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Jun 11, 2006

AHMADINEJAD WANTS TO REPLACE SADDAM

9/11 demonstrated that ignoring the terror breading dysfunctional state of governance in the Middle East is no longer an option. As a symbol of successful defiance, Saddam stood in the way of major regional transformation. Hence, the eviction of Saddam was a necessary, if not sufficient, condition to a new democratizing Middle East. With Saddam gone, the current powers are bound to realize that resistance is futile and cut the best deal they can with the new emerging forces. That was the strategy behind the War in Iraq.

The coalition difficulties may have improved the deal but the mass participation in the Iraqi elections redressed the balance. Kaddafi’s turn around, Arafat’s death, the Egyptian and Saudi “elections” and the Lebanese Cedar revolution created a mutually reinforcing dynamic in that direction. It is that dynamic that Ahmadinejad seeks to block by turning adherence to the failed status quo into an act of heroic defiance and demonstrating that the international community remains the divided corrupt paper tiger Saddam had proved it to be for many years. The fiery Iranian believes that only such a demonstration would prevent allies like Syria and armed rejectionists such as Hizbullah and Hamas from jumping ship and leaving Iran twisting alone in the reformist winds.

Iran could have chosen a more prudent or passive course in the hope that events and conflict of interests within the international community would derail the ME reform project. But Ahmadinejad and his allies apparently concluded that time was not on their side and his fellow Iranians seem to agree. Emad Afrough, the head of Majlis Cultural Commission, explains:

I personally accept foreign policy of Ahmadinejad and believe that his stances and measures changed foreign policy into an active one rather than passive one.

There are certain individuals who are optimistically thinking that interests of Europe and the US are separate from each other, while they share commonalties in their general interests and their short-term economic differences should not deceive us.

Tehran’s interim Friday prayer leader, Hojattoleslam Seyed Ahmad Khatami follows suit:

The concepts of 'Islam' and 'Republicanism' are interconnected. (...) The world arrogant powers intend to replace the regional regimes by those that can be manipulated by themselves without making any exception about those which have so far been subject to them. Recent developments in Syria and Lebanon are part of the enemies' plan to this end. They are attempting to topple the forerunners involved in campaign with the Zionist regime.

Former president and failed presidential candidate Rafsanjani responded to an invitation to visit Syria with an open letter in which he wrote:

Under the current sensitive historical juncture when the enemies are exerting pressure under lame excuses on independent Islamic states particularly the two strategic countries of the Middle East as two real supporters of the Palestinian nation, exchange of views between the two sides' officials on the issues relevant to the region and world of Islam is inevitable.

I am quite confident that you as a competent successor to late Hafez al-Assad as the president of Syria will successfully leave behind this sensitive juncture and will take steps in line with the national interests of your country and Muslims.

Ahmadinejad’s strategy seems to be working at least as far as the Arab world is concerned. Assad has refused to be questioned by UN appointed investigators and a Palestinian candidate by the name of Hammad that Hamas (which has an office in Tehran also issuing uncompromising statements is committed to continued anti-Israeli violence:

Hamas will continue develop its armed wings by recruiting more members and making more rockets and bombs. . . . Our aim after the elections is to reinforce the Islamic culture and spread it as well as our social and political views.

”US Backtracks Earlier Threats” is the headline describing Secretary Rice’s announcement that no one is looking for immediate UN sanctions against Iran. Just as good was the accompanying news that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has not yet even “made any decision to hold an emergency meeting to consider Iran's nuclear program.“ Preacher Khattami, indeed, has good reasons to tell his followers that all the Western noise “is just a psychological war.” If the Iranians seem to coalesce around their reckless president, it is because he seems to be winning.

He is winning because no one threatened to do anything which would affect the life of the Iranian ruling class. The life of those Iranians will not be affected by the bombing of Bushir or other sites dedicated to nuclear development. It would be affected by a threat to deny visas to Iranians (including family members) connected in any shape or form to the government who wish to travel or do business abroad. Just tell Iranian parents and children that the West is about to be close to them and note the response. Ahmadinejad was already asked about the vulnerability of Iranian foreign bank accounts. Unfortunately, this morning's issue of the Financial Timesdraws comfort from the fact that Iran will appoint more experienced ambassadors to London, Paris and Berlin.

Still, all is not lost because, interestingly, Putin may turn out to be the real thorn in the Iranian side. He is holding up the completion of Bushir, reports Rapporteur of Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Kazem Jalali. The U.S., EU and Russia are united in wishing to prevent a nuclear Iran, he said. Their disagreement is limited to “the ceiling of their demands.” In other words, Putin may be thrilled to support Ahmadinejad’s efforts to block the democratization of the Middle East but he is not reckless enough to wish to see a nuclear Iran on his border especially at a time when he is fighting his own war with Islamism. So, he quietly signals to Ahmadinejad that he better accept the Russian ceiling and agree to refer the Iranian nuclear issue to the UN. But will Ahmadinejad do what Saddam has failed to do and accept a compromise? The immediate and middle range future of the Middle East depends on the answer.

Also see, IRNA LIES TO ITS PEOPLE


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More Comments:

omar ibrahim baker - 10/19/2007

Professor Klinghoffer feigned concern for American safety and security is best seen in her , crucial,parallel reference to Saddam Hussein.
It is now universally known and acknowledged beyond any doubt that Saddam's Iraq was never a threat to AMERICAN security.
That it was to ISRAEL's is another point.
Herein lies Professor Klingoffer's tortuous, ultimately unAmerican or rather anti American, logic: equating Israel's security and interests with America's.
This Zionist/AIPAC approach, identifying the security and interests of the USA with Israel's, succeded in the case of Iraq to the patently heavy COST and LOSS to the USA and the equally heavy gain , at absolutely no cost ,to Israel!
What Professor Klinhoffer is really advocating here is for the USA to fight and incurr the COST of ANOTHER WAR the sole objective of which would be maintaining Israel's regional nuclear monopoly at, as in Iraq, NO COST to Israel.
With the US bleeding daily in IRAQ, to the growing unrest and opposition of the American public, I doubt whether AIPAC , and its mouth piece Klinghoffer, will manage to pull it off this time around.

AIPAC & Co will not be able to take the USA for another ride so soon, if ever, again.
The coming ten years will tell the whole world, and the American public, who is really governing the USA; the American people or AIPAC & Co!

Patrick M. Ebbitt - 9/24/2006

Iraq 2.0

The yellow belly spawn of Irving Kristol, little Billy, is already mouthing to send your kid on a one way trip to dirt shirt city via Tehran.

Read here...

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/585tdlqf.asp

It is absolutely amazing that a spineless little troll, with a big mouth, who sucks of the gaseous wind of their crappie old man have the Bush's ear.

Yet, you'll never see a Kristol buried with military honors.

Peter K. Clarke - 1/18/2006

Here we have yet another in the long series of ahistorical fantasies presented by HNN's resident neo-con apologist.

This long-winded pseudo-commentary concludes:

"Will Ahmadinejad do what Saddam has failed to do and accept a compromise? The immediate and middle range future of the Middle East depends on the answer"

This sort of warmed-over platitude, appended to a superficial recounting of selected recent events, begs major questions:

Most crucially: "Accept a compromise" means compromising between which two alternatives ? (a) Going nuclear and (b) what ?

Regardless of the ever-shifting evasions coming from Klinghoffer's chair in Bushspeak Cheerleading at HNN, there is no credible plan B. The threats of the U.S., EU, and Russia, are thus far empty, and Ahmadinejad knows it, and that is why he feels emboldened to carry on his antics (which may or may not be designed to emulate Saddam - a theory which Klinghoffer, quite typically, assumes without bothering to consider historical evidence pro or con).

And WHY is there no solid multilateral international consensus on an effective credible counterthreat to
this new nuclear drive in Persia ?

There WAS strong international solidarity behind a resolute United States for a few months after 9-11. Until Fratboy neo-President Bush decided that the neo-con game plan (for fulfilling Osama bin Laden's dreams of provoking a reckless western invasion) suited his 2004 election strategy (to run as a "war president"). Klinghoffer cheered this asinine unAmerican folly to the hilt, and, ever since the failed cakewalk of 2003, has been backing and filling to try and scrounge up a rationale for the greatest American foreign policy disaster since Vietnam. This latest installment here is no less dubious than its many predecessors.

Either Ahmadinejad and/or his backers will succeed in going nuclear, or they will bargain away that card in return for some as yet difficult-to-fathom carrot offered from the outside. They have no stick to fear, because the chance to create one was squandered in Iraq so that Bush could win election to the White House for the first time. Having cried wolf over Iraq's non-existent WMDs, and been exposed, the American chickenhawks are unlikely to sucker hundreds of thousands of more young Americans into another regime-change quagmire in Iran. Without a credible military threat, there is little chance of policies in Iran being influenceable by the incompetent Bush administration, regardless of what its lackeys on HNN may pretend.