By Cinnamon Stillwell
What a difference a popular uprising makes.
It seems like just yesterday that the Middle East studies establishment was busy defending Iran’s theocratic regime and its president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from the alleged predations of U.S. and Israeli foreign policy. Yet in the wake of the unrest in response to the stolen election, suddenly American academics have succumbed to intellectual honesty and moral clarity. Despite the best efforts of the Iranian regime to drum up conspiracy theories blaming the West for the uprising, the Iranians themselves have taken center stage.
This signals quite a shift. When Ahmadinejad, the supposedly elected leader at the heart of the current crisis in Iran, spoke at Columbia University in September 2007, his appearance was applauded by many academic apologists as a means of “reaching out.” Columbia University Islamic studies professor Richard Bulliet went so far as to act as an intermediary between the university and the Iranian regime in arranging the appearance. As reported by the New York Sun in September 2007:
What a difference a popular uprising makes.
It seems like just yesterday that the Middle East studies establishment was busy defending Iran’s theocratic regime and its president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from the alleged predations of U.S. and Israeli foreign policy. Yet in the wake of the unrest in response to the stolen election, suddenly American academics have succumbed to intellectual honesty and moral clarity. Despite the best efforts of the Iranian regime to drum up conspiracy theories blaming the West for the uprising, the Iranians themselves have taken center stage.
This signals quite a shift. When Ahmadinejad, the supposedly elected leader at the heart of the current crisis in Iran, spoke at Columbia University in September 2007, his appearance was applauded by many academic apologists as a means of “reaching out.” Columbia University Islamic studies professor Richard Bulliet went so far as to act as an intermediary between the university and the Iranian regime in arranging the appearance. As reported by the New York Sun in September 2007:
In a meeting of the Columbia faculty senate on December 8, 2006, before the university extended and then rescinded an invitation to the Iranian president to speak on campus, Mr. Bulliet argued in favor of providing him a platform. Mr. Bulliet said he attended a breakfast meeting with the Iranian and found him to be a “very reasonable speaker, a very effective debater.” Read more ...
Source: FPM
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