Who links to me?
Not according to Captain Ed. That is once you get passed his obsession with the coming of the 12 Imam and the end of the world as we know it which will allow Islam to take its rightful place as the dominent religion in the world.
If you can accept the aforementioned premise and most people do even the most dovish;the only way to explain away the threat of the president of a country of 70 million people bent on bringing about armageddon is by saying “he really isn’t the one in power”. Maybe he is maybe not. At the very least you have to accept the possibility and in that case Captain Ed makes some very good points in his post today.
On the other hand, although it is difficult to assume that Ahmadinejad is a rational actor, this would seem to cut off his nose to spite his face. Why antagonize Russia and China, when they are all that separates Iran from a backbreaking sanctions regime? Let’s return to that in a moment.
And here’s where both ends meet. If Ahmadinejad wants to humiliate Russia and China, then the West will finally be able to get tough on Iran, through the UN Security Council in all likelihood. If Ahmadinejad wants to humiliate Bush, the political fallout from such a move would almost ensure that America will have to toughen its stance, bringing an end to any diplomatic rapprochement. Both cases almost ensure some kind of severe diplomatic break.
As I have written before — that’s exactly what Ahmadinejad wants. He is neither rational nor irrational, but non-rational. His messianic strain of Shi’ism drives him to believe in a world catastrophe in which the Twelfth Imam will arise and take control of the entire world. Everything Ahmadinejad does is completely understandable in this context.
I hope all of you especially those of you on the left take the time to read his entire post.
Linking Posts
What should we do about Iran?
Imagine that the guy down the street has been threatening to kill you for years. He even blew up your toolshed once, but you were too nice a guy to do anything about it. Fortunately, he’s kind of wimpy, and you’re big and strong, plus he knows you’re armed. So far, so good. But lately he’s been stepping up his threats, and claims to be assembling a machine gun. A peek through his kitchen window shows him hard at work at something that looks just like one. He also says he’s perfectly willing to die in order to do you in. Pretend for a moment there’s no police to call. What do you do?
I don’t know about you, but with kids and a wife at home, my duty is to protect them. In such a circumstance the threat level is too high to ignore or to wait for further action. If no one else will do it, then I will do whatever is necessary to ensure that he will not be able to commit against my family, even if it means doing against him first.
So what do we do about Iran? I can’t for the life of me figure out why, other than a pathological desire to appear nice in the eyes of the MSM and the rest of the world, we haven’t loudly announced to the leadership and population of Iran that they have 2 weeks to surrender, open their borders to our inspectors and administrators, and if they don’t comply, a nuclear-tipped cruise missile will turn Tehran into molten glass. If they want to evacuate the city before-hand, that’s fine. I suspect they’d fold. If not, then surely the 2nd nuke would do the job. It only took 2 for the Japanese, and they had that whole ‘death-before-surrender’ thing.
Comment by Doc � June 4, 2006 @ 3:00 pm
Missing word twice in the above post was “viol*nce”. Sorry ’bout that!
Comment by Doc � June 4, 2006 @ 3:01 pm
[…] UPDATE: The Real Ugly American. […]
Pingback by Blue Crab Boulevard » Blog Archive » Iran � June 4, 2006 @ 8:10 pm
except for the whole Nuke em thing. I am with you Doc.
Comment by The Ugly American � June 5, 2006 @ 10:45 am
Ummm…why not nuke’em? Why risk our boys at all? We give them fair warning, we invite them to open their borders; failing that, they have plenty of time to evacuate. This is essentially a warning shot. OK, so maybe, instead of Tehran, we choose some isolated nowhere place. Same diff, maybe a bit less effective. I don’t see why we have to risk anyone to deal with these bozos. What, are the French going to us more?
My wingnut leftist family members would bemoan my warmongering. I would be very sad at any s of Iranian noncombatants. I wish we could resolve this without that. But I more fear the s of Americans, including my family, and it is the duty of our leaders to prevent those s at the hands of religiously motivated suicidal maniacs (or anyone else, for that matter). So I ask again, why not nuke’em if they don’t cooperate?
Comment by Doc � June 6, 2006 @ 9:23 pm
missing words in post above:
hat-e and - s; sorry about that; sensitive censoring program
Comment by Doc � June 6, 2006 @ 9:25 pm
that would be - and de*ths (yeesh; reaallly sensitive censoring program!)
Comment by Doc � June 6, 2006 @ 9:26 pm