The skirmishes in the occupied land are part of a war of destiny. The outcome of hundreds of years of war will be defined in Palestinian land. As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map."
So rants Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Given his apocalyptic rhetoric, we can understand why Ahmadinejad might want an arsenal of nuclear missiles. He'd be able to shake down a constant stream of rich European emissaries, threaten the Arab gulf states to lower oil production, neutralize the influence of the United States in the region--and, of course, destroy Israel.
In all his crazed pronouncements, Ahmadinejad reflects an end-of-days view: History is coming to its grand finale under his aegis. So the name of the haloed Ahmadinejad will live for the ages.
But for now, barring divine intervention, Ahmadinejad's task poses two small hurdles: getting the bomb and preparing the world for Israel's demise.
Oddly, the first obstacle may be easier. An impoverished Pakistan and North Korea pulled it off. China and Russia will sell Tehran anything it cannot get from rogue regimes. Ultimately, Moscow and Beijing will probably veto any punitive action by the United Nations.
Impotent European diplomats will always defer to such an important global figure, "ruling out" force to stop the Iranian nuclear industry as they offer money and trade deals if Tehran will just act sanely.
The United States has a growing anti-war movement, and 180,000 of its troops are busy birthing democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq. And the unpredictable President Bush has less than three years in office anyway.
But the second part of readying the world for the end of the Jewish state is trickier.
True, the Middle East's secular gospel is anti-Semitism, broadcast hourly from Syria, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. In these places, state-run media boom out tired sermons about "pigs and apes." And, again, Russia and China don't much care what happens to Israel, as long as its demise does not affect business.
But the West is a different matter. There the history of anti-Semitism looms large, framed by the Holocaust that nearly destroyed European Jewry.
So raising doubts about that genocide is now Ahmadinejad's aim just as much as targeting downtown Tel Aviv. Holocaust denial is a tired game, but his approach is different.
He has studied the recent Western postmodern mind, nursed on its holy trinity of multiculturalism, moral equivalence and relativism. As a third-world populist, Ahmadinejad expects that his own fascism will escape scrutiny if he just recites enough the past sins of the West. He also understands victimology. So he also knows that to destroy the Israelis, he--not they--must become the victim, and the Europeans the ones who forced his hand. Ahmadinejad also grasps that there are millions of highly educated but cynical Westerners who see nothing much exceptional about their own culture. So if democratic America has nuclear weapons, why not theocratic Iran? Moreover, he knows how Western relativism works. So who is to say what are "facts" or what is "true"--given the tendency of the powerful to "construct" their own narratives and call the result "history." Was not the Holocaust exaggerated, or perhaps even fabricated, as mere jails became "death camps" through a trick of language to take over Palestinian land?
We laugh at all this as absurd. We should not.
Money, oil and threats have brought the Iranian theocrats to the very threshold of a nuclear arsenal. Their uncanny diagnosis of Western malaise has now convinced them that they can carefully fabricate a Holocaust-free reality in which Muslims are the victims and Jews the aggressors deserving of punishment. And thus Ahmadinejad's righteously aggrieved (and nuclear) Iran can, after "hundreds of years of war," finally set things right in the Middle East.
And then a world that wishes to continue to make money and drive cars in peace won't much care how this divinely appointed holy man finally finishes a bothersome "war of destiny."
#1
It's comforting (in a blood-curtlingn way) to know that someone knows exactly what's going on. A precise contribution, but kind of like reading one's obituary ahead of time.
#3
Interesting point by VDH. It rings true about Europe, in that the Europeans really don't give a shit about the Jews. If Ahmadinejad decided to take out Israel, there would be a lot of hand-wringing and academic conferences on what it all means, but nothing would be done. Ahmadinejad just needs to slather the anti-Zionist, anti-Joo rhetoric on enough, and rattle his new sable enough, to provide some cover. The Euro response would be, "gee, that's bad, and we'd like to do something about it, but we can't, so we'll sit on the sidelines and complain."
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/21/2006 0:34 Comments ||
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#6
If Ahmadinejad decided to take out Israel, there would be a lot of hand-wringing and academic conferences on what it all means
That's kind of easy to answer, if they knew their Bible, which they now probably don't. The last book of the Bible speaks of an invading army from the east, and a final battle in the Golan Heights :-) Look it up, if you don't believe me.
Posted by: Rafael ||
01/21/2006 1:12 Comments ||
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#7
Is that an aura around him? Is he holy - or radioactive? "Turn out the lights, the party's over..."
#8
Ex-lib,
W/o getting into too much detail, there is a an EMP threat from an Iranian weapon, but it would best be described as local; i.e.; within the immediate area of the shot. Keep in mind EMP effects are a function of burst altitude and burst stength, and any weapon the Iranians are likely to have for a long time will be small kiloton range at best. That is not to say they couldn't do immense localized damage - an EMP burst over NYC would effectively zorch the US economy for months. But the danger tends to be a bit overstated.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
01/21/2006 8:22 Comments ||
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#9
We should take Ahmadinejad's statements as seriously as the old Soviet Union's leaders statements on global revolution. When you are screwed by demographics and geography, you invent a bigger picture in which you are winning.
It's not that I think these people aren't truly dangerous, rather, it's will they take anyone else down with them before they reach their end game of the collapse of the Iranian empire.
#10
The danger is that A-Jad reminds me a lot more of Stalin than Khruschev. Unlike Khruschev, they don't have a WWII to look back at to show them what misery war can be. If this thing comes to blows before he's gone, I wouldn't be surprised if he disappeared for a week.
#11
Hell, I wondered if something was going to happen in North Korea when Kimmie went to South China because if he ever did order an attack I would have expected him to be outside the country when it happened.
Posted by: Phil ||
01/21/2006 9:56 Comments ||
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#12
Unlike Khruschev, they don't have a WWII to look back at to show them what misery war can be.
They do have the Iran / Iraq War as an example but unlike Kruschev they may not view the horrors of war as a sufficient deterrent.
#13
The effect of the Iran/Iraq war on either nation and its populace is not comparable to the Great Patriotic War and its effect on everyone it touched.
#3
I think it's time the ideology is plowed under the same sands that gave it birth. It existance is a bigger threat then tolerating it whilst some long awaited "moderate" force from with in fixes the problems it has ( which are many.)
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