This week, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will address the United Nations General Assembly for the sixth year in a row. As he strides toward the podium to deliver yet another rambling, hate-filled speech, Iranians will grimly reflect on the entrenchment of the clerical regime that has ruled them since 1979.
The contrast with other countries in the Middle East where long-established dictatorships have finally been overthrown — most obviously Libya and Egypt — leaves Iranians with a distinctly bitter taste. After Ahmadinejad stole the presidential election in 2009, Iranians took to the streets in exactly the kinds of protests that have ricocheted around Arab countries this past year.
