Twice in the past week, Khamenehi has delivered major speeches attacking the video and asserting flatly that the United States government is itself behind the video with the goal of humiliating Muslims.
Khamenehi disparaged American claims to support freedom of expression. He said people in the West are forbidden to deny the Holocaust or criticize homosexuality
The allegation that criticism of homosexuality is forbidden was a new one for Khamenehi.
On the Holocaust, Kha-menehi was careful to say that “many Western states” punish Holocaust deniers. He left the impression with his listeners that this included the United States, but he never actually said the United States imprisons Holocaust deniers.
While many European countries have laws on their books to punish Holocaust deniers, that is not possible under the US Constitution, which also protects citizens who assert that President Obama was not born in the United States and is ineligible to be president.
While Khamenehi was clearly trying to stand at the forefront of the anti-American movement and cast himself as its leader, there was no indication that was working. The anti-American riots across of the Muslim world appear to have been largely spontaneous, sparked by local clerics or jihadi radicals, not Khamenehi. They have now spread to more than 20 countries.
But most of the riots have involved only hundreds of participants, a minuscule proportion of the more than one billion Muslims. In Benghazi, where the rioting first broke out, citizens later gathered in a demonstration to condemn the rioting. The New York Times said the anti-jihadi demonstration garnered many times more participants than the anti-American riot in the city.
The Iran Times has not seen reports from any countries citing rioters as quoting Khamenehi or citing him as a reason for their anti-Americanism. His impact appears insignificant. But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been trying.
In two speeches this past week, Khamenehi pooh-poohed Western claims to respect freedom of expression, asking why they allow someone to insult Islam while punishing those who deny the Holocaust.
Addressing an Army cadet graduation ceremony at Imam Khomeini Naval Academy in the northern city of Nowshahr Monday, Khamenehi referred to the new video and said, “We do not insist on proving that certain people or government officials were involved in this crime. But the behavior and methods of the leaders of the arrogant powers, American politicians and certain European countries have caused the peoples of the world to point the finger of blame at them.”
He said, “They should prove that they were not an accomplice in this great crime and they cannot do so by simply denying their involvement. They should prove their innocence with actions. They should prevent such transgressions.”
As to why the US government would want to produce such a video, Khamenehi said the enemies of Islam are frustrated by the steadfastness of the Iranian people and by the wave of what Iran calls the Islamic Awakening and the rest of the world calls the Arab Spring.
Khamenehi said, “The great wave of the Islamic Awakening is what causes them [Westerners] to do such idiotic things.”
He said, “They argue that because of their respect for freedom of expression, they cannot prevent people from committing such great sins. Who would believe this in the world?”
He said Westerners are driven by their great bias against Islam and hatred for Islam. “It is because of these motives that the arrogant powers have not prevented people from insulting what is held sacred in Islam—and they will not do so in the future either.”
Khamenehi said, “Today in many western countries, nobody dares question the Holocaust, which is factually questionable. According to the reports I have received, in America, if people decide to write something against homosexuality on the basis of psychological and sociological principles, they will be prevented from publishing their work. How is it that these people can claim to respect freedom of expression?”
The Supreme Leader said the US government supports dictators while claiming to advocate democracy. “Nobody would believe that the American regime is a supporter of democracy, a regime that supported a person like [Egyptian President] Hosni Mubarak for 30 years and a person like Mohammad Reza Pahlavi for 35 years in spite of all those crimes he committed in Iran.”
Khamenehi said the popular protests in front of American embassies in different countries are a sign that the peoples of the world deeply hate the policies of the arrogant powers and the Zionists.
“Governments do not protest because of certain considerations, but peoples cannot tolerate this any longer. Whenever they find an opportunity like this, they protest against centers affiliated with America, against America’s social and political centers in different countries. They hate America.” __
At the end of his speech, he said: “The confrontation between Islam and the arrogant powers of our time will undoubtedly end with a victory for Islam.”
In the United States, meanwhile, Islamic organizations gathered to issue public statements condemning both the video and the violent reactions to it in the Muslim world.
They also pointedly defended the US government and divorced it from responsibility for the film.
Nihad Awad, national executive director of Washington-based Council; of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said, “Those who created this trashy film do not represent the people of America or the Christian faith. The only proper response to international provocations such as this film is to redouble efforts to promote mutual understanding between faiths and to marginalize extremists of all stripes.”
Imam Mohamed Magid, president of the Islamic Society of North America, said, “Although we believe that this video is hateful and bigoted, this could never be an excuse to commit any acts of violence whatsoeverÖ. No one should fall into the trap of those who wish to incite anger.”
CAIR produced a video in Arabic that asked Arabs to emulate the Prophet, who did not retaliate in kind to personal abuse.
The comments by American Muslim leaders did not get widespread coverage in the US media—or in the media in the Muslim world, for that matter.
GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney told ABC News, “The idea of using something that some people consider sacred and then parading that out in a negative way is simply inappropriate and wrong. And I wish people wouldn’t do it. Of course, we have a First Amendment. And under the First Amendment, people are allowed to do what they feel they want to do. They have a right to do that. But it’s not right to do things that are of the nature of what was done by, apparently, this film.”
President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier condemned the video’s attack on Islam. Only hours after the attack in Benghazi, Obama issued a statement condemning that attack. But he included in that statement focused mainly on the bloodshed that “the United States rejects efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.”
Days after Obama spoke out, the Foreign Ministry in Tehran issued a statement condemning the Administration for its “silence” and saying the lack of reaction from the White House encouraged others to offend Islam. “The US government’s systematic and continued silence on such repulsive acts is the fundamental reason they keep happening,” it said. Four day later, the Foreign Ministry repeated its charge that the Obama Administration had failed to condemn attacks on Islam.
Most of the Iranian media has continued reporting that the film was made by an American Jew with $5 million in funds contributed by about 100 other Jews. That was initially reported in the American media, but was soon disproved. The only person directly linked to the video so far is an Egyptian-born Copt living in California, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula. But most Iranian media outlets have just stick with the disproved Jewish link.
In one of the more surprising reactions to come out of the Islamic Republic, Major General Mohammad-Ali Jafari, commander of the Pasdaran, criticized the killing of the US ambassador to Libya and three of his aides in the attack on the Benghazi consulate. “Definitely this did not warrant killing,” Jafari said in response to a question at a news conference last week.