So let me see. On the one hand, we have a regime that is pressing full steam ahead with its nuclear programme and whose president has threatened to wipe another sovereign state off the map.
And, on the other side of the negotiations, we have Her Britannic Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.
Jack Straw has been at pains to emphasise that no military action against Iran is being contemplated by him or anybody else, but in a sign that he's losing patience with the mullahs Mr Straw's officials have indicated that they're prepared to consider the possibility of possibly considering the preparation of a possible motion on sanctions for the UN Security Council to consider the possibility of considering.
But don't worry, we're not escalating this thing any more than necessary. Initially, the FCO is considering "narrowly targeted sanctions such as a travel ban on Iranian leaders".
That'll show 'em: Iranian missiles may be able to leave Iranian airspace, but the deputy trade minister won't. No more trips to Paris for the spring collections or skiing in Gstaad for the A-list ayatollahs.
Needless to say, the German deputy foreign minister, Gernot Erler, has already cautioned that this may be going too far, and that sanctions could well hurt us more than it hurts the Iranians. Perhaps this is what passes is for a good cop/bad cop routine, with Herr Erler affably suggesting to the punks that they might want to cooperate or he'll have to send his pal Jack in to tear up their tickets for the Michael Moore premiÚre at the Cannes Film Festival.
But, if I were President Ahmadinejad or the wackier ayatollahs, I'd be mulling over the kid glove treatment from Jack Straw and Co and figuring: wow, if this is the respect we get before the nukes are fully operational, imagine how they'll be treating us this time next year. Incidentally, the assumption in the European press that the nuclear payload won't be ready to fly for three or four years is laughably optimistic.
So any Western strategy that takes time is in the regime's favour. After all, President Ahmaggedonouttahere's formative experience was his participation in the seizure of the US embassy in Teheran in 1979. I believe it was Andrei Gromyko who remarked that, if the students had pulled the same stunt at the Soviet embassy, Teheran would have been a crater by lunchtime.
So what can be done? Right now, Iran can count on at least two Security Council vetoes against any meaningful action by the "international community". As for the unilaterally inclined, the difficulty for the US and Israel is that there's really no Osirak-type resolution of the problem - a quick surgical strike, in and out. By most counts, there are upwards of a couple of hundred potential sites spread across a wide range of diverse terrain, from remote mountain fastnesses to residential suburbs.
To neutralise them all would require a sustained bombing campaign lasting several weeks, and with the usual collateral damage at schools, hospitals, etc, plastered all over CNN and the BBC. Meanwhile, Iraq's Shia south would turn into another Sunni Triangle for coalition forces. Every challenge to the West begins as a contest of wills - and for the Iranians recent history, from the Shah and the embassy siege to the Iraqi "insurgency" and Mr Straw's soundbites, tells them the West can't muster the strength of will needed to force them to back down.
But, granted the Iranian destabilisation of Iraq and their sponsorship of terror groups in Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority, surely it shouldn't be difficult to give them a taste of their own medicine. Who, after all, likes the Teheran regime? The Russian and Chinese and North Korean governments and the fulsome Mr Straw appear to, but there's less evidence that the Iranian people do.
The majority of Iran's population is younger than the revolution: whether or not they're as "pro-American" as is sometimes claimed, they have no memory of the Shah; all they've ever known is their ramshackle Islamic republic where the unemployment rate is currently 25 per cent. If war breaks out, those surplus young men will be in uniform and defending their homeland.
Why not tap into their excess energy right now? As the foreign terrorists have demonstrated in Iraq, you don't need a lot of local support to give the impression (at least to Tariq Ali and John Pilger) of a popular insurgency. Would it not be feasible to turn the tables and upgrade Iran's somewhat lethargic dissidents into something a little livelier? A Teheran preoccupied by internal suppression will find it harder to pull off its pretensions to regional superpower status.
Who else could we stir up? Well, did you see that story in the Sunday Telegraph? Eight of the regime's border guards have been kidnapped and threatened with decapitation by a fanatical Sunni group in Iranian Baluchistan. I'm of the view that the Shia are a much better long-term bet as reformable Muslims, but given that there are six million Sunni in Iran and that they're a majority in some provinces, would it not be possible to give the regime its own Sunni Triangle?
No option is without risks, though some are overstated, including regional anger at any Western action: I doubt whether many Arab Sunni regimes really wish to live under the nuclear umbrella of a Persian Shia superpower. And, indeed, one further reason (as if you need one) to put the skids under Boy Assad in Damascus is to underline that there's a price to be paid for getting too cosy with Teheran.
But every risk has to be weighed against the certainty that Iran would use its nuclear capacity in the same way it uses its other assets - by supporting terror groups that operate against its enemies.
And Jack Straw's mullah-coddling is particularly unworthy in that, insofar as Iran has a strategy, the president's chief adviser, Hassan Abbassi, has based it on the premise that "Britain is the mother of all evils" - the evils being America, Australia, Israel, the Gulf states and even Canada and New Zealand, all of which are the malign progeny of the British Empire.
"We have established a department that will take care of England," said Mr Abbassi last May. "England's demise is on our agenda." Apropos the ayatollahs, England could at least return the compliment.
#1
Damn the guy can write. He lances the buffoons, balloons, and boils with surgical skill. He lampoons and dismisses the PC morons who'd get us all killed if things were left to their cheesedick agendas. He carries out the smarmy feckless Tranzi garbage without ceremony. He can tell shit from Shinola at a thousand paces. And, well, he just makes the whole thing fun to boot.
#2
And we're damned lucky to have him ... I just wish there were more like him on our side and bringing clarity to people who don't follow what's going on carefully, the ones who get their worldview from ABC and CNN and maybe the NYT.
Posted by: too true ||
01/17/2006 5:47 Comments ||
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#3
a brilliant peice but i still think a month or two of hardcore desert storm style bombing campaign on thier nuke facilities will put em back a decade or so - buying us some time at least. Other then that though he is dead right and Jack Straw man has acted like a frightened dickhead. Atomic warfare is getting closer and closer to us all and i fear its not going to be us firing the opening shots :( As to what the delivery method for these Iranian nukes will be its anyones guess, ok an airburst nuke is the ultimate but im sure transport ships, civilian aircraft, trucks and maybe even large vans could all be used to strike our civilian areas,passed into the hands of numerous terrorist groups so as to try and create as much of a nightmare as they can for us. Unfortuantly i believe they are half way through these 'plans' already and we are really pushing it if we are to catch up as it were and gain some sort of initiative over the Mad Mullahs and co.I'm not convinced about an uprising at all, my view is the students and others who would like to revolt would be too brutally and viciously put down by the overwhelming conventional power of elements of the Iranian military.I should think these guys could make Tianaman Square look like a playground fight. Sacnctions will be taken as a decleration of war by the Mad Mullahs but i guess we cant blame em for that lol so there out of the question (yay). What i think this boils down to is the only way to deal with them - through force,whos gonna be 'the force'? Germany would provide basing rights i guess and a few covert target watchers but fck all else i'm guessing,france, well im not even gonna try and guess that but probaly just provide a whole host of problems for us, other Euros such as poland may help in limited ways and, UK would be best off bolstering up in Southern Iraq setting up some solid defensive arragements including plenty of air support such as harriers and jaguars and hell we got apaches so lets ship 30 or so of them out there to give us some real tank banging power and deter the Iranian armour divisions in the first place.USA would do well to bring in a load of A-10 hogs to the Iraqi theatre again as a tank banging defensive option,J-stars and sht like that are already deployed as are a fair few patriot batteries (i think) get a few wings of F-15s for defensive work. Get as many covert bases in the planning ready to go at a moments notice too cos the Iranians will get people into Iraq to get targets for thier collection of various surface to surface missiles.US Navy should get a fair few carriers but the more you stack in the gulf waters the higher the danger,perhaps stay outa the gulf altogether and fly futher but keep the carriers safer and leave other air assets to patrol the gulf. Let them know their are a few Ohio class subs lurking somewhere within striking range too and more LA class subs then they can count ready to rain potentially thousands of cruise missiles down on em.I guess some other gulf countrys would help to in a limited and covert manner which is good and overflight rights and basing options shouldnt be as hard as what some claim they will be to get. I 'm sure we can defeat the Iranian regime in conventional warfare and remove thier nuke program But only if we use the maximum force we have straight away - NO gradual ramping up of air campaign over several months but an all out thrashing opening with everything we have and not stopping till every army, airforce and navy base and units have been destroyed. I'm thinking Desert Storm amounts of destroyed armour and bases etc but none of the stopping after a month or so to let most of the elite units go back to safty,no geopgraphic boundries either hit them at every end of thier country,take out every bridge and power station, evry port and airport, every train station and any desanilation plants they have, hit them so hard and in so many differant ways the country simply collapses - that is the only answer. They could not possibly 'grow back' stronger and anyone who thinks they could is as dellusional as the Mad Mullahs themselves. Sometimes we have to stand up and crush the oppisition or we'll be crushed ourselves.
Posted by: Shep UK ||
01/17/2006 6:45 Comments ||
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#4
"Damn the guy can write. He lances the buffoons, balloons, and boils with surgical skill. He lampoons and dismisses the PC morons who'd get us all killed if things were left to their cheesedick agendas. He carries out the smarmy feckless Tranzi garbage without ceremony. He can tell shit from Shinola at a thousand paces. And, well, he just makes the whole thing fun to boot."
And that's the difference between Steyn and Hanson. Both are great, but Steyn covers similar ground, with similar perspective, whilst getting a chuckle.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
01/17/2006 6:49 Comments ||
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#5
Kick them out of the World Cup [soccer] and Ahmadjinedad will be one hell of an unpopular beardie. If that don't work then let's make the rubble bounce a few times and be quick about it.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
01/17/2006 6:54 Comments ||
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#6
I propose that Iran should try luke warm pablum with non fat milk, it sure works for me.
Posted by: Jack Straw ||
01/17/2006 8:50 Comments ||
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#7
Why not tap into their excess energy right now? As the foreign terrorists have demonstrated in Iraq, you don't need a lot of local support to give the impression (at least to Tariq Ali and John Pilger) of a popular insurgency. Would it not be feasible to turn the tables and upgrade Iran's somewhat lethargic dissidents into something a little livelier? A Teheran preoccupied by internal suppression will find it harder to pull off its pretensions to regional superpower status.
If our CIA had more Jack Bauers and fewer Valerie Plames, this would be right up their alley.
#10
Wouldn't it be far more entertaining to try and unnerve the Iranian public as much as possible? For example, over satellite, start airing "The Day After" and "Threads" every night. Newly-made gruesome documentaries about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with lots of emphasis on the medical effects of radiation.
Get some of Hollywood's talented f/x guys and put together a no-name actor low budget movie about Iran after a nuclear war. Make it as grotesque as humanly possible. Blame the Mullahs and their President by name for secretly building a nuke and throwing it at Israel, because they are also secretly Satan worshippers. Crudely appeal to ignorance and superstition.
And not only does Israel shoot it down, but EVERYBODY, Israel, the US, France, Russia and even China begins lobbing nuclear weapons at Iran.
Show the scortched remains of Mecca and Media. Tehran and Qom as cities of the dead. Show the survivors burning Mullahs at the stake, and putting the heads of their leaders on poles. Really take it to ridiculous lengths, choking and puking in the aisles gross.
Then burn a million DVDs.
You can't tell me that making a bad movie isn't preferable to most other alternatives.
#12
But, if I were President Ahmadinejad or the wackier ayatollahs, I'd be mulling over the kid glove treatment from Jack Straw and Co and figuring: wow, if this is the respect we get before the nukes are fully operational, imagine how they'll be treating us this time next year.
#13
If they really want to be a world player, well then lets give them the attention they are screaming for.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
01/17/2006 16:26 Comments ||
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#14
Would it not be feasible to turn the tables and upgrade Iran's somewhat lethargic dissidents into something a little livelier? A Teheran preoccupied by internal suppression will find it harder to pull off its pretensions to regional superpower status.
Notice SE Iran is where he is talking - and there and the coastal Arabs, as well as the Kurds in the North and Pashtun in the easter border (Afghnistan) area.
I believe I posted about this a couple of days ago. Its a shame I didnt express myself as well as Steyn. But he must be reading Rantburg to crib my ideas (or else have the same mindset and be talking to the same people I do). Hah Hah!
Setting the tone at the recent conference of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), Tariq Ramadan addressed "young Western Muslims" telling them, "If you want to help the oppressed - vote - donât kill the people, but build a better understanding in your own society."
Speaking to the 1,200 Islamist activists December 17 at the Long Beach Convention Centerâat least some of whom Ramadan apparently believes might be otherwise inclined to "kill the people"-- Ramadan focused on the "Four Cs" as "what we need for now and the futureâŠ. ConfidenceâŠ. Critical Mindâdonât accept anything without checkingâŠ. Commitment, not just international, but domestic⊠and⊠Creativity."
Ramadanâs words echo the strategy of dead Italian communist Antonio Gramsci and the leading modern-day practitioner of Gramscianism, Noam Chomsky. Gramsciâs "Prison Notebooks", circulating in the US for the first time in the late 1970s and early 1980s, led hundreds of thousands of left-over anti-Vietnam war activists to aim for careers in journalism, politics, the ministry and of course academia in order to undermine America from positions of cultural authority.
Ramadanâs parallel strategy calls on young Islamists to instead show, "creativity in every field; culture, intellectualâŠsocial commitment (and) economic dynamics. Ramadan decries, "lack of creativity in the wayâŠwe deal with âthe othersâ". He urges Islamistsâinstead of "kill(ing) the people" to demand, "society follow its own principlesâŠhaving said 9-11 is un-IslamicâŠlet us come togetherâŠ. You have to take from the culture (of the US) everything that is goodâŠ(but)âŠnot everything in the culture is good for usâŠwe are selectiveâŠwe are criticalâŠ."
A Swiss citizen, Ramadan is currently banned from entering the United States by order of the Department of Homeland Security. His Long Beach speech was delivered by video. In 1996 he was temporarily banned from entering France, suspected of ties to an Algerian terror group.
The French newspaper, Le Monde accuses him of organizing a 1991 meeting between al Qaeda's second-in-charge, Ayman al Zawahiri, and Omar Abdel Rahman, who was later convicted in the 1993 bombing of the first World Trade Center. He denies the long history of alleged terrorist associations which follow him like a swarm of flies, dismissing all the accusations as "lies". Ramadanâs books and tapes are popular with young Muslims in the riotous French suburbs who killed, burned and looted to demand that "society follow its own principles" after two criminals electrocuted themselves while evading the police. French-language intellectuals often refer to Ramadan as "the master of doubletalk".
A typical example of Ramadanâs doubletalk may be found in his answer to an Italian magazineâs question about whether it is right to kill children and Israeli civilians because they are considered soldiers. Ramadan replies: "I don't believe that an eight year old child is a soldier. These acts are condemnable; therefore one has to condemn them in themselves. But I say to the international community that they are contextually explicable, and not justifiable. What does this mean? It means that the international community today has placed the Palestinians in a situation where they are delivered political oppression, which explains (not justifying it) that at a certain point people say: we don't have arms, we don't have anything, and so we cannot do anything other than this. It is contextually explicable but morally condemnable."
Killing Israeli children is "contextually explicable"? Apparently Ramadan believes a few sonorous words against terrorism are enough to make it all OKâand allow him to proceed with a plan to turn wanna-be homicide bombers into todayâs social critics and tomorrows cultural and political rulers.
Ramadanâs theme ran throughout many of the convention speeches. "How can we live in this country?" asked Dr. Javeed Akhter, President of the International Strategy and Policy Institute, a MPAC member organization. "We will be confidentâŠso that people look at us as an example of how a minority should behave in this countryâŠ. The Covenant of Medina sets out the principles that are essential to the functioning of a pluralistic society."
The Covenant of Medina, written in 622AD establishes the basis for treating non-Muslim minorities within the Muslim empire which ruled much of world for the next 8oo years.
The document signed by the Jewish tribes subject to Mohammedâs rule in Medina, began protected subjugationâdhimmitude--as a way of life for all non-Muslims who fall under Islamic rule. The next few years were years of conquest and subjugation of Jews and Christians, "those who have received Scripture", who did not accept Islam. The spirit of the Islamic conquerors is captured in the Koran, Sura 1X, 29: "Make war upon those who have received Scripture...until they pay tribute, being brought lowâŠ."
In essence Akhter proposes that Muslims live within the US â as rulers whose idea of a "pluralistic society" is dhimmitude for the rest of us. These so-called "moderate Muslims" of MPAC differ from al-Qaeda only in tactics. Rather than blowing themselves up and taking as many infidels as possible with them, they join domestic leftists in seeking to hamstring America in rules and regulations designed to protect the "rights" of terrorists while undermining America through the unrelenting propaganda focused on Guantanamo "prisoners rights" which is everywhere in the media.
Former Army Muslim Chaplain and onetime accused al-Qaeda spy, James Yee, spoke immediately after Ahkter. He continued the theme, telling the convention, "The Prophet Mohammed saidâŠâWe should strive and pursue those things which benefit usâŠ.â
"Guantanamo, that controversial prison campâŠwhere in 2003 some 660 prisonersâall of them Muslim faithâwere being heldâŠ. I was sent down there as a US Muslim ChaplainâŠ. I made great contributions down thereâŠ. I was down there as an advocate for humane treatment of prisoners⊠to uphold the fundamental American value of religious freedom and diversity, tolerance...."
Yee did not indicate to whom he "made great contributions." Yee, whose family now resides in Damascus, Syria, continues, "For upholding those fundamental American principles as an American MuslimâŠI found myself in a situation where IâŠwould quickly be arrested under suspicions that I was a terrorist spyâŠ."
Yee, Muslim Chaplain stationed at Guantanamo Bay, was arrested on September 10, 2003 and held for 76 days. On one hand Yee does not question whether the prisoners are up holding the "fundamental values" of Islam. On the other hand he demands that the US uphold his self-serving interpretation of what "fundamental American values" are and sees his role in the military as being, "an advocate for humane treatment of prisoners."
"Finally the military and the government came to the realization that they had made a mistake and all of the accusations all of the charges that were brought against me were droppedâthey disappearedâŠ. My moral responsibly as an American Muslim⊠to continue to contribute in the most positive way and what I did was--I simply stood up for justiceâŠto advocate for those fundamental American values of diversity and tolerance and religious freedomâŠ."
Note that Yee does not proclaim his innocence while openly declaring his role in the military is to function as an "advocate forâŠ(the) prisoners."
Why "kill the people" when Islamists can be much more effective undermining America from within by pretending to uphold the "fundamental value" of coddling terrorist head-choppers? Former Ambassador Joe Wilson, whose lies are the cornerstone to the Bush hatersâ "Bush lied" campaign, spoke at MPACâs fundraising banquet. His remarks are not included in the convention audio but his presence at MPACâs fundraiser speaks volumes about the unholy alliance between the Democrat media and the Democrat Party leadership and the Islamists who wear a fig leaf of terrorist criticism in order to make themselves credible political activists.
The MPAC Convention hosted several other speakers who are eagerly putting Ramadanâs strategy into practice, including Parvez Ahmed whose Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) hosts a "Not in the Name of Islam" petition denouncing terror while at the same time is campaigning against the Department of Homeland Security sniffing for radiation near Islamic sites in Washington, DC and other cities. In other words, America must count on CAIR and its petition signers for defense against terrorism while completely disarming ourselves of even the most basic precautionsâbecause they violate CAIRâs interpretation of "our most fundamental principles".
This completely mirrors the status of non-Islamic subjects to Islamic rule where Dhimmis are required to go unarmed amidst the majority Muslim population and rely entirely on the "protection" of Muslim authorities.
Other speakers included, Maher Hathout, whose next book, due in 2006, is titled, "In Pursuit of Justice" and Naheed Qureshi, the "Safe and Free Western Organizer" for the American Civil Liberties Union and UC-Irvine Mid East Studies Professor, Mark Levine. Many speakers were officials of the US or UK government. These include: Alina Romanowski the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Educational & Cultural Affairs, Ron Wakabayashi, a Bill Clinton crony now working in the US Department of Justice office in Los Angeles which handles complaints about the "Do Not Fly" list, Bob Pierce, British Consul General, Bruce Sherman, Broadcasting Board of Governors, State Department, LA County Sheriff Lee Baca, and Faisal Gill Advisor to the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, Department of Homeland Security.
Ironically, in addition to Ramadan being banned, another MPAC convention speaker, Waqqas Khan, President of the UK Federation of Student Islamic Societies missed the conference due to being held by the very same Department of Homeland Security for nearly four hours at Los Angeles International Airport.
Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, (R-CA) was listed on early release versions of the MPAC program as a speaker, but he did not appear. The MPAC convention was held in his distric
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
