The Iranian regime has always dreaded fun. Western music is banned. Unchaperoned boys & girls together is banned. Women showing an ankle or some hair is banned, as is rental of bicycles to the ladies. The color green is banned, whether it’s the green in the flag behind Ahmadinejad on national tv, or, even though Flynt Leverett denies it, the green stripes on street curbs in Tehran. Now comes Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei with his latest joyless fatwa to forbid celebration of the fire ritual that Persians have celebrated for thousands of years. Tomorrow’s celebrations–or their absence–will give us yet another snapshot of what the Soviets loved to call “the correlation of forces,” the order of battle in the ongoing war between tyranny and freedom inside Iran. We will also see the extent of the West’s fecklessness. But there’s really no doubt of that, is there? |
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