Iranian repression shows why the world must unite against Tehran thugs

http://www.nydailynews.com

Get tough with the toughs: Iranian repression shows why world must unite against Tehran thugs

Following a path well worn by Stalin and Mao, the Ahmadinejad-Khamenei regime is crushing its people and rewriting history with systematic efficiency. The beast that lives beneath Iran's pretense of democracy stands exposed before the world.

In the six weeks since fraud-riddled elections sparked an uprising, the lords of Tehran have moved from wielding truncheons to staging show trials as tools of repression.

Step one: Break the troublemakers. When people took to the streets, they were beaten, shot and thrown into black holes.

Step two: Accuse outside agitators, meaning, of course, Western powers, of filling Iranian heads with lies.

Step three: Use drugs and torture to get confessions. The regime has put almost 100 Iranians on "trial" for "crimes" against the government.

The wife of one politician, a former Iranian vice president, told The Associated Press that her husband was drugged when she saw him in jail before his televised prosecution.

Said a newly enlightened confessor: "Preservation of the regime is the greatest of all necessities. ... What happened during the electoral rivalries must be considered as a great deviation in the political history of the Iranian nation."

Step four: Consolidate power and forge ahead to obtain nuclear weapons, an accelerant that would enable the Iranians to behave even more ruthlessly, both inside and outside their borders.

That crossroads may be fast approaching. Intelligence sources tell The Times of London that Iran is less than a year away from having a nuke in hand.

The White House is said to be mullling stepped-up muscle in the form of a global embargo on shipping gasoline into Iran, which produces tons of oil but lacks the refining capacity to meet its own needs for fuel. Time's a wasting.