The Eight-Armed Threat to the Islamic Republic

The increasingly incoherent leaders of Iran have long claimed that their domestic opponents are taking orders from a secret foreign group. Sometimes I think they make such statements because they really believe them, other times I think they have to say such things because if they admitted the truth – that the vast majority of Iranians hate the regime – they would have to pack up and go to North Korea.

But President Ahmadinejad’s latest sortie seems to me to establish a new standard for dementia, as he has now attacked Paul, the celebrated prophetic German octopus, as an agent of Western propaganda and psychological warfare.

You may have missed the events that propelled Paul to international celebrity. Briefly, he correctly called the outcome of several soccer games in the recent World Cup, including the final. Shortly after of the tournament, Paul was asked to choose the winner between Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and opposition Green Movement leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.  Paul unhesitatingly chose Mousavi (for those curious about the details, Paul was placed halfway between two mussels, one with Khamenei’s picture on it, the other with Mousavi’s.  Whichever Paul ate first was deemed the winner).

I hope that Paul has good security. Iranians have killed their enemies in Germany before.  The soccer-loving Oracle of Oberhausen deserves a long and satisfying life.