Iran's revolution is in its infancy - but it may have just found its Stalin.

telegraph.co.uk ^ | 8/14/05 | Niall Ferguson

[DogBarkTree]

Never underestimate a revolutionary regime. In particular, never underestimate the durability of the revolutionaries' fervour to fight for their cause. The French revolution began in 1789, but it was only after two decades of war that the fight was finally knocked out of the revolution's heirs, and repeatedly - in 1830, 1848 and 1870 - they threatened to make a comeback.

The Russian revolution began in 1917, but the Soviet Union posed a mortal threat until the mid-1980s. As for the Chinese revolution of 1949, it was only last month that the regime in Beijing was threatening to go nuclear over Taiwan.

We in the English-speaking world never give up hoping that the revolutionaries will suddenly see the advantages of peace, the rule of law and representative government. That may be because we think our own revolutions - the English revolution of the 1640s and the American revolution of the 1770s - followed that pattern.

[DogBarkTree]

Infancy huh? I say we nuke it before it reaches puberty.

[Dark Skies]

bttt

[datura]

I'd say that Iran - and the rest of the world for that matter - needs to see a demonstration of just what we CAN DO if we are forced into it.

It's time for the tungsten 'Rods from God' demonstration. Pick any evening, just after dusk in Iran. MIRV about a dozen rods into various installations within Iran - not too late at night - so that the populace can see what happened. And can see that only military targets were "removed" from the map.

[jocon307]

"In Iran," President Bush himself declared in a speech back in November 2003, "the demand for democracy is strong and broad." Dream on. Far from being on the brink of democracy, Iran is now on the brink of becoming the single biggest threat to democracy in the world."

Ah, that's a great paragraph, it is.

[JohnBovenmyer]

Well if Ahamadinejad is a new Stalin, than I'd say he'd make an excellent target. Judging by the historical Bell curve a worse replacement would be highly improbable. Don't worry about making them mad at us, they already are mad at us. Consider, instead, the results the Israelis obtained with attacks on terrorist leaders.

Bush could just declare that, after reviewing the already public evidence, Ahamadinejad really was a leader in an act of war against the US (the Carter era attack on our embassy) and that having finally identified him we fought back. Than warn any others of similar guilt to surrender or risk the same end. Bush has the authority as Commander in Chief and can even say this didn't violate Ford's ban on assassinations of foreign leaders. I believe Ford would have supported shooting Hitler in 1942, although not in 1938. Ahamadinejad earned this long before his election and by his own words has remained at war with us.

[justa-hairyape]

Dont know why this author blames US Neo-Cons with pie-in-the-sky dreaming of a peaceful democratic Iran. According to even leftist within the US, neocons have always wanted to bomb Iran. Its been obvious that the Iranian Mullahs are hell bent to go nuclear. Theoritically the failure of the US Coalition to find WMD in Iraq, should have been good news for the Iranians. The only reason they want WMD now is to destroy Israel and fight the Global Jihad.

Additionally, Iraq has not been weakened by injecting thousands of US troops on its soil. These troops rolled over Saddams forces in a couple of days. Saddams forces fought the Iranians to a stalemate. And what else could Iran possibly do to thwart US efforts there ? They are already sending guerilla fighters over the border, military grade weapons and they are being supported by other terrorists members of the axis of evil who just bombed London. The Iran war is already upon us and some still are pie-in-the-sky dreamers that war with Iran can be avoided.