I think that powerline post is pretty weak tea. A lot of people were optimistic about the Iranian Revolution in the early days for a variety of reasons - not least of which was the understandable relief at the removal of the Shah and the naive faith that whatever replaced it still had to end up being a significant improvement. They were wrong, but it's ridiculous to assert that everyone should have known this in 1979 and that anyone who said anything positive about the Islamic gov't in the first few months of it's existence, and before it actually started doing the evil things it evnetually did, necessarily sympathizes with what it eventually became.

One more thing.

If the radicals are just a tiny, misguided
minority of Islam that don't represent the Islamic faith, why are moderates telling us .. that we need to appease them?

Hmmmm .... would you say the same thing if an American politician said something similar? What if an American politician said something like "people are angry about Obamacare and if you don't repeal it they will start looking at 'second ammendment' solutions"?

Would you say that such a politician was "threatening" violence or would you say the politician was just making a statement of fact because there really are angry people in this country who really might decide to lash out violently if they continue to feel put upon and oppressed.

Well, likewise, there really ARE muslim radicals who really WILL use this incident to recruit new fighters and really WILL lash out at the US and anyone else they perceive to be related to this "attack" on their religion.

So, on what basis do you decide when such statements are threats or just statements of fact?

lib,

Yes, but Rauf hasn't walked that back at all in the 30 years since. He still endorses theocratic rule.

Also, it's not at all true that no one expected or should have expected Islamic rule would be exactly as horrible as it has been -- in fact that was the opinion of most on the right at the time. The Shah was far from ideal, but he was pro-Western and pro-modernization (much like the autocrats in Taiwan and S Korea who eventually gave way to something far better). It was immediately obvious his successors were neither.

Anon,

The American Revolution was a Second Amendment solution. It wasn't about killing people because they exercised freedom of speech.

Angle's statement has been widely taken out of context. She only stated what most Americans believe: the 2nd Amendment exists partly as a check on the government's power.

They've got Christian idiots burning Korans on the one hand...

Yep, and if they are really a liberal and tolerant they'll deal with the insults just like the rest of us.

Meanwhile all the rest will be further revealed as anything but liberal or tolerant; in other words our enemies.

Yes, but Rauf hasn't walked that back at all in the 30 years since.

How do you know this? Because you are not personally aware of him doing so? How much of his statements and writing from the last 3 decades do you have access to?

This statement of his emerged a few days ago. Do you really think that the fact that the fact that you haven't yet read about any "walkback" since then proves he still thinks the same thing?

Frankly, I know very little about this dude. I know enough about the American partisan media to know that, if he actually has actually made statements of regret, you certainly won't hear about it from the sources who are hyping up his 30 year old generic statement of support.

He still endorses theocratic rule.

Actively? Or are you just extrapolating from the fact that you are not personally aware of any retractions issued over the last 30 years?

You want to see a REAL model of mendacious bullshit in support of an evil regime then go read the story about Chomsky's "Distortions at Fourth Hand".

"Distortions" is a mealy mouthed defense of the Khmer Rouge disguised as an exercise in media criticism. Basically, Chomsky takes the "I don't really know the truth but here's why all the people reporting it are probably liars" approach. That is bad, but by itself could be chalked up to naivete. However, to this day Chomsky continues to insist that he wasn't "wrong" about anything at all and that he was only offering criticism of the early reporting of genocide. Anyone who reads DAFH and isn't already a Chomskyite would see that as total bullshit - he clearly thought that the reports of genocide were false.

Now, if you can find quotes from this Imam actively supporting the current regime, or even pulling a Chomsky and saying "Well, I wasn't really wrong about what I said before" then I will believe you. If your only argument is that he didn't stand up and publicly denounce ever having supported them in any way, then I will still be very skeptical of any claim that he still supports them, let alone "theocratic rule" in general.

lib,

Rauf endorsed theocratic rule on 2009, and cited specifically the principle of vilayet-i-faquih that the Ayatollahs use to justify their rule.

http://riseofthecenter.com/2010/08/26/hitchens-on-imam-raufs-dark-sides/

It's important to realize this is the demarcation between Muslim liberals and Muslim theocrats -- and the Sistani school of Shia thought rejects vilayet-i-faquih, so it isn't like this is just something all Muslims, or even all Shia, believe it. One can be a relatively moderate theocrat, of course, but not a liberal theocrat.

Perhaps I should write a post on this. The rise of the Najaf school of thought may turn out to be the biggest consequence of liberating Iraq, as Iranians grow more disgusted with their pseudo-democracy every day.