As they should be, the weasels

The headline in The New York Times says it all: Iran Concerned West Will Benefit From Arab Uprisings, but the article by Rick Gladstone explains their concerns:

Iran’s supreme leader admonished the West and Israel not to seek advantage from the antigovernment uprisings convulsing the Arab Muslim world, delivering the warning in a nationally broadcast speech that appeared to reflect new unease in Tehran over the course of events among its strategic neighbors, particularly Syria. The speech, by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, given at Tehran University to commemorate Id al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday, was officially described in Iran’s state-run press as a respectful tribute to the revolutionary movements that have reawakened Muslim populations to “their genuine Islamic identity”. But the speech included a cautionary caveat that suggested Iranian leaders are worried about the possibility of outcomes that diminish their influence as these movements progress.
“The events taking place in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Libya, Bahrain, and certain other countries today are decisive and destiny making for the Muslim nations,” the Ayatollah said. However, he said, “if the imperialist and hegemonic powers and Zionism, including the tyrannical and despotic US regime, manage to use the ongoing conditions in their own favor, the world of Islam will definitely face big problems for tens of years.”
The omission of Syria in his remarks was especially conspicuous, underlining Iran’s own ambivalence about how to deal with events unfolding there. Iran has been the strongest ally of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, throughout the five-month-old antigovernment uprising in that country, which Assad has sought to suppress with ferocious brutality in the face of growing international isolation. But in recent days even Iran has asked the Assad regime to find a way to accommodate demands of the Syrian protest movement, worried that Assad’s downfall could prove destructive to Iran’s own strategic interests in the Middle East. Iran’s foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, called on Assad’s government to recognize the Syrian people’s “legitimate” demands, the first such remarks to come from Iran since the Syrian uprising began.
Iran relies on Syria to help facilitate arming and financing Hezbollah, the powerful political, social and military movement in Lebanon, as well as Hamas, the militant Islamist group that governs Gaza. Both are avowed enemies of Israel and are considered terrorist groups by Israel and the United States.
Ayatollah Khamenei’s speech also illustrated the awkward line that Iranian leaders have walked in commending the uprisings that have toppled or threatened autocratic leaders in neighboring countries while suppressing antigovernment demonstrations at home, particularly since the disputed 2009 Iranian presidential election that Iranian dissidents say was fixed to ensure victory for the hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The Ayatollah appeared to acknowledge Iran’s own election difficulties, saying they had always been a “challenging issue” in the 32-year-old history of the Islamic republic. But he also warned Iran’s dissidents, who have been relatively silent for months, not to make trouble in advance of the next presidential election, to be held in 2013. “Elections are the manifestation of religious democracy,” he said. “However, enemies seek to misuse elections to harm the country.”

Rico says he wonders when the Iranians are going to turn on these guys...