There's nothing moderate about Iran's new regime

WE weren't at all surprised to see last week that the Iranians had sent a monkey in to space.

Seems like they really did this time, too.

Early this year Iran claimed to have sent a monkey beyond the earthly pull of our planet and to have brought it safely back to earth, but somebody switched the simians.

The monkey on display at the January press conference looked unlike the one despatched days before and neither did it answer to the name Pishgam.

But practice makes perfect and congratulations must go to the Islamic Republic of Iran on its extraordinary achievement.

Those who watch the sinister circus that is Iran are not so surprised at the ayatollahs' monkey business. After all, they have had a series of performing monkeys in the president's chair while grinding organs to tunes only they can see in the Koran.

Iran is a backward land in the grip of extremists masquerading as religious scholars.

Throughout the course of this year, much of the West has fallen for what has widely been described as new President Hassan Rouhani's "charm offensive".

He's a moderate, they'll tell us of the ever-smiling Rouhani, and he can deal with the West.

We've no doubt he plans to "deal" with us. Look at how he has been dealing with his own people. Tehran's grinning reaper has wiped the smiles from a few faces over this past year, executing at least 529 Iranians.

Human rights groups estimate that he'd had 300 people killed since assuming office less than 120 days ago. Iran, under this moderate, tops the world table of execution per head of population.

Last Tuesday was the UN Human Rights Day and the head of Iran's judiciary, Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani, took the opportunity to berate outsiders campaigning for any human rights in his country.

The executions would continue, he insisted, defiantly. Troublesome foreigners demanding a moratorium on the killings were opposed to Islam.

Bravely, some locals have started a campaign known as Step by Step to Stop the Death Penalty. The group wants and end to capital punishment, particularly stonings and public executions.

Ayatollah Larijani sees right through this lot. They are clearly puritanical fun-haters. What? Stop the stonings? That's the fun part of his job.

Iranians fancy themselves as Persians, but Islam long ago colonised the place and it's an Arab life for all. That means self-loathing plays its role, this best manifesting itself with the Shia hatred for Sunni, the two branches of Islam who've been at war for centuries.

The West is just caught in the crossfire.

Iran is Shia and in the minority. But there are still issues that unify many Arabs, no matter what their stripe, like the need to wipe out Israel - and then get to work on all those other innocents whose governments tolerated Israel's existence.

That's you and me. Don't think for a moment that's an extreme view. It's part of the Iranian agenda.

Chief monkey master is that country's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who said recently that Israel will one day "disappear from the landscape".

"With God's help, this year the ... Iranian nation will punch the faces of the enemies of Islam," he added.

The last Iranian president whose strings Khamenei tugged declared that "anyone who recognises Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nations' fury".

That's almost every member of the UN.

So is today's moderate killing-machine-of-an-Iranian president free to think for himself?

Of course not. In any case you might be surprised to hear him read from the same crib notes as his hard line masters.

Rouhani didn't attend last week's funeral for Nelson Mandela lest he inadvertently be forced to shake hands with Barack Obama.

"Some domestic and foreign media outlets are using the funeral ceremony as a pretext to push Rouhani towards a meeting with the head of the Great Satan government," reported the Kayhan newspaper, a mouthpiece for the real powers in Tehran. That article was headlined "Satan lays a trap, this time in Johannesburg".

Khameinei was said to be angry that while visiting the UN a few weeks ago, Rouhani spoke on the phone to that same black Satan.

Let's get this right: these people are mad. And bad.

The economic sanctions against such dangerous men took years to put in place and have worked so well that various Shias sat down with Satan's sidemen recently and negotiated "a pause" to Iran's nuclear ambition.

It's the first step to a solid agreement that would stop Iran from completing the nuclear weapons it needs to taunt its Sunni neighbours and annihilate what they call the Little Satan: Israel.

I don't care that much for Iran's Sunni neighbours, but the Middle East's sole democracy must be protected by the free world.

Iran's ayatollahs are insane. And if need be, we'll have to deal with them.

Alan Howe is Herald Sun executive editor
- Herald Sun