Iranians Demonstrate Against The West

Millions of marchers shouting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” thronged the streets of Tehran on Saturday to celebrate the 16th anniversary of the Islamic revolution, Iranian state media said.

President Hashemi Rafsanjani told the crowd the West is wrong if it thinks communism has been replaced as its enemy by fundamentalist Islam, which became Iran’s state dogma after the Feb. 11, 1979, founding of the Islamic Republic.

“They have made a big blunder by drawing such a comparison,” he said in the speech, broadcast live on national radio. Excerpts were carried by the Islamic Republic News Agency and monitored in Cyprus.

Rafsanjani referred to comments by NATO chief Willy Claes, who said recently that Muslim “fundamentalism is at least as dangerous as communism was.”

Rafsanjani said the West’s “second mistake” was to assume Iran is meddling other countries’ affairs. That error, he claimed, only enhances Islam’s appeal.