Iran Focus
Tehran, Iran, Feb. 19 – Iran criticised its principal opposition movement on Saturday for charging that it was behind the recent violence over cartoons depicting negatively the Islamic prophet Muhammad published in European dailies.
A coalition of Iranian dissidents, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), had accused Tehran of dispatching several clerics to European and Muslim countries as part of an effort to create an international uproar over the publication of the cartoons. The council, whose members include the People’s Mojahedin (or Mojahedin-e Khalq), said attacks on European embassies in Tehran were part of a deliberate effort by Iran’s ruling Shiite clerics to garner Muslim support in their face-off with the West over Iran’s controversial nuclear program.
Government-run Persian-language websites and news agencies lashed out at the People’s Mojahedin, accusing it of ignoring protests by Muslims around the world.
The semi-official Mehr news agency reported, “This claim comes at a time that even before the reaction of the Iranian people vis-à-vis these insults, dozens of Islamic countries of the world and Muslims from many European countries have reacted to the Western papers’ derogatory actions and insults to Islamic sanctities”.
The embassies of Austria, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, and Norway in Tehran have all come under attack by Islamists affiliated to the Revolutionary Guards.
billybob
It seems clear to me that it has been entirely in the interests of Iran and some other states to fan the flames over the Danish cartoons. In Irans case this is clearly designed to up-the-stakes at a time when they are inceasingly isolated internationally because of their nuclear ambitions. The timing of the crisis I think confirms such suspicions given that the cartoons had been published many months before and it was only as Iran faced being reported to the security council that events began to spiral uncontrollably. Iran ( and others) are clearly using the threat of instability (and hence an implied threat to oil supplies) to bargain their way out of any possibility that they will face sanctions over their nuclear activities. Regards to you and yours.
please visit http://scotland.21publish.com and say hello - we welcome all views and backgrounds.