The big news from Iran this morning is that there is very little news.
Almost 24 hours ago, President Ahmadinejad was taking the platform at Ayatollah Khomeini’s shrine to speak to the audience at Tehran Friday Prayers. Soon after that, the Supreme Leader — in his first Friday Prayer sermon in more than 11 months — denounced Israel and the US and threatened the opposition with “annihilation”.
Almost 24 hours later and, apart from whipping up the die-hard supporters in the shrine’s courtyard, there is little left of the speeches. Press TV is back on the Gaza story — indeed, most of their coverage of the Ahmadinejad-Khamenei addresses was about Israel-Palestine rather than Iran — and even Fars has “disappeared” the Friday Prayers from the front page of its website. (It should be noted that the Islamic Republic News Agency continues to elevate the story, with the full text of the Supreme Leader’s address heading its page.)
Now for a bit of irony. If there is a legacy from yesterday, it is a Khomeini legacy. However, it’s not just the fact that Ahmadinejad and Khamenei were basing their appeals on the commemoration of the 21st anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Khomeini.
When part of the crowd shouted down Seyed Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of the Ayatollah, I have to wonder how the “common man/woman” in Iran views the incident. After all, the regime based much of its anti-opposition line last autumn on the supposed… >>>
