Daniel Pipes, who has been wrong about everything, now says Obama should bomb Iran – and doing so would “save his presidency”, and usher in a magical era of ponies. The concept of concern troll notwithstanding, it’s fitting that he wrote this on Groundhog Day. bomb, bomb, bomb iran indeed. Green revolution? frak that! no seriously, he says. FRAK that.
(Let’s review some of Daniel Pipes greatest hits: He called for the US to replace Saddam with a “strongman” because Iraqis can’t handle democracy; was a one-man jihad against genuine moderate muslims like Tariq Ramadan; and bought into the “Obama is a muslim” smear.)
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Well, Iran’s nuclear program is going to have to be taken out eventually, and probably the sooner the better. I don’t see this happening absent some significant regional developments compelling it, though, and I certainly don’t see it happening on Obama’s watch.
So: meh.
Its impossible to “take out” Irans nuke program. Iran will be nuclear. The bombast about bombing Iran is about 50% the impetus for it in fact!
25% is the Israeli nuke – and the “amalek” stuff.
http://blog.beliefnet.com/cityofbrass/2009/05/iran-as-amalek-netanyahu-pulls.html
and the last 25% is the Arab nuke – which the US *and* China have been most helpful on.
http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/04/200941432526944124.html
I don’t know why Pipes or Juan Cole are taken seriously anymore. They both strongly argued Iraq could not be a democracy.
We COULD remove Iran’s nuclear program, it just wouldn’t be quick or clean, and might require ground forces. It ain’t Osirak.
Hopefully the GR will rise up and take over soon.
Its impossible to “take out” Irans nuke program. Iran will be nuclear. The bombast about bombing Iran is about 50% the impetus for it in fact!
So, the fiery destruction of Israel is inevitable, then. Sorry, I refuse to believe that.
(And I call BS on the second sentence. 100% of the “impetus” for Iran’s nuclear program is batshit-insane – to use your term – hatred for Israel and her Jewish population.)
Anyway, to get back to reality: Iran’s nuclear ambitions are going to have to be dealt with at some point, either before or after they lob something at Tel Aviv.
Dave is correct, of course – whomever ends up taking the initiative here, they’re going to find that it’s not Osirak. So in some sense I agree that Pipes is not to be taken entirely seriously here, in that he doesn’t seem to have considered the totality of the situation (and I did read his complete article). Hence my qualifier about significant regional developments between now and whenever action is finally taken.
I’m no Pipes fan, but just allowing an apocalypse-minded government to have nuclear weapons when they have a batshit-insane and racist hatred of Israel is going to be far, far worse for the Iranian citizenry than targeted bombing of nuclear facilities. *If* Iran achieves the bomb (and it is so close to the “when” line that it is practically indistinguishable) the Iranian government will use it; they are batshit-insane racists. The response by Israel to millions dead (a major chunk of their nation, BTW) while surrounded by hundreds of millions who nurse military grudges against her and would use the opportunity to wipe them out, would only rationally be the launching of their arsenal.
The fact of the matter is: our administrations (Bush and Obama) have been negligent in really holding Iran’s feet to the fire on nuclear development because we don’t wish to be seen as “Islamophobic”, the new Scarlett letter.
Iran’s islamofascist regime is now acting like the final days of the Hitler regime, when ordinary Germans were being hanged from lamp posts in the streets of Berlin for anything that would trigger the anger of the roving ordnung squads equipped with readymade nooses.
All this suggests that the US should use our paramilitary secret services to target Ahmedinajad and Khomeini for a permanent trip to the bedrooms of the 72 promised virgins. That, I think, would greatly help tilt the civil insurrection that I think is coming to the streets of Tehran. All successful revolutions begin in the place from whence emanates the national power. That was true for the revolution that got rid of the late Shah and his government. And it shall be true for the revolution that will get rid of the successor islamofascists.
And it certainly is easier to bump off two criminals, albeit protected by their own private uniformed gang, than it is to destroy an entire country.
There was a time when Iran was a friend and ally of the State of Israel. That time could come again. Because regardless of whatever they represent under Islam, Iranians are not Arabs and never can be Arabs.
In any case, all this should be done soon. Wait too long, and Israel will have a choice of national death or destruction of Iran with its own nuclear/thermonuclear arsenal. It was exactly this fear that caused them to construct that arsenal to begin with. And the jewish national experiences of 70 years ago taught them never again to trust anyone’s word for anything.
Would the Israelis trust the word of a president of the United States? They certainly trusted George W Bush and before him, Bill Clinton. But they never, ever trusted James Earl Carter. And mMy readings on Arutz Sheva, which I think represents the spirit of the real Israel and the real Jewish nation — so unlike the liberal ass-lickers who seem to infest the pages of the Jerusalem Post — convince me that Jews of Israel will never trust Barack Hussein Obama, merely on the grounds of whom they think he really is, or was in his formative years.
And believe it or not, I think the jewish national distrust of Obama is based less on their certainty that he is a Moslem hiding in Christian garb, than their knowledge that it always has been the liberals of the West who came to power in the past 40 years or so are the ones who can be least trusted to handle the foreign affairs of the United States.
In any case, it is in the national interests of the United States to destroy the present islamofascist regime in Iran before that regime develops a nuclear arsenal. Otherwise, with great certitude, there will be hell to pay.
Which means that if that regime is not destroyed, there will be the first nuclear war on this planet since August 1945.
Simple as that.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
i think I have more faith in the jewish people to kick Irans ass if it came to that then you all do.
and FWIW if MAD worked with a genuinely evil regime AND existentialist threat to the United States, ie the Soviet Union, then it will work for a relatively pissant state like Iran, too.
The idea that Iran gets nukes = end of Israel is pure nonsensical propaganda, It’s basically “muslims are orcs”. And its a shallow stereotype rather than a reality-based view of just how Iran’s internal power coalitions operate and who has power and who doesnt. Hint – it isnt Ahmadinejad.
As my years of blogging archives will attest, I’m NOT a fan of Ahmadinejad. but his statement about Israel to which you all are tracing this nukeIsraelBombOMFG stuff was a mis-translation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad_and_Israel#2005_.22World_Without_Zionism.22_speech
If you read my Amalek piece youll find that Netanyau was guilty of arguably worse rhetoric about Iran.
http://blog.beliefnet.com/cityofbrass/2009/05/iran-as-amalek-netanyahu-pulls.html
And ya’all have no clue at all about the rhetoric Pakistan and India have been using against each other for 50 years. But none of that translates to the actual will to use nukes offensively. Not for any country whose name starts with “I”.
The bottom line: MAD was a scary, but sensible policy when reagan used it against teh reds and it will work just fine right now. Because nukes are coming – not just to Iran but to the Arab states too.
Arnold – I have a grant proposal due on the 12th – should be free to rejoin human society afterwards :) dont give up on me.
Ah, yes. Some of us don’t think Iran (under its current regime) can be trusted with The Bomb, therefore we think Muslims are Orcs.
1. Identify the logical fallacy. 2. How utterly insulting!
(And, no, MAD will not work for the long term unless all parties are reasonably sane. And given the number of times it nearly fell apart in the Soviet Union, it’s only dumb luck it held together when both parties were though to be reasonably sane.)
Aziz, that’s just idiotic for you to say.
MAD worked on the truly evil Soviet Union because their goal was worldwide communism. They weren’t interested in dying; especially the leadership who thought they were too important. Iran’s leaders are interested in bringing around the end times any way they can.
And, come on dude. You can’t win an argument so you bring up a logical fallacy and slander your opponents? You been taking political classes from Obama lately?
Aziz, the present iranian regime, with its nuclear pretensions, its existential threats against Israel, its outright support of destabilizing terror gangs such as Hezbollah and Hamas, and its brutal terrorization of that country’s own people, must be destroyed. I don’t really care how that kind of action is treated in international law. We all learned that lesson the hard way in the 1930s and 1940s.
The easiest way to effectuate such a governmental change in any kind of outright fascist society — islamic or otherwise — is to kill the leadership, preferably all at the same time. Then provide aid to the faction co/nsidered most likely to be able to restabilize the country without setting up the same kind of dictatorship of the supposedly pious that Khomeini and his successors established in Iran.
And if I sat in the White House and gave the orders, that is precisely the way I would play it. No screwing around with UN or European Union discussion groups, or for that matter, anybody at all outside the national security agencies of the United States. Would the American people approve of such a move, after the fact? I think they would; especially if it could be shown to them that this step was necessary in order to avoid a real nuclear or thermonuclear war. Besides, don’t say those bastards don’t try to target other national leaders for the same kind of treatment. Folks who take real unkindly toward Islam in general say that’s part of the islamic faith. I would like to think better of the world’s Moslems. But that gets increasingly difficult as long as the world is under permanent threat from a pack of cruel madmen who torture there own citizens and threaten residents of many other countries with terrorism — and all this in the name of their particular version of Islam. So it clearly is in the interest of the peaceful elements of the islamic world that the Teheran crew be neutralized as soon as possible.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Listen to yourselves. “Iranians are just interested in dying.” “Iran’s leaders are interested in bringing around the end times any way they can.”
thats not logical argumentation built on factual basis, Mike. Its just you, swallowing the OMFG IRAN MULLAHS propaganda hook line and sinker. If you were even marginally paying attention to the Green Revolution, you’d know that its nothing like that at all.
“THE Mullahs” in Iran want one thing and ONE THING ALONE. They want to stay in power and rule for a nice, long time. All this “end times” nonsense you are spouting derives from a mindset of Muslims as Orcs – that the religious leadership of Iran are not a theocracy ruling Iran according to their own sense of valid nationalism and spiritual beliefs (see footnote), but just a mindless horde that hates Jews for no reason other than to hate them, and actively desires death.
Does that really make sense to yo? the Iranian leadership desires death? Is that at all consistent with their *action* over the years? By years, i mean since the actual revolution in the 70s that brought them to power?
footnote: the green revolutionaries – including Neda Soltan and all the youth – AGREE to this theologic rationale for rule. They see the present regime as aving deviated from the original revolution’s founding principles of Islam. They seek to “restore” the Republic, not destroy it.
If you see Iran as a nation of despots intent on self-immolation, then yes you have equated them to Orcs. I am sorry you feel offended by this but you have stripped all humanity from Iran and reduced it to a JewKillBot. As if the entirety of Iranian identity, history, and society could be reduced to a single imperative – and one not even relevant to Islam, but focused on Jews! Its utter, ignorant nonsense.
And for the record i dont think YOU think Iranians are orcs. But you are accepting the premise of people who do see them that way. including Netanyahu and (avigdor) Lieberman.
Aziz, you have completely lost touch with reality. I’m done arguing with you.
I agree with Mark, I’m done arguing with you. I don’t know you, Aziz, but I get the sense that the anxiety or “outing” crypto-Islamophobes and convincing people that Islamophobia is the new “existential threat” has gotten to you.
Take a vacation after that grant proposal, you’re really starting to sound like a Muslim McCarthy; and I don’t mean Jenny.
Listen to yourselves. “Iranians are just interested in dying.” “Iran’s leaders are interested in bringing around the end times any way they can.”
No, the Iranians are not interested in dying, but it does seem the leadership is rather apathetic on that point.
Aziz, you are way off the deep end on this one. The above commenters have made a clear distinction between Iranian leadership and Iranian people, and yet you channel your inner race baiting Al Sharpton and equate their comments to Muslims = Orcs?
You can make a good argument, I think, that the Iranian regime does just want to rule and survive and really has no interest in death or 72 virgins. But instead you just fall back to glib accusations of racism?
This from a guy who congratulates himself for giving the other side the benefit of the doubt?
It comes across as very phony.
Paul, since you got exhausted from reading my comment and could not finish to the end:
And for the record i dont think YOU think Iranians are orcs. But you are accepting the premise of people who do see them that way. including Netanyahu and (avigdor) Lieberman.
also i made it clear that the Orcs in question are the leadership, not the people. You are equating the Iranian leadership – the entire ruling regime, which ranges from Ahmadinejad and Khamanei to Rafsanjani – as Orcs. There is zero accusation of racism in this cmment BTW – its just classic Otherism, but race is pretty much irrelevant here.
THE Mullahs in Iran want one thing and ONE THING ALONE. They want to stay in power and rule for a nice, long time.
Ermmh, it doesn’t look that way from here:
Iran’s Supreme Leader calls on British Muslims to oppose Government
http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/2010/02/irans-supreme-leader-calls-on-british.html
Aziz,
Note: edited to correct typos. I know how to spell Argentina.
You, not Pipes, and not the other commenters here have gone off the deep end. For one thing, at the end of Nazi rule the Nazi leadership was a pretty good approximation of a “mindless horde that hates Jews for no reason other than to hate them, and actively desires death.” And they did a pretty credible job of destroying lots of Jews.
Jew-hatred appears to have reached Nazi levels among Palestinians for sure, simply due the vicious cycle of truly obscene rabid anti-Jewish propaganda brought to the Middle East by the Nazis and made a vicous cycle by naturally producing rabid anti-Jewish bigots who then produce more truly obscene rabid anti-Jewish propaganda. Unfortuneately the vicious cycle has also permeated Arab society because the truly obscene rabid anti-Jewish propaganda was adopted by various Arab despots for their own gain, with the same predictable results. Sadly, this same vicious cycle is playing out to a lesser extent throughout the Muslim world, simply because Muslims are sensibly predisposed to trust their Arab brethren as Muslims. I would like to see this vicious cycle broken.
In addition we have evidence to believe that Stalin very nearly started a nuclear war with the West and was only stopped by being assassinated. Perhaps not, but occasionally nations do appear to go crazy and kill lots of people even when their own population is wildly at risk. Please review the War of the Triple Alliance. I will summarize. The Paraguayan dictator, Lopez, who fancied himself another Napoleon, wanted to fight Uruguay. Paraguay does not border Uruguay. Paraguay demanded that Brazil and Argentina, both allies of Uruguay, allow Paraguayan forces to cross their land to attack Uruguay. They refused. Paraguay declared war on all three. Please note the relative sizes of the countries involved. Lopez was even better than Napoleon in one way. He somehow inspired amazing loyalty. Two-thirds of the population of Paraguay perished in the war. Two-thirds, Aziz.
So, to use your colorful language, we have existance proofs where nations really do approximate orcs for some time period. Especially when you consider all the twentieth-century genocide and various death camps.
So I submit to you that preventing Iran from getting nukes is not only reasonable, it is prudent, if you really believe “Never again”.
Yours,
Tom, aka Wince
If Israel agrees with you, Tom, then they are obligated to *nuke* Tehran, NOW.
How do you explain that this hasnt happened? Im curious as to your take.
I think it’s fairly apparent that Iran’s leadership is not suicidal. They just aren’t. And a claim that they all want to bring about the end times by any means necessary is, I think, pretty much a fantasy as well. While there are likely some elements in that government who think that way, it doesn’t seem likely to be anything like a majority. It’s a concern, especially if the nuttiest elements get power. But it’s pretty clearly not where they’re at, or they would have found a lot more dramatic ways to show it by now.
In general, a regime which is suicidally insane will suicide in fairly short order. This one, whatever its awful nature (and it’s pretty awful), clearly has been in power decades and thus clearly isn’t inherently suicidal.
I would also have to agree that if the state of Israel truly believes that the Iranian regime’s primary goal is the destruction of Israel, to the point of suicidal frenzy, then, they really are obligated to nuke Iran now.
All of that said, I actually do advocate military action against Iran, up to and including bombing into smithereens anything that so much as looks like a nuke development facility. Not the point. The point is that I don’t see anything particularly insane in Aziz’s main points.
Pipes disappoints me often by the way. He wrote one of the best books on conspiracy thinking I ever read (entitled, concisely enough, “Conspiracy”). But since then, I just don’t know about that guy…
Aziz,
Israel is taking steps to stop Iran. Nukes are not necessary.
Dean,
Aziz’z insanity mainly consists in calling others insane when they are taking a reasonable and prudent stance. His policy stance is not insane. He clearly regards the risk of losing millions of Jews in Israel as a very low risk.
Considering the tragic Jewish history of perpetual target, I think that’s a bit optimistic. My Jewish friend Yossi says that all Jewish holidays follow this formula, “They tried to kill us. We survived. Let’s eat!”
Nobody thinks Persians are a perpetual target.
I think Aziz is so busy defending Islam against the notion that Islam is insane that he has forgotten that nations in the thrall of a particular ideology or a cult of personality (France under Napoleon – why did France think they needed to conquer Europe?) can noticeably go insane. By all means Aziz should defend Islam, but he should remember history.
Yours,
Tom, aka Wince
I think it’s insane to insist that Tariq Ramadan is a moderate when he is and always has been a representative of the political/criminal mob organization, the Muslim Brotherhood.
Claiming that this representative of this criminal organization is respectable is like claiming that John Gotti is and always was a legitimate businessman specializing in waste management.
It’s also insane to bring up MB-linked Ramadan in this context, since the Muslim Brotherhood’s Saudi sponsors are responsible for the current crisis.
Israel has been complaining about, and worrying about Iraninan nuclear ambitions for years. Our government hasn’t been paying much attention. But now our Saudi ‘allies’ are expressing concern. And when our Saudi allies stomp their little feet and demand that we jump, our government’s only reponse is to ask ‘how far’?
It’s not clear if our Saudi allies are more concerned by Iran’s nukes or by Iran’s pro-democracy movement. But our state department doesn’t care about that, they only care about obeying their Saudi friends.
If we do what our Saudi allies demand, we’ll further destablize the Middle East, encourage Wahhabi-sponsored terrorism, bolster opressive regimes and finance them and their terrorist militias through higher oil prices. Which will lead to more terrorists screaming “we love death more than you love life” which will encourage more people to fear the Middle East and the Muslim world.
It’s the old cycle of hatred and violence, thanks to our friendship with Ramadan’s sponsors.
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