A hmadinejad gave a speech in Orumieh today, in which he lashed out at President Obama, after the latter revealed new policies with regards to the use of nuclear weapons by the United States.
Bahrain’s Gulf Daily News quotes Ahmadinejad:
“Be careful. If you set step in George W. Bush’s path, the nations’ response would be the same tooth-breaking one as they gave Bush,” he said in Orumieh.
For all the puffed-up, belligerent rhetoric, he sure doesn’t seem to be able to draw much of a crowd. The following video was taken during his speech in Orumieh. It shows a sparse crowd.
(Via Mehdi Saharkhiz)
The person filming the video states, “This is the entire crowd at Ahmadinejad’s speech. Take a good look.” The footage also shows some official posters that have been torn down, which the person filming the video explicitly draws our attention to.
This is relevant because the image that the regime holding the reigns in Iran wants to portray is one of massive support of the government by the people, as witnessed in the staged February 11 (22 Bahman) rally marking the 31st anniversary of the founding of the Islamic Republic, in which the regime pulled out all the stops and bussed in as many government workers, and “loyalists” as they could from around the country. They also turned the city of Tehran into a virtual military garrison in order to prevent the supporters of the opposition Green Movement from being able to form large crowds. The following video shows Tehran streets leading to Azadi (Freedom) Square brimming with busses that were used to bring people in on that day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rua6TL4yzzE
Ahmadinejad and regime apologists like Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett used the regime’s propoganda and staged rally to argue that the opposition was basically dead, despite the sustained and unprecedented street protests and political intrigues that have wracked Iran since the rigged election in June of last year.
That’s why it’s important to show real footage when it surfaces of the support that Ahmadinejad and company can muster when they don’t spend hundreds of millions of dollars to put on a stage and pony show like the one on February 11.
Here is another video from another speech given by Ahmadinejad on February 24 in Birjand, again showing a tiny crowd:
I wrote about this here on February 25.
Suffice it to say that when a man claims to have won an election by a massive margin, yet he can’t draw even a modicum of a decent crowd to his speeches, it’s not rocket science to draw from this that he is in trouble, and that without the oil-money sponsored goons at his disposal, ready to break teeth, crack skulls, shoot and rape people, he and the regime that he represents would not be in power.
