Combining the worst of two worlds

Amir Aaheri:

ANXIOUS to create what they call "a global progressive front," Presidents Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela are sponsoring projects to underline "the ideological kinship of the left and revolutionary Islam."

The theme - hammered in by Ahmadinejad during his recent visit to Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia - inspired a four-day seminar organized by his supporters at Tehran University last week (partly financed by Chavez).

The hope was that the conference would produce a synthesis of Marxist and Khomeinist ideologies and highlight what the Iranian leader has labeled "the divine aspect of revolutionary war." But the event itself proved rather embarrassing.

The conference title was "Che Like Chamran," a play on words designed to emphasize "the common goals" of Marxism and Islamism. It honored Mostafa Chamran on the 26th anniversary of his death, which coincided with the 40th anniversary of the death of the Cuban-Argentine guerrilla icon Che Guevara.

Chamran was a Khomeinist militant of Iranian origin who became a U.S. citizen in the '60s before traveling to Lebanon, where he founded the Amal guerrilla group. He entered Iran in 1979 and helped the mullahs seize power. Appointed defense minister by Khomeini in '81, he died in a car crash a few months later.

The conference had three guests of honor: Mahdi Chamran, a brother of Mostafa and an Ahmadinejad associate, and Che's daughter Aleida and son Camilo.

Aleida, a pediatrician who lives in Havana, wore the mandatory Khomeinist hijab, while her brother had grown designer stubble to please the hosts. Also attending were an array of aging European and Latin American "Guevaristas" and Lebanese Hezbollah cadres.

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The combination of religious bigots and atheist communist seems strange on the surface, but they do share a common trait. It is the totalitarian domination required for either to govern. Neither can do so through popular support. Both require the willingness to commit genocide in order to prevail. The communist have shown that by the millions and the Khomeinist have also demonstrated that mass murder of people who oppose them is entirely acceptable to their leaders.