Is Ahmadinejad good for opposition to imperialism in general?
There is a foolish argument in some circles that holds that any state that is opposed by the US government is therefore automatically playing a progressive, anti-imperialist role and should be supported. On these grounds, many such ‘leftists’ have acted as apologists for murderous dictators like Milosevic and Saddam Hussein. Ironically, despite their current rhetoric, some US neo-conservatives favoured an Ahmadinejad victory. [19] They knew that on the main issues dividing the US and Iran – Tehran’s pursuit of nuclear energy, its support for Hamas and Hezbollah, and its insistence on forcing Israel to withdraw completely from the Occupied Territories – Ahmadinejad’s position was no different from that of Mousavi or that of Iranian public opinion. [20] But Ahmadinejad, with his confrontational style and his outrageous ‘questioning’ of the Holocaust, is a much easier leader to hate and fear; his continuing grip on power therefore serves the goals of neo-conservative hawks and Israeli har
