You’re not wrong! At least no democracy would ever elect such a person!
Sane enough to plan and organize a successful revolution from exile in Paris, and then come back to the country and coopt or destroy any opposing views. And sane enough to successfuly stay in power for ten years until his death, in spite of the fact that both superpowers and the Arab world wanted him overthrown.
When the Iranian parliament voted to continue their Uranium enrichment program last October, the vote was sealed with a chant of “Death to America!”
I think what we’ve learned about religious fanatics these past few years is that, sometimes, when they say things like “death to you”, the really, truly mean it. It’s not some kind of cynical populist propaganda designed to pander to the troglodyte fringe in their particular constituency; they’re very sincere. At least as sincere as George W. Bush is in his faith.
This is, in a rather understated word, troubling.
Holy War + Nukes = Scares the Daylights Out of Loopydude.
Frankly, I think we’ve got a religious fanatic running our country as well, but at least there are some mechanisms in place to mitigate his impact. Not nearly enough, as our invasion of Iraq clearly demonstrates, but at least there’s a chance he might have to ask somebody for permission to mount a full-scale invasion of yet another country. One hopes the Republican Congress could pull their heads out of the Neocon’s backsides long enough to see the light and say “No, not this time.”
I’m not sure if such checks really exist in Iran. Maybe they do; maybe the moderates there have enough sway to keep the few hundred kilos of enriched U necessary to start WWIII off the market. Maybe they don’t. I make no assumptions about Iran, because you can’t really predict what a relgious fanatic is capable of doing. Maybe that person is not “insane” in a medically definable sense, but they’re capable of doing some pretty insane things, because of their ability to rationalize monstrous acts using their beliefs as a moral guide. A person who really, sincerely believes that starting a worldwide conflagration as a means of ushering the eschaton is a Good Thing[sup]TM[/sup] really, truly believes they ought to do it. If they can get away with it, they will. Such people appear to be in positions of power and influence in Iran in numbers great enough to make them a legitimately serious worry. I’m not sure if arguments for self-preservation, be they of the individual or national kind, make much of a dent in the logic informing Armageddon eschatology. Probably the best you can hope for from such people is that they can be convinced God doesn’t need Men quite so much to get the Endtimes ball rolling. Maybe it’s more proper to wait for a host of Angels or other such supernatural agents.
Empower the Iranian moderates without causing the nation to collapse: That, IMO, is the way to go. I have absolutely zero idea of how other nations can contructively contribute to that rosy outcome, however. Zilch. That’s what sucks. I know what the right thing to do is, but I don’t have any confidence in the ability of our leaders or theirs to embrace that option. I don’t think they really want to. I think they’s be happiest if the other was destroyed, the sooner the better, meaning a natural death through obsolescence would take too long. It’s a big shit sandwich, folks. Do we have to take a bite? I have no idea.
Yep. Quite sane. Check out Ervand Abrahamian’s Khomeinism:* Essays on the Islamic Republic* ( 1993, University of California Press ) someday.
He was a zealot, there’s a difference.
But he didn’t pretend to speak to God or any such thing. He just ( oddly flexibly, he was nothing if not an adaptable populist in many respects and altered his message at several points over his career, sometimes subtly, sometimes not ) made an interpretation from his life experience and study of Shi’a scripture that pointed him towards a particular direction. By his own lights he was a sober and serious theologian.
- Tamerlane
There’s no written rule that says once you get nuclear weapons you can’t give them up and close your program. Mind you, to get a paranoid state to that point you’d have to actually engage a fair number of intelligent people to deal with them, maybe even payout money to get that state integrated into the global system and perhaps even fund through 3[sup]rd[/sup] parties domestic democratic movements to remove dogmatic zealots in control of the government.
Or maybe pay out a $100 billion/year for occupation forces for how long? 5-10 years maybe. Choices, choices, choices…
Rhetoric. IMHO they are not looking for, nor expect an imminent armageddon and you should expect nothing more and nothing less than the same concept of self-preservation that any nation would exhibit to be operative.
These folks, even the theocrats, are far more pragmatic than I think most people are giving them credit for.
- Tamerlane
That describes the US goverment as well as that of Iran. And you are not complaining about GW running around with a nuclear briefcase. And he is as big a fanatic as any mullah.
Enough money has been channeled into Hamas and Islamic Jihad to make, I think, even the most forgiving diplomat sincerely question a purely self-preservationist goal on the part of at least some proportion of Iranian politicians. Whatever this proportion, it has shown itself capable of appropriating the funds, etc., to support terror for the purpose of genocide. Regardless of one’s view on the legitimacy of the Israeli state, the fact that there are politicians in Iran who feel it is a theological imperative to rid the Holy land of Jews should give any sane person serious pause.
Iran is a cradle of militant Islamist extremism, which is sanctioned and fostered by the Iranian govt., and that is a fact. One of the stated goals of Iran is to destroy Israel, and by their actions, I do not take this to be mere rhetoric. They’re developing missiles capable of bombarding Tel Aviv, an open challenge to the Sharon govt. to take action, since the latter rightly regards Iran as threat. How could they not? Iran is waging a war with them by proxy. Iran has played no small role in training and arming the terrorists who have taken thousands of lives in Israel through suicide bombings and other heinous acts. Hence, I think it would irresponsible to take such an optimistic view of the motives of all factions of the Iranian govt.
Did I not say I felt Shrub was not of a similar ilk? The reason I’m less afraid of him is because he lacks complete power to do as he would. He must have some degree of cooperation from other levels of govt. to embark on another full-scale war, and I’m hoping there are enough suitably underanged Senators out there to apply some needed checks. I most certainly could not fault the Iranians for doubting the sincerity of our quest for “Freedom”, which I myself think is simply code for right-wing Judeo-Christian cultural imperialism. I still harbor a waning confidence in the strength of our democratic institutions to mitigate Bush’s negative impact, as I said.
There’s a difference, though, between funding Hamas or other terrorist groups, and launching an initial nuclear strike against Tel Aviv. I’m sure Iran wouldn’t hesitate to nuke Tel Aviv if they thought they could get away with it, but they have to know that any initial use of nukes will lead to a nuclear response by Israel and/or the United States.
What Captain Amazing said. It is the difference between funding the Contras and invading Nicaragua.
Iran is certainly no friend of Israel or the U.S., but the mullahs are not suicidal.
- Tamerlane
It may be enough to provoke a response, which has already been promised by Israel regardless. Is Israel serious? Is it all just brinksmanship? If so, how dangerous is the game?
As for getting away with it: If you do not doubt Iran would nuke Israel if it had confidence it would further their agenda, is it no sensible to ask how easy it would be to supply underground terrorists with fissile material and then claim no responsibility? Iran denies the the scope of their role in Palestinian terrorism while actively and publically promote it at home. In this regard, they come across like pathological liars. Does anyone in Iran wonder if they could get away with surruptitiously smuggling a fission or dirty bomb to the US? Or Tel Aviv, for that matter? If it took years and years, and the materials were sufficiently “laundered”, would that be a viable approach to attacking Iran’s proclaimed enemies?
Who can say? I certainly hope I’m completely wrong, but I’m not comforted by arguments like “Oh, they would never do that; that would be irrational.” Of course it would be irrational. But implausible, given what we already know? If there’s even a small chance the aswer is “no”, isn’t that a serious cause for concern?
:rolleyes: Not so’s you’d notice it, Tam.
Well, in what way would you consider Khomeini crazy? What specific actions make you doubt his sanity?
Ryan: *Look, this isn’t some 2nd world developing country which peaceful intentions here, its a second world country with a pathological hatred of Israel, the West and US. The minute it sees it can get away with sabre rattling, the more likely the chances are they’ll increase the pressure right on Israels doorstep. *
Loopydude: When the Iranian parliament voted to continue their Uranium enrichment program last October, the vote was sealed with a chant of “Death to America!”
Oy mir. What I don’t get is, whatever happened to the much-lauded salutary effects of our “muscle-flexing” in Iraq? Back in 2003, there were a lot of people jubilantly pointing out that our invading Iraq had a good effect in showing other countries “that we meant business”. Libya, Syria, Iran, etc., were said to be falling into line and cooperating with our policies, because they’d seen what happened to the other guys. Our own Sam Stone predicted on 12 March 2003:
My emphasis. About a month later (14 April 2003), Sam opined:
And now here we are again, worrying about Iran’s intransigence in seeking nukes and debating the pros and cons of bombing them. Syria is still being described as terror central over at the National Review. Hezbollah, so far from being “gone” as per Sam’s prediction, is accused of arranging at least 20% of terror attacks in Israel in 2004, and actively working to destabilize the Palestinian regime. Libya remains, as of December 29, on the US’s State Sponsor’s of Terror list. And where is the “real change” in Saudi Arabia, nearly two years later? As of the State Department’s human rights report last September, it was essentially a little window dressing on top of the same old repression.
We’ve “proved” we’re not a paper tiger, but it doesn’t seem to have inspired sincere cooperation. Why not? Why are we still having to worry about nukes in Iran and terror sponsors in Syria? I thought the invasion of Iraq pour encourager les autres was supposed to have changed all that. At least, that was the story we were hearing a couple of years ago.
That would be illegal.
I’d like to know by what right or authority the US gets to decide who can have nukes and who can’t.
It seems to me that as the one country in the world who has proven that we can’t be trusted with this technology we have absolutely zero room to speak.
I hope that Iran does acquire nuclear weapons and soon. The more countries have nukes, the better chance there is of keeping the US in check.
Countries can have pathological hatred? Maybe the USA has a pathological hatred of Iran, then.
Let them have the bomb, already.
For one thing, because Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which, if they’re developing nuclear weapons.
Also, the Iranian government is actively hostile to the US, and also has a history of supporting terrorist groups. A nuclear Iran wouldn’t be good for either the United States or the world.
Well, as long as one can rest assured they keep their nukes secure, that’s fine. But one nuke goes off in an American City, and I don’t think there’s a deterrent on the planet that would stop us from using our own in retalliation. Perhaps if all the other nuclear powers in the world promised to flatten us if we nuke Tehran in retribution, that might make us think for ten minutes, but when we tell them they can kiss Paris, London, Moscow, Beijing, et al. goodbye, thank you very much, where does that get them? They might decide losing Tehran is the lesser of two evils.
I’m all for non-proliferation. It’s a pipe dream, but I still support it, within reason. Unfortunately, I think the reasonable options were long ago exhausted, and now we’re stuck with hope.
After invading Iraq we hardly have any moral credibility when it comes to international treaties.
Does the NPF Treaty authorize the US to unilaterally bomb anyone it suspects of a violation?
So does the US.
The US invasion of Iraq wasn’t good for the US or the world. Bombing Iran would just exacerbate things even more.