by Robert Spencer, PJ Media:
The establishment media can barely contain its excitement over Iran’s newly elected president, Masoud Pezeshkian, who is, “journalists” can’t stop reminding us, a “reformist.” But does his election herald genuine reform in the Islamic Republic of Iran? Will the Islamic regime stop making war with its own citizens? Will the mullahs make peace with Israel and the United States? As it turns out, there are genuine reformists and there are recipients of media adulation. At least so far, Masoud Pezeshkian looks much more like the latter than the former.
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The media has certainly been energetically waving the pom-poms for Pezeshkian. The BBC explained Saturday that Pezeshkian “is critical of Iran’s notorious morality police” and “called for ‘constructive negotiations’ with Western powers over a renewal of the faltering 2015 nuclear deal in which Iran agreed to curb its nuclear programme in return for an easing of Western sanctions.” Meanwhile, the Beeb explained that Pezeshkian’s black-hatted opponent, Saeed Jalili, “is known for his hardline anti-Western stance and opposition to restoring the nuclear deal, which he says crossed Iran’s ‘red lines.’”
The Economist put it more bluntly: Pezeshkian, it said, is a “reform-minded heart surgeon who wants talks with the West and women to have the right to dress as they choose.” Pezeshkian, said the Wall Street Journal, will be a “reformist president” and “ran on a platform of re-engaging with the West and loosening the country’s strict moral codes for women.” Not that Pezeshkian will have an easy time of it; PBS reminds us that he “faces a government still largely controlled by hard-line clerics.”
Readers might get the impression from reports of this kind that Pezeshkian is poised to be a rational leader who seeks peace with Iran’s neighbors and the world at large, and who wants to curb the Islamic regime’s hardline enforcement of Sharia so as to make Iranian society more humane and livable for women, and thus for all people. The Western media seems determined to portray Pezeshkian as someone Just Like Us, a man who, if he lived in Manhattan or Beverly Hills, would be a regular contributor to NPR, a subscriber to the New York Times, and as against nukes and pro-peace and feminist as the next guy.
