heroin and opium market and from there to the rest of the world!

“Una mas cervesa por favor!”

Sorry, I was talking to the waitress and got a little distracted.

But you know Arizona is the only place in the world that cannabis grows in the sky? That is true, on a recent trip to Arizona I heard on the news that in the middle of the night bales of marijuana were dropped from the sky and the police seized it. I guess it must have been the harvest season up in the stratosphere!

It all boils down to the question of “where did democracy originate from?” Well, allow me to present some references:

When Alexander’s army camped in Shiraz, they had the opportunity to taste many Persian food and in particular the famous Shirazi Salad. He loved it so much that ordered his top-ranked officer who was named General Corpus Stupidus to write down the recipe and take it to Macedonia with him. Years later the Greeks in their brilliance were still wondering how to make enough changes to convince the world that this is not a Persian recipe and instead a Greek creation.

The solution came in and around 301 BC and on a hot day after the Battle of Ispus when the Greek leader Antigonus ordered a ceasefire and sat for lunch and some of the generals asked him what solution can he offer to change the infamous Shirazi Salad to be called Greek Salad? In his impeccable wisdom and unmatched foresight he played with his mustache for a few seconds and replied:

“Add one black olive on the top and double the price. That is a Greek Salad.”

And the rest is history. Next week we will talk about how Ahmadinejad was involved in brave covert operations in Iraq during its war with Iran. Reportedly, Ahmadinejad who was a member of the Special Forces used to take the pilgrims to Karbala for half price and he personally drove the bus round trip!

About
Farrokh A. Ashtiani is the founder of PersianParadise.com