“The Occupy Wall Street movement is a tide in an ocean and it is foreseeable that a storm is on its way to hit American society,” said Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, a former Majlis speaker and the candidate who received by far the largest number of votes in the spring Majlis elections.
He was speaking last Monday at the closing ceremony of the First International Wall Street Downfall Cartoon Festival in Tehran.
Although the Occupy Wall Street movement has largely faded and draws little attention in the United States anymore, it is reported in the Iranian media as if it is still going strong like it was last fall and winter. The cartoon festival was part of the Iranian effort to portray the movement as a major one threatening the foundations of American society.
The winning cartoon, shown above, turned out to be one with a heavy anti-Semitic cast. In recent weeks, the anti-Zionist fixation of the regime has morphed into an anti-Semitic campaign, something that had been avoided for decades but which is drawing no criticism today.
Haddad-Adel argued that Washington’s policy for maintaining US national integrity has always focused on contriving a foreign enemy in an attempt to deflect American public opinion from the country’s domestic problems, with 9/11 being a clear example. This kind of deflection campaign is quite common in authoritarian states and dominant in the Islamic Republic.
Haddad-Adel said, “Despite all these efforts, their [US] policies are gradually becoming ineffective and, internally, American society is grappling with public protests.”
Haddad-Adel called on the American people not to side with US politicians in their blame game against foreign elements and instead focus on the White House, Wall Street and the US economic system as the root cause of their problems.
He did not indicate that he saw anything to criticize in the Islamic Republic’s intense attribution of blame for Iranian problems on foreigners.
For those countries submissive to Washington’s policies, he said the Wall Street movement should point out the deep crises facing America, including hunger, drug addiction, family disintegration, the rule of capitalist one-percenters and the dominance of the Zionist lobbies over the US.