13 Comments

Prof. Ledeen,

While in Spain, if you get a chance, you should stop by and visit Reid Buckley. I am sure he would love to have you as a guest, and, if his tastes are anything like his bother’s, he would be able to offer you some of the best wine in Spain. Cheers.

Hola Senor Ledeen…

Have a good time!

ML:

Hola’ Winston! I almost always have a good time, life is so fascinating, and I was blessed to be born in America, and fortunate to have the world’s most wonderful family.

A couple of hours ago someone asked me how it is that Spain turned out so well, while Italy basically stagnated. I’m thinking…

While in Spain, will you be consulting with Zapatero on his campaign to grant human rights to simians? He does have his finger on the pulse of crucial 21st-century issues, after all.

ML:

if only he were interested in human rights for Americans..no, I don’t think I’m his type somehow.

Er, yes, as regards freedom.

When will you be denouncing the Republican Party, which shows yet another closeted victim — in the form of US Senator Larry Craig — of what you describe as a repressive morality?

Occasionally, Michael, I do shoot fish in a barrel.

ML:

You should stick to basketball. Anyone who puts the Islamic Republic on the same moral plane as the Republican Party is demented.

ML,

We all now know that President Reagan was not always informed about Iranian treachery, but I believe - with good reason, that President Bush is not so “managed” by his gate-keepers.
“USA will confront Iran’s murderous activities”-Pres Bush said today, 8/28/07. Below is the reason why:
Some may wonder why he uses such language given so many in this country are of the mistaken belief that all we have to do is “open a dialogue” with Iran.
Well, we will soon find out more info on how Iranians are murdering Americans. I understand that six Iranians were just detained by our soldiers in Iraq last night. The US soldiers raided an insurgency safe-house in Baghdad only to find Iranians discussing how to put into operation more plans to kill Americans. This is the goal and the Iranians are trying to achieve it whether or not we here in the US want to recognize it.
This comes on top of many attempts including the killing of five American GIs in Karbala earlier in the year as they tried to kidnap our soldiers. Our guys fought back and were summarily executed. This failed Iran plot led the IRGC to kidnap the British soldiers, who didn’t fight back, instead.
No one likes war, least of all the people that fight in them. However, Iran is not only wishing Americans dead they are acting.
Will the USA respond?

Regards, Terje

ML:

I certainly do not know, and I have been asking this question for several years now, based on precisely the same sort of information you offer. Hardly a day goes by without such arrests, and such discoveries. Hundreds of Revolutionary Guards have been killed and captured. Will we react against Iran, or continue to fight a defensive war in Iraq? Time will tell…

Professor, if you check out Hugh Hewitt’s website, you’ll see that he interviewed deep thinker du jour, Professor Thomas P. Barnett about his posting on his own website. Barnett takes to task the administration for failing to truly “engage” the Iranians.

It’s worth a response from you.

I should like for you to dissect it over at The Corner, at NRO.

Of course I know you’re busy, and it must be frustrating to go over the same old arguments.

But this idea that we haven’t properly respected the Iranians by offering them the grand bargain in good faith, is still a fetish for many.

ML:

Thanks for the good suggestion, but in fact i already did this in the Wall Street Journal a couple of weeks ago…

lol
evangelical christians also repress open sexuality.
are they tyrants also?

US Senator Larry Craig needs only to worry about the response of his constituents. They have the right to keep him in office if they so choose. The Iranian regime would have minimally locked him in jail and thrown away the key. Putting someone like Craig to death is even a possibility. It is indeed senseless to place the Iranian mullahs on the same moral plane with the Republican Party. Someone obviously has not learned how to make logical distinctions.

Sounds like a cool place to be. I wish I had gotten to Spain in my European travels. Maybe someday.

King Juan Carlos is a truly great man: now there was somebody who knew how to play real poker and hold his cards close — with his father; with the Caudillo (a hard and shrewd man); with the politicians; with the generals — with everybody. Hard for an exile prince not to ruin himself nowadays.

The stakes weren’t too, too high: only the dynasty and the future of his country. Like the British king Charles II, who had to play the same game, he did whatever he had to do, but did nothing stupid to ruin his cause.

Can Spain be a role model for a free Iran?

ML:

i don’t know. nobody knows. but among the many fascinating things about the spanish transition to democracy is that everyone thought there would be a new civil war, and instead it was all peaches and cream…

Spain’s peaceful transition to democracy after Franco might be explained by Helen Fein’s research on the break-up of the Soviet Union. In “Murder in the Middle,” she noted the moderately repressed Soviet states exploded into violence after the break-up, while the more repressed states actually made the transition to democracy with less extreme violence. If this explains Spain’s gentler transition to democracy after the repression of Franco, perhaps the Iranian transition to democracy–philosophical regime change–will be as gentle as Spain’s.

But then, during the late 20C, no part of the former Soviet Union or Spain was a theocracy, with theocrats substituting for thugs.

Spain model is exactly what Shah of Iran was implementing. Howevr, Carter messed up everything. Jimmy Carter’s misguided implementation of human rights policies not only indirectly led to overthrow of the Shah of Iran, but also paved the way for loss of more than 600,000 lives, Iran’s rule by Ayatollahs, the Iran-Iraq War, Iraq’s Invasion of Kuwait and Desert Storm, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban, Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, and the mass murder of Americans and destruction of the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001.

Franco were in the information limb for several months about his health.
Castro repeat this way.
And Khomenei too.