Second verse, same as the first

Senator John McCain, actual size

You probably don't remember the hotly-contested 2005 election in Iran, between Ali Akbar Rafsanjani and Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. Rafsanjani, like ex-President Katami, is a long-term figure in Iranian politics. His campaign was mature and reasonable, and focused on domestic issues like education and social welfare. He had a huge base. And yet the upstart Ahmedinejad won, and everyone in the rest of the world was surprised, because Ahmedinejad is just -well, a punk.

Yeah. Before the election, he was little more than a rabble-rouser. No one took him seriously, because his rhetoric was so nutty. Before the election, his only support appeared to be a group of "students" (taliban, in arabic. Ironic? Actually, no). So how did he get elected? Think 1990s Haiti, or 1980s Nicaragua or Panama, or even 1970s Iraq. Yeah that's right: we rigged it.

In other words, we propped him up just to have someone to knock down. We infiltrated their "student body" with anti-establishment propaganda (a'la 1960s America- when the FBI infiltrated student groups to de-fuse, diffuse and illegitemize the anti-war movement with drugs), and motivated them to vote for the punk. And that's why Rafsanjani is on the rise again. Because Ahmedinejad's support base was mostly smoke and mirrors.

What you're not reading in the US propaganda machine -er, I mean the American press, is that Rafsanjani and the more reasonable majority of Iran is not interested in Ahmedinejad's nuclear weapons ambitions. In fact, Ahmedinejad is having serious trouble on the home front, though the American propaganda machine would like us to believe that all of Iran hates us, loves Ahmedinejad, and desperately wants nuclear weapons (when in fact, they mostly just want nuclear power so they can sell more of their oil overseas).

We put him there -or rather, someone ensured that he would be elected, because he would play ball with them. Ahmedinejad, it was clear, would seek to escalate anti-US rhetoric, and in the money-centered Bushcheney world view, there is nothing more valuable than a well-armed enemy. Even if the arms are imaginary.

Iran doesn't want war with us. Bushcheney just wants war, period, and Iran provided a ready target. And now they're desperate for an excuse.