Iran: “Islamic Awakening” or NATO Victory in Libya? · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

This post is part of our special coverage Libya Uprising 2011.
Iranian citizens continue to follow recent developments in Libya with great interest, and are flooding cyberspace with comments, posts and tweets.
While some Iranian officials and diplomats are calling Libya's revolution, “an Islamic awakening,” Iranian blogger Bedone Onvan has published a photo of an anti-Qaddafi rebel kissing a US flag, with the ironic caption: “Islamic awakening!”
Andishe writes [fa]:
It is still not clear that NATO's assistance in toppling Qaddafi's regime will be good for the Libyan population or not. But it is obvious, that without NATO's help it would have been impossible to get rid of the Libyan dictator. In my opinion, dictators who kill their own people and do no problem committing any crime imaginable, will not move out of scene unless a stronger hand intervenes.
Royal Air Force Typhoon aircraft after mission in Libya on March 20, 2011. By N.A.T.O. on Flickr (fair use permitted)
Bamdadi asks his readers a question: “Which country has the highest score on the human development index in Africa?” A link answers the question: it's Libya! The blogger adds, “Of course, this was before civil war broke out in the country.” In another post, Bamdadi says [fa]:
I do not understand why the success of NATO and Western countries of bringing into power a new political group in Libya should make some Iranians happy? … Maybe they think a [new regime] would be a step toward freedom'? They are surely joking. The countries who bombed Libya did not believe that. What freedom? You would be very naive to believe it… freedom should have at least a little more meaning than the militaries of the most powerful countries intervening and destroying a weak country by using tricks.
Secular writes [fa]:
The difference between Iranians and Libyans is that the latter supported defected political personalities who broke with Qaddafi's regime, while some Iranians did not want to support [the opposition movement's] Mir Hussein Mousavi although he was out of regime's power structure for about 20 years. Iranians usually say they [those in power and reformists] are all the same.
This post is part of our special coverage Libya Uprising 2011.