I spent this evening watching Mike Wallace interview the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The whole spectacle has opened up a whole range of emotions for me. Iran has intrigued me ever since I was a little boy. I used to have a paper route and I would deliver an afternoon version of the Trenton Times to my neighborhood. Tooling around on my 3-speed bike, I would deliver papers that had a little box on them that said “Iran Hostage Crisis: Day 34”, “Iran Hostage Crisis: Day 145”. Eventually, it would reach Day 444. That was the day Ronald Reagan was inaugurated and the hostages were set free.
I agonized over those hostages every day for 444 days. I knew nothing about Kermit Roosevelt or Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh. I had no idea why Iran was calling my country The Great Satan and burning my flag. I just thought it was inhumane to hold people hostage and I had no doubt that the Iranians were my enemy. I was only 10 years old.
There were points in the interview where Ahmadinejad came off as batshit nuts. There were other points where I agreed with what he was saying.
Ahmadinejad is a perplexing man. I know he has very little power and that it doesn’t matter a whole lot what he thinks. At the same time I know that he makes intemperate remarks that make a lot of people very nervous. His biggest mistake is to engage in rhetoric that both questions the historical accuracy of the Holocaust and argues that Israel has no right to exist. When pressed by Wallace, his basic argument is not necessarily that the Holocaust did not occur, but that the Palestinians were not responsible for it and should not be forced to shoulder the burden for it. We can all agree with that logic as far as it goes. The problem is a failure to accept reality. The Palestinians cannot dislodge Israel and it is a fool’s errand to attempt to try.
Eliminationist rhetoric from Ahmadinejad just feeds eliminationist rhetoric flowing back in the other direction. The Middle East needs less hotheads, not more.
The question arises, what is legitimate resistance to Western dominance of the Middle East? It seems to me that there is a pragmatic middle ground. Ahmadinejad doesn’t seem to understand pragmatism. His rhetoric plays into the fears that are driving the region towards a clash of civilizations.
At the same time, I understand why Iran resists American hegemony of the region. I particularly understand why they resist the policies of the neo-conservatives.
I believe that the answer lies in Israel making a peace agreement with Syria that sticks, and that agreement must involve a settlement of the West Bank issues. Once that is accomplished, no Arab army, directly or through proxy, should be able to truly threaten Israel’s existence. At that point, Iran’s influence will diminish, as will the whole jihadist mindset.
Iran and America should not be enemies. The current situation places Iran as the only country capable of resisting America and Israel. This gives their brand of theocracy extra legitimacy. We cannot defeat them through airstrikes, but only through eliminating their main grievance.
Israel has just suffered a massive defeat at the hands of Iran’s proxies, and our troops in Iraq are already co-opted into defending a pro-Iranian government. If we are going to turn this around, we are going to have to split off Syria and Lebanon from Iranian influence, and the only way to do that is to make a separate peace with Damascus.
Iran has all the components to be a successful free-trading pro-Western democracy. But it must first lose its raison d’etre. We must restart negotiations over the West Bank.
Carter got an agreement between Egypt and Israel, and Clinton got an agreement between Jordan and Isreal. Reagan and Bush have brought us only intifadas and an escalation of violence.
The West offers prosperity and economic diversification. We must stop offering aeriel bombardment, as well. They have the energy and we have the technical know-how and investment capital. Let’s work together, for a change, and move forward.
Iran has all the components to be a successful free-trading pro-Western democracy.
Damn right.
Plus, fundamentalist Sunnis (supposedly) attacked the US on 9/11.
The Saudis have been sodomizing the US for decades.
Bush family, Jimmy Baker, et al have been lubing up the US for the Saudis for far too long.
It is time for an Iranian US alliance
Hey Boo I just saw the entire interview, uncut, on C-Span and hope you got a chance to check it out if you haven’t seen it.
The Palestinians cannot dislodge Israel and it is a fool’s errand to attempt to try.
Well that’s definitely true. But without the United States backing Israel they could. And I believe they will, sometime within the next 50 years.
The Palestinians are already using what Gary Brecher calls the “poor man’s nuke”, which is a rapidly increasing population. Palestinians living inside Israel proper, inside the occupied territories and inside refugee camps in the region ALREADY outnumber Jews in Israel. That’s a ticking issue that isnt going to go away.
If all those Palestinians were allowed to move into Israel and vote, the state of Israel (as we know it) would be dissolved overnight without a shot fired. Israel has already attracted just about all the Jews it can and the Jewish population there will hold steady or decline in the future. Right now in fact there are only slightly more Jews in Israel/OT than Palestinians and the Palestinians are gaining.
The only reason Israel can keep out those potential voters/citizens is because of the political and military support of the United States. If that should ever wane (and a few more campaigns like this summer’s in Lebanon would do it), Israel’s existance as we know it is done for.
I understand that there were brave Dutch and British pioneers who farmed South Africa. I respect their right to exist in peace and be able to vote and have freedom of speech and religion. But anytime a minority excludes a majority, it is WRONG. Apartheid was wrong in South Africa and wrong in Israel (and wrong in Fiji, Zimbabwe, Irin Jaya, etc) and it simply CANNOT last.
But while it DOES last, a lot of innocent people suffer and die (on both sides, tragically). And unfortunately leaders use the excuse of apartheid to commit heinous acts and utter hateful words. Ahmedinajad would be laughed off the stage (and would today be an unknown engineer) if Palestine/Israel was a country where all of its inhabitants were treated equally and had equal rights.
Pax
If all those Palestinians were allowed to move into Israel and vote, the state of Israel (as we know it) would be dissolved overnight without a shot fired.
So what unless you’re expecting a majority of Israelis to support open immigration any time in the forseeable future.
Israel has already attracted just about all the Jews it can
Yes
and the Jewish population there will hold steady or decline in the future.
no – the natural growth rate of Israel’s Jewish population is quite high (substantially higher than the total US population growth rate including immigration), though substantially lower than that of its Arab population. We can confidently project a future where the Arab population grows from it’s current one fifth to a quarter and say it is probable that it will hit a third, but going beyond that is difficult since it’s impossible to know what birth rates will be like decades from now.
The only reason Israel can keep out those potential voters/citizens is because of the political and military support of the United States. If that should ever wane (and a few more campaigns like this summer’s in Lebanon would do it), Israel’s existance as we know it is done for.
An End Times believer? Destroying a nuclear armed state is not really a viable proposition except through MAD.
I understand that there were brave Dutch and British pioneers who farmed South Africa. I respect their right to exist in peace and be able to vote and have freedom of speech and religion. But anytime a minority excludes a majority, it is WRONG. Apartheid was wrong in South Africa and wrong in Israel (and wrong in Fiji, Zimbabwe, Irin Jaya, etc) and it simply CANNOT last.
Confusing two different issues. Israel proper is in the situation of any settler state which got rid of all or most of the indigenous population – e.g. the US, Brazil, or Cuba. It also has a settler colony along the lines of what the French had in Algeria. France is still around after leaving Algeria, no reason for Israel not to be able to survive the loss of its West Bank version.
The apartheid analogy would work if South Africa had been an eighty percent white country where the blacks suffered from systematic discrimination but had full political rights, and Namibia was being run the way the West Bank is today (Even that’s different from apartheid though equally ugly since unlike apartheid the Jewish settlements in the Territories live in hermetic isolation from the Palestinian population – no Arab maids, gardeners, labourers, etc.)
if Palestine/Israel was a country where all of its inhabitants were treated equally and had equal rights.
or if there were two states which is a bit more likely to be accepted by both sides than a one state solution.
From here:
From here:
From the Israeli government:
.
Etc… etc…
And no, I am not an “End Times” believer. The Soviet Union was destroyed without firing a shot and it had more nuclear weapons than Israel does.
Pax
Headlines on Google News today:
Immigrants Swell Numbers Near New York
New York Times
Minority population increasing in states
Seattle Post Intelligencer
Marylanders older, educated, diverse
Baltimore Sun
Diversity increasing across America
The Herald
Etc.
This is happening in the suburbs, in small towns, in rural areas, in small and medium-sized cities across America.It is happening everywhere
It is ALSO happening in Europe.
And in Israel as well.
As above, so below.
Only the population bomb can beat the nuclear-armed state.
All those people, fucking like bunnies? Working their asses off at low-paying jobs and then going home and taking what is in my view the ULTIMATE pleasure of life? “Unprotected” sex? Sex with a purpose?
More power to ’em.
It has been reported that Jesus Christ said something to the effect of “The meek shall inherit the earth.” You can of course never be sure about what ANYONE said if you did not hear it yourself, and 2000 years/hundreds of translated versions later…who knows what was said? Or if there was even anyone really there to say it.
But let’s assume the translations were close.
Frankly, it looks more and more to me as if the horny shall inherit the earth.
(Maybe it was just a bad translation?)
And more power to ’em.
In about 10 years. people who look like George Bush will be a minority in the US.
If we survive the coming 2008 elections and their results.
Of course…their progeny will have to slow things down a little in the humping department if we wish to have a habitable earth, but…what the hell, I’d rather die risking overpopulation than from nuclear fallout ANY day of the week.
The Atom Bomb versus the Sex Bomb.
Nudes at 11.
The wisest man I ever met once told me that sex was the greatest power in the universe.
Yup.
AG
Marvelous! In public health parlance, the carry capacity of an environment is often not known, but once exceeded, a massive die-off is assured. Some species sense when this carrying capacity is being reached, and instinctively slow their birth rate. Others, such as fruit flies, will always overshoot this carrying capacity and suffer massive die-offs.
It is beginning to look as though mankind follows the fruit fly model over the instinctive limiting model!
“Today, there are 5 million Jews and 5 million non-Jews. The latter figure is composed of 4.5 million Arabs and the remainder non-Jewish immigrants, mainly from the former Soviet Union, and foreign workers,” he told the Jerusalem Post.
That figure includes all Arab Palestinians from the Israeli border in the north to the Gaza-Egyptian border in the south and from the Mediterranean seaside in the West to the West bank-Jordanian border in the East and thus is not that relevant for most Israelis. What is deemed relevant is the population growth of the Arab population within Israel proper or within the pre-1967 borders. According to these statistics(2004 numbers), the annual growth rate of the Arab population within the pre-1967 borders is about 3%, the total Arab population estimated to about 1.3 million, the annual growth rate of the Jewish population is estimated to about 1.4 %, the total Jewish population estimated to about 5.165 million and last but not least the Muslim populations annual growth rate is estimated to about 3.3 % with a total population of 1.072 million people.
The Soviet Union was destroyed without firing a shot and it had more nuclear weapons than Israel does.
Yes, but the Soviet Union was an empire consisting of nations and states, hopefully, when the West bank and Gaza becomes a Palestinian State entity I very much doubt that the Israelis will stand idly by watching their own State, within the pre-1967 borders, dissolve and accept being ruled by an Arab majority at least not in the foreseeable future. Of course any nation and State has its time limit, but I don’t see that time limit approaching for Israel proper in our lifetime and possibly not our children’s.
Gjermund has the relevant numbers below.
And no, I am not an “End Times” believer. The Soviet Union was destroyed without firing a shot and it had more nuclear weapons than Israel does.
But Russia wasn’t destroyed.
I can already hear the freepers saying how naive your hope is. But theirs is a black-and-white world, where enemies are always intransigent bad guys. A deeper, more nuanced view allows us more options, whether for sharp, adversarial strategy or for finding common ground. “Aw, just nuke ’em” to preserve our Purity of Essence still isn’t very helpful. So I’m all ears – I’d love to see more analysis of how this could unfold.
The Palestinians cannot dislodge Israel and it is a fool’s errand to attempt to try.
Maybe. Frankly, I have a hard time believing that Israel will still exist two hundred years from now. The only nation on earth willing to actually commit troops to defend it is the US, and US power is on the wane, and even if it were not, someone in a position of influence will eventually reach the obvious conclusion that Israel is, and pretty much always has been, a strategic liability of the first order for the United States.
No, the Palestinians will probably not dislodge Israel. But as soon as the Americans become unwilling or unable to pay the price for Israel’s continued existence, it will come to an abrupt end.
Lest anyone wonder, I do not consider this a desirable outcome, but let’s face it: Israel was a doomed venture from the start.
Why is it that Israel has H-Bombs (no link, but you can google Time Magazine Dimona nuclear weapons and get an eye full), and nobody says : OOOps!
What is wrong with this picture?
Whether or not the Iranians actually hate us, they have every reason to.
When their government did not behave to our liking–I think they were reluctant to cut a sweet oil deal, but I forget the details exactly–we overthrew it by force and installed the Shah. What followed was years of vicious brutality and corruption. Eventually it got so bad that even the elites who had supported him were willing to give it up, and we got the Islamic Revolution. Why was it Islamic? Because most Iranians are muslims and it was only the mullahs (muslim religious leaders) who were willing and able to organize a successful resistance.
Since then, with no respite, we have been trying to destroy their country.
There is nothing special in this, but you must understand that in no sense of the word were we innocent.
Nor were the hostages you remember. Taking them was certainly a violation of international law–something the US had itself been doing routinely–and further was unethical, but hardly surprising in light of US actions. As a result of the seizure, the Embassy itself was proven to have been engaged in activities that were crimes by any measure.
For all this, the Iranians seem to be a fairly patient and forbearing people, and do not hold the ill-will one would expect.
As for emulating the West–in a way, maybe–but why would or should they want our crappy culture of mad-cow-laden fast burgers and ticky-tack box houses and ever-sinking wages and voting machines that vote for you?
Really, they have their own concerns.
Ah, I remember well day 444, the day the mighty Reagan was inaugurated, and the Iranis, quaking in their boots ( as they do now), released the hostages rather than face the wrath of his terrible, swift pompadour.
speaking of which can we now talk about the Iran-contra affair?
Booman,
I agree with most what you wrote. The core of the problem is the Palestinian issue. If Israel were to make a just settlement and either recognize a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza or incorporate Palestinians into a single state (maybe with some regional autonomy and equal citizenship)the root of animosity in the region would evaporate. Iran has dealt with Israel in the past, though they do it behind the scenes. Every country in the region would rather be an ally of Israel for economic reasons but Israel continues to make that impossible through their actions.
The problem however is not that most Israelis, Arabs and Persians aren’t willing or can’t get along. The problem is that the leadership of Israel, the zionist extremists and their imperial US handlers do not want peace at this juncture. It doesn’t serve their interests. What they fail to have the capacity to understand is that there is no viable military solution in the region and that militarism only feeds militancy and resistance. The only viable solution is to undermine the motivation, to disarm enemies with justice. At this point, Israel seems to be it’s own worst enemy. Had the zionist extremeists not killed Rabin, the situation would be entirely different. The same could be said for us if two elections hadn’t been stolen in a fascist/neocon putch.
My Iranian Story: My father was in his fifties and couldn’t find a job so he accepted an overseas position with a US helicopter manufacturer doing business in Iran. My parents opted to “go native” instead of living in an “American compound.” They learned Farsi in preparation for their life-style change.
They took up residence in a small village outside of Tehran. My mother took on the local dress customs, shopped in the market, learned exotic new recipes and made women friends. My father wore Western dress for work but in the evenings he would stand with the other men and discuss the events of the day. He has always been a Republican, America-First kind of guy but he kept silent and respectful listening to his neighbors grievances against his government.
Spring came and their neighbors told them to move everything up to the second floor because the April floods were coming. My father is an architect/engineer so he talked to the local men about where the flood waters came from and they walked with him while he did surveys of the topography. He made a map, called a meeting of the whole village and explained how a canal could save the village from annual flooding. Changing something that had “always been” was a radical idea. My father grabbed a shovel, walked outside the village and started digging. Soon, every man and boy was digging with him.
The women moved their households upstairs but my mother did not. The snow melt and rains came, the water was diverted and for the first time in its history the village was spared flooding. My father was a friggin’ local hero!
The revolution came and the Shah flew off. The villagers told my parents to stay in their house. They brought them food and fuel oil, whatever they needed. They carried messages back and forth to my father’s worksplace. In the middle of the night, they formed a caravan to take my parents to the airport where they were on the last flight of Americans out of Iran.
It’s been 28 years but there is one village in Iran where people remember every Spring that not all Americans are evil.
that’s a very cool story. Did they ever write about their experiences?
No, the political climate at the time wasn’t open to hearing good things about Iranians. My parent’s friends were pretty offensive about it and interpreted the story to mean the villagers were medieval idiots who needed the White Man to help them. This pissed my Pop off so much he stopped talking about it.
After being unemployed again for a year, his next overseas position was in Saudi Arabia and my parents barely escaped with their lives… but, that’s another story.