TEHRAN – After France and the United States made their own mistakes by promoting certain Iranian opposition figures, Germany appeared keen to follow suit and gall Iran by meeting a former soccer player who stands accused of fomenting riots in Iran.

The episode began in Washington when Biden officials decided to stake their credibility on elevating figures who have long been out of touch with the Iranian people. Then the French chimed in, holding a high-level meeting with a number of Iranian women who are regarded as seditious and divisive among Iranians, to say the least.

In the midst of Iran’s recent unrest, French President Emmanuel Macron called the developments in Iran a “revolution,” which drew the ire of Iranian authorities. Macron made the “revolution” comment twice in a matter of three days, first after a meeting with a group of self-proclaimed leaders of the Iranian opposition and then in a radio interview.

While unrest in Iran has subsided to a large extent, German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier repeated Macron’s mistake in his own way, meeting a seditious footballer-turned-activist in Berlin to reiterate Germany’s support of unrest in Iran.

The Western leaders’ embracing of Iranian opposition figures has stunned some Iran observers who say that the Iranian opposition is dumb because they believe that they can overthrow the Islamic Republic with such stunts. The observers also believe that the West is even dumber than the Iranian opposition itself for pinning hope on Iranian oppositionist figures. They refer in this regard to a catchy remark by the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, who once described American leaders as “first-rate idiots.”

Commenting on the authorities of the United States shallowly boasting about their audacity, Ayatollah Khamenei said on January 9, 2019, “Some U.S. politicians pretend they are mad—which, of course, I do not agree with; however, they are first-rate idiots.”

At any rate, Germany has reportedly been involved in Iran’s recent unrest, with some media reports saying the German embassy in Tehran has been implicated in fomenting unrest in Iran. This is while Germany itself has suppressed a recent attempt at overthrowing the German government. Ali Karimi, the footballer received by the German president, is seen by many in Iran as an instigator of rioting and by extension a criminal, not just a celebrity.

Furthermore, pundits believe that Germany is not in a position to support the Iranian people as it has abided by sanctions that target the very people of Iran. Germany has failed to live up to its commitments under the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

 Many Iranians still remember how Germany supplied Saddam Hussein with chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. Saddam used such weapons against Iran in the war, which caused huge suffering.