His article, "On a progressive Iran: the Iranian way, not Washington's," details the recent elections in Iran and notes that they have been the object of speculation for Western propagandists, who Butler claims seem to know about Iran as much as they know about life on Pluto.
"You can read the disparate opinions and views in the mainstream, and very quickly you'll glean just how little western writers know about Iran. Tehran may as well be on Pluto, for all the misinformation and stigmatic BS cast out to news consumers [in] the last few days," he said.
In this regard, Butler pointed to a recent spate of studies, including one conducted by the University of Maryland, which he described as "proof of Iranians' attitudes toward the West."
"The studies tell us that Iranians greatly favor Iran's role in helping Syria and Russia defeat Daesh and other factions inside war torn Syria. Even more importantly, the people surveyed overwhelmingly believed US involvement in Syria is only designed to topple Assad," Butler said.
According to him, Iran has long been under an unbearable pressure of unjustified sanctions, which is why the Iranian people will unlikely "dive into the waiting arms of Washington and London" in the foreseeable future. Butler suggested that Tehran would rather develop ties with Moscow and Beijing irrespective of any possible changes in Iranian parliament.
"Iranians' views of Russia and China are highly favorable and have improved considerably over time, at least according to most polls taken in the last couple of years. Meanwhile, the clear mistrust of Western countries, with the exception of Germany, is evident without taking performing any surveys," he said.
In conclusion, he specifically drew attention to the fact that ordinary Iranians are only suspicious of the US government, not Americans. Butler also pointed to high level of support of President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif inside Iran; at the same time, he said that "their favorable ratings have almost nothing to do with any make-believe desire on their part to get rid of fundamentalist clerics."
