20 Comments

1. chuck:

Is Ahmadinejad nuts? I think so. Is he dangerous? I think so. Will the Iranians throw him off? I think not. Where does that leave us? I would keep a close eye on any US diplomatic visits to the region. Regional diplomacy is a necessary precursor to any action in this case and the states under threat will have to admit to being in the same boat with Israel, an uncomfortable position for most. I don’t expect the EU or the UN to be helpful.

As for Al-Jazeera, I would guess that at some point the Persian/Arab and Sunni/Shiite split will become the dominant theme. This, together with the vulnerability of the Gulf states and SA, puts them in a position where they will have to begin to think really hard about what is going down in Iran.

Dec 16, 2005 - 8:36 am 2. Sandy P:

Hmmm. he nukes Israel and the palis/syrians get fried in the process. Muslims don’t kill muslims.

Are we going to have another conspiracy like WTC2001, the Jews knew, this time the Palis knew and left? Should we be watching traffic flow out of that area?

Dec 16, 2005 - 8:55 am 3. Sandy P:

Ohh, and won’t the water supply also become poison? How is Egypt going to like that?

Dec 16, 2005 - 8:56 am 4. Ron:

I had a friend at the United Nations who saw Ahmadinejad and the green rays coming from his head, he said it was the most frightening thing that he had ever seen. The lightening bolts coming out of his posterior was even more amazing, they were blowing holes in the floor behind him as he levitated 2 feet off of the ground. When he said that he was going to levitate Israel and several of our cities into the stratosphere my friend had no doubt that he meant it. Perhaps we should send former President Jimmy Carter to save us, he’s very good at negations with people such as this, lots of practice with another man who is very similar in North Korea.

Dec 16, 2005 - 9:19 am 5. David Thomson:

ìAnyway, aljazeera reports his latest prouncements. Even they sound a little nervous.î

Iím sure the Anti-American jerks at Aljazeera are nervous. They enjoy mau mauing the flak catcher. Irritating the ìGreat Satanî can be great fun—but Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could get everybody killed. The dude is pushing the envelope a little too far. Only nihilists tend to be suicidal. Anyone who is half way sane doesnít really want to fight the United States.

Dec 16, 2005 - 9:28 am 6. John Moore ( Useful Fools ):

It is my understanding the president of Iran has little independent power, but rather is a creature of the ruling Ayatollahs.

If so, perhaps it doesn’t matter what a loon he is.

On the other hand, the Ayatollahs may have put a loon in place to let us know that crazy things can happen. After all, Reagan acted a bit crazy to scare the USSR into believing that he might nuke them – and it worked to demoralize them.

Or maybe the Ayatollahs are seeing or emitting green rays too.

Do we have any Iran experts (Michael Ledden, where are you?) who actually know how much independent power is wielded by this lunatic?

Dec 16, 2005 - 11:01 am 7. Terrye:

A lot of the mullahs are strange.

I really liked the book, Reading Lolita in Tehran. At one point in the book a young woman is talking about translating the Ayatollah’s writings and among the gems were passages about having sex with chickens and then eating them.

It is not good to eat a chicken you have had sex with. Now if someone else had sex with the chicken… and then came the rules…

The girl said she was told to stop translating the chicken passages.

This guy is just as crazy as the rest of them. And the idiot running NK is not a whole lot better.

Dec 16, 2005 - 11:01 am 8. chuck:

John Moore,

If so, perhaps it doesn’t matter what a loon he is.

I think it depends on who controls the Revolutionary Guards and the secret police. I don’t think it is impossible that Ahmadinejad will eventually wield unchallenged power and wipe out the old guard Ayatollahs. Stalin started his rise as General Secretary of the Party and later decimated the ranks of the revolutionary vanguard. Hitler had his Night of the Long Knives when he eliminated Roehm and began weakening the SA in favor of Himmler’s SS. Mao eliminated opponents during the Cultural Revolution. So on and so forth. Once the levers of tyranny are in place it is more than likely that some totalitarian nut is going to grab them and wipe out the opposition.

Dec 16, 2005 - 11:26 am 9. beautifulatrocities:

Nuclear annihilation is all well & good, but let’s not forget the impt things, like Valerie Plame

Dec 16, 2005 - 11:38 am 10. Mark Razak:

Ahmadinejad`s vice is his honestly: he expresses what the majority of Muslims in the Middle East, and perhaps the world, fervently believe, hope and desire. We can not white wash this problem by labeling him a nut, that is, a man who is out of touch with his people, and thereby delude ourselves into believing that if he is removed then everything will be OK. The real problem here is that, maybe, hundreds of millions of people in the Muslim world will NEVER accept a Jewish state in their midst, believe that either the Holocaust was a lie or, if it did happen, that it was a Zionist plot and, most disturbing of all, support the use of genocide in furthering Islamist goals.

Dec 16, 2005 - 11:47 am 11. Steve M:

“Even they sound a little nervous”

Interesting. When Aljazeera say: “While it neither admits nor denies nuclear arms, Israel is thought to harbour about 200 nuclear warheads deployed on ballistic missiles, aircraft and submarines…” it does rather sound like they’re sending Ahmadinejad a warning.

Mark,

While it’s true that many Arab Muslims will never accept Israel, maybe, hundreds of millions of people in the Muslim world WILL one day accept a Jewish state in their midst. Anyway, from this keyboard to …

Dec 16, 2005 - 12:33 pm 12. exmaple:

“Anyway, aljazeera reports his latest prouncements. Even they sound a little nervous.”

Of course they sound nervous. The Qataris, Saudis, etc. don’t want Iran to get the bomb. Iran will use it to pressure them.

Same with Saddam and his bomb. He made noise that it was to be used against Israel and he should be supported in the name of “Arab unity”. That is the cover story. Iranians certainly were not so deceived and tried to knock out Osirak before the Israelis did.

That the media doesn’t pursue Arab opinion on the Iranian bomb shows their near complete lack of perspective.

Dec 16, 2005 - 12:53 pm 13. Plainslow:

These people are nuts no doubt. But if you asked any country what would happen if Israel attacked your nuclear power plants, would’nt they say-”any Israeli attack would provoke a “swift and destructive” response.”

Dec 16, 2005 - 1:13 pm 14. Andres Kupfer:

What I find unbelievable about this whole story is that the Sunni Muslim world isn’t saying anything. They are not condeming Ahmadinejad’s remarks in the same way they haven’t condemned terrorism against Western or Shia civilians in the last few years. They are in denial.

It occurred to me some weeks ago that the Sunni Muslim street have quite a lot in common with the radical European left: as long as Islamists and zealots like Ahmadinejad oppose the US, both Sunni Muslims and radical leftists are willing to look the other way when it comes to their terrorist methods.

The pity is that the radical European left has had to sacrifice traditional liberal values to keep that position, moving more and more towards the totalitarian end of the spectrum.

Back to Ahmadinejad, I still cannot decide if he is a buffoon or a tactician: is he making these (very public) remarks for internal consumption or is this somehow related to Iran’s pursue of nuclear weapons?

Dec 16, 2005 - 1:46 pm 15. paul:

There seems to be a lot of astonishment here at Ahmadinejad’s nuclear threats against Israel. He’s definitely not the first Iranian in power to do so. Ayatollah Rafsanjani* made a similar statement in 2001. To paraphrase what he said about a nuclear exchange with Israel “all the Jews will die but there will still be lots of Muslims left.” Since we are hearing these statements repeated over time we can only conclude that this is the policy of Iran’s leadership. If I were an Israeli I’d be extremely worried.

*http://www.iran-press-service.com/articles_2001/dec_2001/rafsanjani_nuke_threats_141201.htm

Dec 16, 2005 - 2:05 pm 16. mrp:

It is the 12th Imam apocalyptic rhetoric emanating from Tehran that most concerns me.

Dec 16, 2005 - 2:29 pm 17. miguelj:

Quite seriously–what does anyone think of my theory that Ahmadinajad is being set up to be whacked by his own people? think about it; they encourage to talk crazy, then they assassinate him in a way that might plausibly be blamed on the Mossad. That gives them (they think) casus belli to hit Israel.

Mahmoud, you are going to be the next Reichstag Fire. No?

Dec 16, 2005 - 6:24 pm 18. pastorius:

Mr. Simon,

I borrowed a phrase from your post here, and ended up getting quoted on the Pajamas Media front page tonight. I used the phrase “Al Jazeerah sounds worried …”

I just want to acknowledge that I stole from you, and ask what I owe.

Dec 17, 2005 - 3:07 am 19. PSGInfinity:

miguelj,

I think your theory is as plausible as any I’ve heard. The 12th Imam stuff, coupled with Iran’s long-standing desire to whack Israel, worries me as much as the next sane fellow.

My question concerns the ‘intimidate the Arabs’ theory: what do the Iranians want from them?

Dec 17, 2005 - 3:47 pm 20. Luniversal:

I know a REALLY weird cult in the Middle East.

They don’t believe in G-d, yet they say He told them they were entitled to own land there, irrespective of who else was living on it. At first it was only land about the size of Wales, but later on God told them they should help themselves to a lot more land. They started planting colonies on this land but say they’re just for ’security’ purposes. Some members of the cult say they don’t really want the land at all, but they keep on building those colonies.

They tell the rest of the world it’s wrong to be racist, and they’re very keen on immigration and emigration without limits– except in and out of this land G-d intended just for them. They also say they only want peace, but in a dream they built 200 or more nuclear warheads and pointed them at every other capital in the region (while denouncing these neighbouring countries as hell-bent on their own destruction) and now they won’t say if they’ve even got these nukes, though they stick their own people in jail for saying they exist.

And get this– although the leaders of the cult are nearly all atheists and agnostics, you can’t get married in their state unless you go through a religious ceremony! (Oh yeah, they’re very down on ‘theocracy’ too.)

Dec 20, 2005 - 9:54 am

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