Rafsanjani of Iran delicately Put: We're in Serious Trouble

At Friday prayers this week, Hashemi Rafsanjani appeared for the first time since his defeat and announced: "we have serious problems and we're faced with serious danger." His statement came amid the excited speculation about the part Ahmadinejad played in the U.S. hostage taking, and the hoopla surrounding Iran's head of parliament's first visit to Belgium and a cancelled reception. It seems Scott Ritter was right when he said recently: "The war against the Islamic Republic has begun."

In the nine days since the annoucement of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the sixth president of the Islamic Republic, major world media have tried to paint a picture of Iran reminiscent of the early days of the Revolution. With references and quotes to Ahmadinejad inaugurating "a second Islamic revolution" and "establishing an Islamic administration," they have tried to create a harsh and extremist image of Iran.

Two cases are being built against Iran's president-elect in the international courts of opinion. The first involves Ahmadinejad's role in the U.S. hostage crisis. In recent days some former hostages have pointed to Ahmadinejad as one of their interrogators. These charges were immediately and strongly denied by Iranians who were themselves involved, but that didn't stop the Western media from repeatedly showing footage of the hostage situation and believing the hostages' side of the story. Iranian analysts say, "the U.S. was looking for an excuse and it seems they may have found one."

Before this first case against Mr. Ahmadinejad had been put to rest, another one started. A member of Europe's Green party has plans to ask the judge to issue orders for the immediate arrest of Mr. Ahmadinejad based on information about his role in the political assassinations of Kurdish democratic leaders that took place in Austria.

The U.S. called the Iranian elections undemocratic and declared the election of Ahmadinejad a joke, and it also published a letter written by imprisoned dissident writer Akbar Ganji and demanded his immediate and unconditional release. The U.S also recently issued a law banning Americans from doing business with eight entities, four of them Iranian, stating that the entities are suspected of supporting activities that they shouldn't support. Moreover, the U.S. congress reintroduced a resolution supported by three hundred of it's members in "support of freeing Iran." The resolution referred to the Islamic regime as an enemy of the American people and and charged Iran with seeking to obtain weapons of mass destruction.

The day after the elections, Germany's foreign minister visited George W. Bush and following the visit issued a strongly worded statement to Iran - the first of its kind. Recently Europeans held a conference on Iran where critics voiced various concerns. In addition, the British government announced that human rights in Iran are one the E.U.'s highest priorities. Perhaps it was this atmosphere that rendered Mr. Hadad's (Iran's head of parliament) visit to Belgium an unmitigated flop.

Are these actions by the U.S. and Europe what Mr. Rafsanjani is referring to when he says that Iran is in danger or does he have other information as well?

While I agree with some of what you say, we have sharp disagreement on others.

For example there was no enemy in either country that we could go after with a massive crushing display of firepower. They were not huddled together in great numbers anywhere. There was no way of making its citizens feel the direct pain of war without either killing them in mass or extending the war so they felt its accumulated pain and wanted no more. In WWII the Axis powers were destroyed. Cities were razed and civilians were killed in mass over long periods of time. That was not a choice today.

I personally think the mistake was "nation building". Not how we fought. I think we should have come in and wiped out the leadership and most everything connected to it and then left. Then we should have told them that if they produce a similar leadership then we'd come back again and do it again until they make a better choice.

I'm also not sure if more troops are only more targets when car bombs and suicide explosive belts are the weapons being used. I don't know how more troops can stop that.

It is quite true that there were no large groups of enemy to fight. For that reason we needed more troops to be able to locate them, surround them and kill them without letting them escape. When there are large groups of enemy to fight, the task can be handled with large weapons. Repeatedly, in both of these wars, we did not have enough forces on the ground to do the job. Add to this that we tried to negotiate with an enemy whose culture takes pride in deceit. We were made fools of many times in these wars because we tried to fight a "gentlemens war".

As for the nation building, Afghanistan will always be a hellhole of turmoil and we should have just gone in and killed as many Taliban as possible, bombed the mosques into dust (Yes, we are fighting a terrorist group that claims to be a religion. And they use their mosques to plan terrorist acts, hide terrorists, fund terrorists so mosques are a legitimate target.) And had we sent in enough troops and allowed them to fight, we probably would have OBL. Then we could have left the country and allowed the UN to go in and do what it does best: kiss muslim a$$ and talk bad about the US. The UN hates us, muslim countries hate us, they did before the wars, they do now and they always will until islam has taken over the US. So there would have been not net change in their attitude towards us.

Iraq is a different story and much more complex. Personally, I think Saddam should have been taken out long ago and we had ample reason to do so. However, I believe that there is a strong undercurrent in the reasoning for the Iraq War that is related to Saudi Arabia. We are precariously dependent on Saudi Arabia for oil. I believe that the President understands that the Saudi government is on its last legs. When the Saudis fall, most likely to a radical group tied to Al Qaeda, we need a solid country in the ME with large reserves of oil on which we can depend. I don't look at this as strictly oil related as many Dems do. I see it as part of handling terrorism from all angles.

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