‘Opposition supporters who attended the Friday Prayer service in Tehran had responded to calls to chant “Death to America!” by chanting “Death to Russia!” instead’, Robert Mackey writes in today’s New York Times blog.
Though I completely agree with the commenter who noted
‘I’m not sure that “Death to Russia!” is the best way to reject anti-US animosity. It would be much better if the protestors could rally with pro-freedom or democracy chants rather than just demonising a different foreign power’,
there is definitely something to be said for lumping Ahmadinejad with Putin, even though this kinship has nothing to do with the tired and simplistic Western allegation that ‘both are dictators’.
Rather, as Slavoj Zizek writes in the current issue of the London Review of Books, Ahmadinejad and Putin embody a growing new ‘virus of authoritarian capitalism [that] is slowly but surely spreading around the globe’.
Ahmadinejad ‘has the backing not only of the organs of police repression and a very Westernised PR apparatus [but is also] supported by a powerful new class of Iranians who have become rich thanks to the regime’s corruption’.
The same could be said of Putin, whose popularity rests on symbolically ‘throwing crumbs’ to the people whilst actually maintaining an authoritarian free-market system.
A few months ago, I wrote about the early stages of the conflict in Ukraine through the lens of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. While it appears likely that the war will carry on into the foreseeable future, enough time has passed for us to make an honest assessment of each side’s relative […]
The Ukrainian Army has made dramatic strides in the last few weeks. Ukraine’s tactical commanders have outfoxed their Russian counterparts, and by issuing a feint towards the south the UA has been able to earn substantial gains in the north of their country. The impact of these efforts have been compounded by the steady stream […]
In mid-May the Irish political party, Sinn Féin, won the plurality of seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Many American readers might not fully understand the significance of Sinn Féin’s political victory- but rest assured that subjects of the United Kingdom and a wide range of political movements the world over have heard the message […]
The first wave of the Russian offensive in Ukraine has fallen short of Russian autocrat Vladmir Putin’s ambitions. Most analysts deduced that Putin had hoped to achieve a decapitation strike of the Ukrainian government- taking Kiev and replacing Ukrainian President Vladimir Zolinski with a pro-Kremlin voice. Kiev has been threatened repeatedly through the course of […]
On the weekend of March 26th, the notorious MS-13 gang went on a massive killing spree in El Salvador which left more than 70 people dead by Sunday. Even for a country where powerful gangs hold massive sway, this recent tragedy stands out considering that it was the bloodiest day on record since the civil […]
