Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s voice is the only heard in Hungary today and his rhetoric is firmly anti–Islamist. At the same time, Mr. Orbán maintains close and friendly relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Iran is a theocracy. Islam is an inseparable part of the political structure and the government is based on sharia or Islamic law. Iran is also a dictatorship with little tolerance for democracy loving intellectuals.
Here is the case of Ramin Jahanbegloo, a Canadian philosopher who was jailed in Iran’s Evin prison without criminal charge in 2006. After four months of confinement he was released. His book, Time Will Say Nothing: A Philosopher Survives an Iranian Prison is about his interrogation. Today he teaches at the University of Toronto. (Click here for Jahanbegloo’s book.)
Mr. Jahanbegloo is not a revolutionary; far from it. He writes about pluralism and democracy and has published books on Gandhi and the British philosopher, Isaiah Berlin. In 2002 he moved to Tehran to join the Cultural Research Bureau. He invited intellectuals such as Ágnes Heller of Hungary and Leszek Kolakowski, a historian from Poland. Both are Holocaust survivors and Mr. Jahanbegloo has also visited Auschwitz. His actions were not appreciated by the Iranian regime.
The issue is not that Hungary has relations with Iran, the issue is that Mr. Orbán has never criticized the Iranian regime. In fact he calls the Ayatollahs his friends! (Watch here.)
As part of this newfound friendship 2,000 Iranian students are studying in Hungary with generous taxpayer support. In 2015 Orbán travelled to Tehran and said that a new era is about to begin in the relations between the two countries. He was received with military honors, and signed bilateral agreements, among them a nuclear cooperation agreement. (Yes, nuclear!)
Mr. Orbán opposed the US and UN sanctions against Iran and was pleased that the country has “survived” them. “For us Hungarians it is a special experience to be here in Tehran. We are at the center of a great civilization.” (Watch here.)
Hungary’s economy minister Mihály Varga went one step further and declared support for Iran’s position in the 2015 nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between Iran and the Group 5+1 (the US, China, France, Britain and Russia plus Germany). (Read here.)
Last year President Trump withdrew from this deal and launched a campaign of “maximum pressure” to change Iran’s behavior and/or leadership. Now Pro-Iranian Mr. Orbán is planning to visit the White House on May 13th and 80-year-old US Ambassador to Budapest David B. Cornstein is proudly bragging that he played a key role in arranging the meeting. (Read more here.)
I have to pinch myself. Ambassador Cornstein has arranged President Trump’s meeting with pro-Iranian Orbán in the White House? Isn’t that bizarre?
What do you think?
György Lázár