31 Comments

1. patrick neid:

folks who recommend a response to this “call to prayer” are desperate to do anything but face reality. talking, communicating etc has the soothing effect of putting off making the moral judgement that the iranian leadership, as a group, is a maniacal bunch set on their version of armageddon. it’s a process successfully used by the UN to guarantee nothing gets done–think rwanda, darfur and countless other enterprises.

i note with interest, that the UN says they have found traces of weapon grade uranium.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/05/12/D8HI8SPG0.html

well, i do declare! lets all act shocked together. until they can prove otherwise i thinks it’s best we operate with this logic expressed by michael leeden on a interview at radioblogger:

ML: I think they have nuclear weapons already. I just think it’s contrary to common sense to assume that they don’t have them. I keep on saying if the United States could go from zero to a bomb in four years, when nobody had ever built an atomic bomb, and we know that Iran has been at this for at least fifteen years on a serious basis, how can they not have it? I mean, they’ve had help from everybody. They’ve had help from Pakistan and A.Q. Khan, they’ve had help from the Libyans, from the Russians, from the Chinese, from the North Koreans, from the Georgians, from the Ukrainians, and so forth. I mean, a few years ago, probably less than three years ago, poor old Shevardnadze got up in Georgia, and said hasn’t anybody noticed that all my nuclear physicists have gone to work in Tehran? And doesn’t anybody worry about that? And I wrote that up, and I said okay, I worry about it. Anybody else? And nobody called. So you know, we’ve ignored this as we have ignored Iran as a serious matter, for many years. And if I can just make one…it seems to me the biggest point. The issue about Iran is not nuclear weapons, whether they have them or whether they don’t. The issue about Iran is the nature of this regime, which declared war on us 27 years ago, and has waged war against us, non-stop, for 27 years, and we have yet to engage. I mean, you have to keep repeating that to yourself, Hugh. Here we are, they are killing Americans all over Iraq. You know, up until a very few months ago, the intelligence community, when it briefed members of Congress, would say we have no evidence that Iran is meddling in affairs in Iraq.

the most disturbing feature of this confrontation is the iranian president’s religious fanaticism. we are in deep sh*t on this one. here’s a guy that has built a mosque on top of a well, where the 12th iman resides. i think he has also laid the equivalent of a red carpet from the mosque to the presidential palace. why? his little band of merrymen believe that the guy in the well will only come out when armageddon starts. how it starts doesn’t matter–just so long as it starts. once he is out the caliphate will resume.
if the description above is accurate, it won’t matter what we do. whatever approach we take will always lead to the same place. war with iran. why? because that’s what they want.

we are in the twilight zone………..

ie. last night on the news, specialists all mentioned that they only had 164 centrifuges. to get weapons grade they would have to have 1500 running for year so its no big deal at this time. the president hears that and today announces they will have 54,000 up and running next year.
we are circling the drain…………

from Wikipedia……

Hojjatieh is a semi-clandestine Iranian organization which is radically anti-Bah·’Ì and anti-Sunni. The group flourished during the 1979 revolution that ousted the Shah and installed an Islamic government in his place. However it was banned in 1983 by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the father of the revolution.
They believe that chaos must be created to hasten the return of the Mahdi, the 12th Shi’ite Imam. Only then, they argue, can a genuine Islamic republic be established.
The current president of Iran Mahmud Ahmadinejad is rumored to be an advocate of this group. Since the president took office in August 2005 almost all of his major speeches contain some reference to the return of the 12th Imam. A September address to the U.N. General Assembly contained long passages on the Mahdi which confused Western diplomats and irked those from Sunni Muslim countries who believe in a different line of succession from Mohammed.

having said all of the above, i think the only response to a letters from the world’s number one nutjob is that he should be taken out into the public square and mocked!

May 12, 2006 - 9:28 am 2. Steven:

“there’s no denying that they’re trying to open a discussion”

Well, I’ll deny it. They’re not trying to open a discussion. They’re very cannily trying to take advantage of the apparently infinite gullibility of people like Matthew Yglesias, who believe that any problem can be resolved through “diplomacy,” and who will thus make it more difficult for us to actually take any action.

May 12, 2006 - 9:28 am 3. DanM:

Well, maybe this has something to do with it… I think once again, diplomacy is being used for buying time. Or, for the entertainment of the Orientals…

May 12, 2006 - 9:58 am 4. dclydew:

I think that the Bush administration needs to work the PR on this one. I don’t for a second think that Iran is looking for peaceful Nuclear technology. I don’t think he’s extending an olive branch. However, I do think that right now, among a large number of Americans and other people watching, it appears to them that the fool has extended the olive branch. If Bush ignores it, I think this will look very bad. If Bush pushes forward for sanctions, I think Russia and China will have this letter to back a veto and look rational.

That, in my opinion, may be a recipe for disaster. I think there’s plenty of evidence to indicate that they may be working on weapons, they may be planning to aim them at Isreal and they may be planning this much sooner than our Intel groups have guessed. If we can’t get international support against them, I’m not at all sure we’ll be able to do anything.

I don’t think Bush has the political capital (or the congressional support) to go to war alone. I doubt the Brits will join us this time… and that leaves Isreal and us. Could we take out the r facillities? probably. Could we kill their leaders? maybe. Would it cause more problems don the road… I think most definately.

Russia and China dont seem to be our friends anymore. Russia and China have big energy deals with Iran. If we harm their interests, whose side will they join. Do we want Al-Queada to be outfitted by the Russian or Chinese millitary? I sure don’t.

I can only hope that the Democrats aren’t so far gone in their hatred of anything related to this administration, that they allow a threat like this to go unchallenged. If we ever needed a uniter, its now.

May 12, 2006 - 10:01 am 5. DanM:

patrick neid,

Sorry, didn’t see your link… Speed Reading is still not my friend..

Isn’t it odd how we let these games be played on us? What/Where are the constraints that we are shackled to? Russia? China? A desire to not look like we are a hegemonic power? What trash!

To take a blow is foolish.

May 12, 2006 - 10:07 am 6. Kevin Peters:

Roger:
The multi-lateral talks broke down. Why/ Not because the E.U. wasn’t offering suitable terms to Iran. If they had agreed Irans economy would have boomed, they would have ended their economic isolation, and their nuclear energy needs would have been met. They failed because Iran has no intention of stopping their program to get the bomb. The U.N. is getting close to possibly acting on Iran’s non-compliance. I doubt that the U.N. will produce anything that will stop Iran but at least they were going to call Iran bad names. Iran thinks that maybe Russia and China might abstain. So the big A sends out a rambling, incoherent, 18 page letter. It is filled with holocaust denial, anti-American bilge, and not a single indication that they have any intention of stopping their march to the bomb. Yet M.Y. looks at that 18 page bilge and see’s “look , they want peace!” The Mullahs have to be laughing their ass off at how simple it is to get naive leftists to put their blinders on.

Matthew, let me tell you how this works. The E.U. spent the last year or so in extended, and fruitless negotiations and in the end Iran flipped them the diplomatic finger and walked out. President Bush writes a letter back, Iran agrees to talks, they wrangle for another year or two, Iran calls Bush the leader of the Zionist front, and then walks out.

Now comes the sad part. MY wouldn’t blame Iran. He would blame Bush. Iran walked away from the multi-lateral E.U. They will walk away from any unilateral U.S.-Iran talks. And MY would say, Let’s go back to multi lateral talks, Bush is a cowboy.

Iran knows that as long as they hint at the possibilities of negotiation they can get the naive fools in the west to jump up and down like a trained monkey and continue the path to the bomb. Matthew, write the big A a letter. Ask him what it would take to get Iran give up their quest for the bomb. Guess what, there is no answer. Because they have no intention of not getting the bomb. What was wrong with the E.U. offer. Nothing. They want the bomb. And they will use useful idiots like Matthew to get it.

May 12, 2006 - 10:27 am 7. Kevin Peters:

Matthew:
They jerked the U.N. around with negotiations. The jerked the E.U. around with negotiations. If they wanted to stop their program they would have taken the E.U. and revived their stagnant economy and ended their pariah status. If that wasn’t enough what more do you think they want. What else can we offer them. It wasn’t the package of goodies that the E.U. offered them that made them walk away from the table. It was the fact that they wouldn’t get to have bombs. Their minimum requirement is that they get to have nuclear weapons. What exactly are we going to negotiate other then the delay of any type of sanction. “It would be dumb to just take the Iranian Government at it’s word.” That is where you should have stopped your article.

May 12, 2006 - 10:39 am 8. Curmudgeon:

While the “answer” is not easy, it really is pretty simple: Either we destroy Iran’s nuke facilities and directly or indirectly overthrow the present government, or we will eventually be facing a nuclear armed nutjob state. Yglesias is letting a very foolish hope triumph over repeated experience

May 12, 2006 - 11:15 am 9. chuck:

Matthew Yglesias?

Life is too short, I stopped reading his stuff two years ago — pure partisan blather almost all the time. Thanks for keeping an eye on it, though, it’s a dirty job and I suppose someone has to do it.

May 12, 2006 - 12:33 pm 10. beautifulatrocities:

Recall that the Nazis were pretty clear about what they had in mind, but even so liberal pacifist GBShaw laughed that he’d welcome them as tourists when they landed. Because, you know, they couldn’t be serious about all that nonsense

May 12, 2006 - 1:42 pm 11. Bostonian:

“It’d be dumb to just take the Iranian government at its word”

It would be dumb NOT to take them at their word.

The mullahs have been quite consistent. Only a fool would think they don’t mean what they say.

Moreover, by pretending that the mullahs mean something other than what they are saying, Yglesias makes them out to be children or something, not to be taken truly seriously. (Talk about the soft bigotry of lowered expectations!)

May 12, 2006 - 2:42 pm 12. Dishman:

I agree with Yglesias that “they’re trying to open a discussion”…

Unfortunately, that discussion involves things like how we’re going “find a final solution to the problem of the Jews”.

May 12, 2006 - 2:44 pm 13. Kevin Peters:

Bostonian:
MY is trying to establish his foreign policy toughness rep with that line. He is trying to convince everyone that “hey, I know these guys are thugs and I am not naive.’ But then he goes on to prove that he is naive by assuming that the 18 page ramblings of a religous fanatic is something that we can use as a opening for constructive dialogue. I agree, iran has been very open about what their plans are, how they will do it, and that the words that MY tries to pass off as hyperbole are actually blueprints for action. This letter had one purpose. It was to stall any potential U.N. statement or action. The moment we open negotiations all other actions will be halted. Iran will be able to stall and drag out these “talks’ for at least a year or two before they walk out, just as they walked out on the IAEA process, just as they walked out on the E.U. big three talks. It is so obvious yet the “smart’ set has already bought this carney con, hook, line , and sinker. Look at the Rosa Brooks editorial in the L.A. Times this morning. If Iran was dictating this response they couldn’t have asked for more. They ignore the insane ramblings of the letter and latch onto anything that resembles a attitude of change. The letter is pure defiance yet the left jumps at this morsel and is trying to sell it as substance. Self delusion at it’s finest.

May 12, 2006 - 3:05 pm 14. GaryK:

The rambling 18 page letter included what is called a da’wa, an invitation asking that the infidels convert to Islam. If the historical precedent set by Mohammad is followed, rufusal to convert will be followed by an attack by the letter’s sender. So Ahmadinejad plays to the Muslim world and everyone in it knows what his future actions will be.

May 12, 2006 - 3:06 pm 15. Asher Abrams:

Is it time, yet, for Bush and Bolton to tell the UN, “KMA”?

Lord G*d, I dearly hope so …

May 12, 2006 - 3:51 pm 16. Section9:

The key to understanding Yglesias is that he considers Bush and the people around him (including Condi) members of the “War Party” who are to be opposed by Democrats at every turn. The Persian Fuhrer is not considered by Matthew to be as threatening to Israel and America as he is by those in the conservative community.

Yglesias disdains the Persian Fuhrer but he absolutely distrusts Bush. Yglesias is Jewish. We know what the Persian Fuhrer wants to do with he nuclear weapons to the Jews of Israel.

Scary.

Matt, wake up and smell the coffee!

May 12, 2006 - 4:24 pm 17. David Thomson:

ì…and it’s going to be completely impossible for us to get any international support…î

Obtaining international support should not out primary concern. We have to take it for granted that even countries like Great Britain are dominated by politically correct morons. We should feel sorry for them—but refuse to take them overly serious. We must do what has to be done. It would be nice if our so-called allies got on board, but thatís their problem and not ours.

Matthew Yglesias attended Harvard University. What more needs to be said? This vastly overrated school teaches its students to be ashamed of their American heritage. One can only hope that Yglesias will eventually grow up and realize that the United States has better things to do then worry about its popularity with the French, Germans, and other losers of the world.

May 12, 2006 - 4:36 pm 18. Ray Zacek:

Matthew is not a Jew of Israel. He is a Jew of Georgetown. Possibly of Dupont Circle. He lives in a comfortably abstract and safe world. The only coffee he is going to wake up and smell comes grande or venti for $3.95 a cup at a shop on his way to The American Prospect offices where consensus decrees the real threats to America are the goofiness of Bush, the blundering ignorant malevolence of the neo-cons and the dacron-robed resentment of the heartland against the coastal cultural elites.

May 12, 2006 - 4:40 pm 19. TomTom:

Amen to that, Mr Zacek. And can someone explain to us why, here in the USA, the oft-despised evangelical Christians are more pro-defense of Israel than American Jewry?

May 12, 2006 - 6:42 pm 20. onecent:

Talks with Iran? I think not.

This is a stalling device. All the Iranians have to do is drag their feet from now until the next election when Bush is out of office.

Talking plays well with the Russians, Chinese and Europeans. Two of those three equivocating weasels are desperate for access to Iranian oil and NG. Russia, of course, is facilitating the desperation.

Just what didn’t Matthew Yglesias understand about the 1930’s.

May 12, 2006 - 6:44 pm 21. klrfz1:

I’m not at all sure we’ll be able to do anything… Could we take out their facilities? probably. Could we kill their leaders? maybe…

dclydew, America has been ignoring the problem and hoping for the best for some years now. Continuing to do nothing will lead us to having to surrender to nuclear blackmail. If fighting back will just cause more problems down the road then maybe we’ll never fight back. At worst doing nothing will cause us to lose several cities to nuclear radiation, before we surrender. After all, to surrender you actually have to do something.

If a Democratic president wants to surrender and she can unite enough of the Senate to ratify the treaty, who’s to stop her? Of course, let none call it surrender. That would be divisive.

Well, maybe living under Sharia won’t all be that bad, at first. Do you know which way is Mecca? You will.

May 12, 2006 - 8:00 pm 22. Mark Razak:

MY supports talks with Iran because he is of the Left. Leftists only differ over how much they despise America. At some level, MY, to be true to his leftist beliefs, must believe that Iran is reacting to America`s evil. He doesn`t want to be tough because in his heart he doesn`t believe that Iran is the problem. Faith which does not act is not sincere. The Left doesn`t view Iran as a threat; it views America as the threat. The EU, Russia, and China are not stupid they are merely playing for time. If Russia and China viewed Iran as threat they would not have assisted Iran in her quest for the bomb. The Left wants Iran to become a nuclear power, because by doing so it is a defeat for America. The same held true for Saddam Hussein. The Left knows that oil is America`s Achilles` heel. A radical anti-American regime that controls most of the world`s oil has the potential to bring America to her knees, to destroy her economy. But America removed Hussein ending that hope. That is the real reason why the Left was so enraged over Iraq, because up to that time Hussein was the only real hope that the Left had in its war against the U.S. and its seemly unstoppable economy. So now the Left`s hope is on Iran. Iran is arch-reactionary in its social policies but her unyielding, unrepentant hatred for America and everything American easily earns Iran the Left`s admiration. Noam Chomsky`s meeting in Lebanon with Hezbollah and his support of Iran signals the beginning of an overt alliance between the radical Left and radical Islam. Does Chomsky really believe that Iran`s nuclear program exists because Iran feels threaten by Israel?

Unfortunately GWB`s gross ineptitude and incompetence in stating America`s case and in defending her actions to the American people and to the world has helped lead to this no-win situation. If Bush ignores the letter the Left will claim that it is because he is not interested in peace; if he accepts the offer for negotiations their pre-ordained failure will be Bush`s fault because he was too inflexible; he was not really interested in peace. The letter provides a perfect vehicle in which the U.S. can be blamed for any future Iranian aggression.

May 12, 2006 - 9:05 pm 23. photoncourier.blogspot.com:

From Ralph Peters: “One of the most consistently disheartening experiences an adult can have today is to listen to the endless attempts by our intellectuals and intelligence professionals to explain religious terrorism in clinical terms, assigning rational motives to men who have moved irrevocably beyond reason. We suffer under layers of intellectual asymmetries that hinder us from an intuititive recognition of our enemies.”

and from Paul Reynaud, who became Prime Minister of France just before the German invasion of 1940: “People think Hitler is like Kaiser Wilhelm. The old gentleman only wanted to take Alsace-Lorraine from us. But Hitler is Genghis Khan.” (approximate quote)

May 13, 2006 - 7:26 am 24. Jabba the Tutt:

Wouldn’t US talks with Iran be a huge dis to the EU Three talking with the Persian Moonbats? Wouldn’t US talks with Iran be a huge leap forward for Unilateralism? Wouldn’t US talks with Iran be a huge slap in the face to the UN and the UN Security Council and the IAEA? Are the same people saying the US should talk to Iran the same people who demand the US set its policy by what the EU, the UN, the UN Security Concil and the IAEA say?

May 13, 2006 - 10:07 am 25. Kevin Peters:

jabba:

Your mistake is that you expect the Bush critics to be consistent. If Bush tries multilateral approaches, they will demand unilateral talks. If Bush tries unilateral approaches they will call him a cowboy who is trying to undercut the U.N. They will even suggest Multilateral and unilateral at the same time. And the Iranians know that they will particpate, walk away, particpate. walk away, participate, walk away in an endless loop. U.N. IAEA, E.U.,whatever method is used and the critics will never say, “Hmmm, maybe Iran simply wants their bombs and no matter what form of negotiations we use they will always walk away until they get the bomb. Naah, the Mullahs are basically good and reasonable people, it must be how we are talking to them, they really have no desire to join the nuclear club, what they say and do isn’t a accurate view of what they want, what we fantasize is what they want to do.” Escape reality through delusion, it’s almost as good as mind altering drugs.

May 13, 2006 - 10:34 am 26. Godzilla:

Commenting on the Iranians and the 18-page diatribe is tantamount to stepping into a pile of wet dung and following the streamers that fly off your shoes as you kick them clean. You never end up with the same pattern.

Aside from wondering if the England, France, and Germany feel slighted for not getting their own letters, I wonder about this:

A few weeks ago, I remember reading an article from a Jewish publication out of Israel that quoted some high level offical as saying that Iran poses an existential threat for Israel.

Now you really can’t get more stark than that.

I also remember reading an article where a high-ranking Israeli official stated that the U.S. should be the one that acts militarily to nix Iran’s threat.

Huh?

Israel is fully capable of defending herself.

Iran needs an ultimatum, and it should come from Israel.

What I hope is that Bush has given Israel the okay to do whatever it deems necessary, with the emphasis on whatever.

I just don’t know if Israel has the moral unity and courage to do what they need to to ensure their survival.

If they are going to rely on the U.S. to save them, than they are as good as dead, intellectually, if not physically yet.

May 13, 2006 - 2:24 pm 27. Neo:

Bush and the United States are presently occupied elsewhere.

Leave it to England, France, and Germany, as at least the first two are UNSC permanent members, and all three are in the more immediate line of fire of any attempts by Iran to use any possible weapons that might come into existence.

Meanwhile, all the talk of “wiping off the face of the earth” can procede in blissful ignorance. I mean, these fission devices are big, but are hardly nation killers. It would take at least dozens to come close to nation killing results.

So the Shia Iran should proceed carefully when they take the advice of the Sunnis in Pakistan to target Israel if attack “by anyone.” Iran is setting itself up for the biggest “sucker punch” in history (i.e. Sunnis secretly “attack” Iran, Iran attacks Israel, the Israelis return the favor, the Sunnis have obliterated large portions both the Jews and the heretic Shia).

May 13, 2006 - 10:09 pm 28. trainer:

Talks with Iran…Naaa. But listening can’t hurt…and publishing what you hear.

I believe that the Muslims hate each other as much as they hate the Great and Little Satan. For our Iranian nutjob to become the next great leader is a bit far-fetched…He is a local phenomenon…unfortunately local to Israel.

I’ve been reading auto and biographies of various US and English WWII personalities recently…Bradley, Patton, Ike, Monty, and several others.

I am amazed at the amount of anti-war and isolationist feeling in the US in the 30s…it dwarfs anything I saw in the 70s. Leftists and appeasers abound…and this among the greatest generation.

Things haven’t changed much. And they won’t change unless Iran does something really, really, stupid.

May 14, 2006 - 8:57 am 29. photoncourier.blogspot.com:

“I am amazed at the amount of anti-war and isolationist feeling in the US in the 30s”…a lot of it was due to the vividly-reported horros of WWI, and to the feeling that that war had not really been necessary.

Here’s a very interesting passage by Daniel Mannix, an American naval officer, about an experience he had in 1921. Sounds quite contemporary.

May 14, 2006 - 3:46 pm 30. Cave Bear:

I was reading about this on another blog today, and someone made a rather (to me) cogent remark. He said it was interesting to note that the very people that the Muslim terrorists want to kill the most are the ones who pretty consistently take their side in these matters, and even live in the US cities the terrorists would most like to destroy. That is, places like New York, LA, Boston, San Francisco, and other bastions of politically correct leftist thought.

He went on to say that if New York disappeared, it would not adversely affect his or his family’s life. And the spooky part is, he’s right. The Islamoterrorists won’t be targeting places like Des Moines, Tulsa, Jacksonville or Portland. It will be the big coastal cities, where most of the anti-American BDS suffers live.

Hopefully this won’t happen, but if it does, there would be a certain Homeric justice to it…

May 14, 2006 - 6:46 pm 31. Esbiem:

I have read elsewhere that the letter to the President of the United States from the “President” of Iran is in itself a last ditch effort to turn the great satin around or he shall face the consequences, because a good Jihadist should always give his enemy an opportunity to convert prior to sawing his head off. After reading the letter it seems a likely scenario. I have commented on it in my blog with a photorial last Thursday,May 11.

May 15, 2006 - 6:40 am

Write a Comment

Name:	(required, displayed)
Email:	(required, not publicized)
URL:	(optional, displayed)
Comments: