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The Mullahs' Greatest Quest; the Mullahs' Biggest Fear
Ventura County Star ^ | Thursday, January 05, 2006

Posted on 01/05/2006 10:43:24 AM PST by F14 Pilot

Pity the United Nations and the European Union. The militant theocrats running Iran have ignored their pleas, protests, promises of aid and finger-wagging threats of economic sanction. Tehran's mullahs want nuclear weapons. Money, media appeals and political yammering have so far failed to curtail Iran's nuclear ambitions.

As 2006 begins, it appears Iran's decade of atomic fan dancing with the international community is approaching a dangerous finale. One hopes the latest gesture doesn't prove to be another hollow jest. Moscow has offered to enrich Iranian uranium in Russian facilities. It's an interesting diplomatic gambit, one that means Iran's jig may continue for several more months.

Iran insists that the Russian proposal, if accepted, would be supplementary and not a final plan. One senior Iranian official cautioned that any proposal that limited uranium enrichment "to Russian soil only" wouldn't do at all.

At some point, Iran's radical mullahs and aging Islamic revolutionaries will have enough nuclear material to make a nuclear weapon. Those who think the current Iranian leaders' pursuit of nuclear weaponry is a theatrical performance should consider the rhetoric of Iran's hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He is a Holocaust denier -- he calls Adolf Hitler's mass murder of European Jews a "myth."

On a regular basis, Ahmadinejad and his cohorts tout the capabilities of Iranian ballistic missiles. Unfortunately, fanatics like Ahmadinejad have a tendency to move from words to war.

Note that Israeli cities aren't the only targets within range. In the 1990s, the Iranians and the United Arab Emirates quarreled over islands in the Persian Gulf, but that was lightweight sparring. Still, Iran with a nuclear weapon threatens every Arab nation on the Arabian Peninsula.

An Iranian nuke also threatens Iraq. Saddam Hussein is gone, and with good reason Iranians despised him. Saddam attacked Iran and started the Iran-Iraq War. However, the rise of Iraqi democracy puts Iran's autocrats in a political and cultural bind.

Iran begins the 21st century as a profoundly divided country. One of the key divisions is age. Most Iranians under the age of 40 have no truck with the ruling mullahs. To describe the clerics' economy as "stagnant" is an understatement. Iran's young don't remember the Shah, and Khomeini's revolution is ancient history. The Council of Guardians' brutality is current news, however. The cultural straightjacket of clerical puritanism chafes, and the mullahs' hypocrisy and corruption are self-evident.

In some ways, the thief in religious robes is even more repugnant than the usual greased-palm bureaucrat. Democracy may not be a panacea, but Iranian youth see it as a source of political and economic opportunity.

Now, the Arabs (in this case, the Iraqis) are building a new society, while Iran continues to rot. Ahmandinejad may believe a nuke will help restore the "balance of prestige" vis a vis Baghdad.

In 1981, Israeli air attacks destroyed Saddam's Osirak nuclear reactor, and everyone in the Middle East sighed with relief.

The power of U.S. and Israeli military capabilities has always been the big stick behind EU and U.N. anti-proliferation diplomacy.

However, the rumor mill says Iran has hardened and dispersed its nuclear sites. As it is, airstrikes and special forces attacks are never sure things.

The real solution is regime change in Tehran. The EU and the United States have talked about supporting the mullahs' political opponents, but they have not walked that walk with sufficient financial aid, political support, media support and -- yes, it may be necessary -- weapons.

Iran's tyrants believe they can finesse diplomatic discourse and ride out a military strike. They fear they cannot quell a popular, pro-democracy rebellion.

-- Austin Bay, of Texas, is a contributing editor to FYEO, an Internet foreign affairs newsletter found at www.StrategyPage.com, and writes a weblog www.austinbay.net. He is a colonel (retired) in the U.S. Army Reserve.


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Israel; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: eu; iran; iranazadi; islam; mullahs; persia; terrorism; theshah; un; us

1 posted on 01/05/2006 10:43:26 AM PST by F14 Pilot
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To: DoctorZIn; freedom44; nuconvert; sionnsar; AdmSmith; parisa; onyx; Pro-Bush; Valin; ...

Good Read!


2 posted on 01/05/2006 10:45:24 AM PST by F14 Pilot (Democracy is a process not a product)
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To: F14 Pilot
However, the rumor mill says Iran has hardened and dispersed its nuclear sites.

The harder the target, the larger the munitions necessary...
3 posted on 01/05/2006 10:50:54 AM PST by Edgerunner (Proud to be an infidel)
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To: F14 Pilot

Sadly, it appears that the only way the Left will wake up from its delusions will be the blinding flash from a nuclear device - and even then, I'm sure that some of them will be in the rubble cursing Bush.


4 posted on 01/05/2006 10:52:36 AM PST by redpoll (redpoll)
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To: F14 Pilot
We've heard this before
5 posted on 01/05/2006 10:54:51 AM PST by mikethevike (We could use a little global warming up here in MN)
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To: F14 Pilot

"Money, media appeals and political yammering have so far failed to curtail Iran's nuclear ambitions. "

Unfortunately, the libnuts in Congress want to handicap the prez so that he can't attack preemptively. The libnuts and their media cohorts are all but spewing American's classified info almost daily to the entire world. Woe to Bush if he actually ATTACKS Iran, the libnuts would have a field day whining about how terrible it all is.

How in the hell do the libnuts propose we fix the looming Iranian problem? We can't hug them and drink tea with them, and we aren't going to pay them money or give them nuclear fuel to "test their nuclear capability" as LURCH the HORSEFACED LOOZA would have us do. Truth is, the rats are all talk, no walk, no bite. They don't have a clue as how to govern or affect any decent foreign policy. They never did.

The mullahs need to be nuked to hellah, IMO. And we can't afford to wait much longer. Iran, I curse your mustache!


6 posted on 01/05/2006 10:57:13 AM PST by goresalooza (Nurses Rock!)
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To: Edgerunner
So like Iraq, are we at the point where people are considering war (or limited attacks on their facilities)?

If I were Israel, I would be planning for war. What choice do they or we have? -- fight them now while they still don't have nukes or fight them later when they do.

They certainly can't count on the idiots in the UN to protect them.

Of course, it isn't just Israel that have to be concerned. Western, "infidel", nations have to be worried too.
7 posted on 01/05/2006 11:01:33 AM PST by dhs12345
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To: F14 Pilot
Now, the Arabs (in this case, the Iraqis) are building a new society, while Iran continues to rot. Ahmandinejad may believe a nuke will help restore the "balance of prestige" vis a vis Baghdad.

If Ahmandinejad's not Rafsanjani's puppet, then he's not playing for "balance of prestige". Rafsanjani, in a Cheney-like fashion might do that, but Ahmandinejad's words don't point in that direction. Ahmandinejad believes a nuke will destroy Israel and bring on the time of the Mahdi. He's insane, but not crazy.

8 posted on 01/05/2006 11:04:31 AM PST by GOPJ
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To: F14 Pilot
Iran's tyrants believe they can finesse diplomatic discourse and ride out a military strike. They fear they cannot quell a popular, pro-democracy rebellion.

Insightful!

9 posted on 01/05/2006 11:06:57 AM PST by GOPJ
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To: F14 Pilot

Nukes don't kill; people do.

Support the democratic movement in Iran!


10 posted on 01/05/2006 11:14:19 AM PST by nuconvert (No More Axis of Evil by Christmas ! TLR) [there's a lot of bad people in the pistachio business])
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To: mikethevike

My Bagdad Bob photo was meant for this article...
"Iran vows 'crushing response' to attack by U.S., Israel" Not sure where I messed up..probably some relavence to this in any case :-)


11 posted on 01/05/2006 11:15:33 AM PST by mikethevike (We could use a little global warming up here in MN)
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To: mikethevike

I wondered to see that here though


12 posted on 01/05/2006 11:20:00 AM PST by F14 Pilot (Democracy is a process not a product)
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To: GOPJ

...or we might say he's crazy, but not irrational!! He knows exactly what he's trying to accomplish and how to go about it, but his goal (nuclear destruction of Israel) is crazy and insane and depraved.... not to mention evil. He understands how to work the Euro-twit diplomats and media just about as well as Adolf Hitler did. Remember that countless Europeans in the 1930s thought that Hitler did not mean what he said and that they could endlessly 'negotiate' for "peace in our time" until Hitler decided that treating diplomats like monkeys was too boring compared to attacking almost all of his neighbors and exterminating millions upon millions.....

However, all the whiny liberals who say that endless 'negotiations' with these lunatics in Tehran will accomplish anything are just as crazy, and also irrational -- they will never accomplish what they profess to want, a nuclear weapons free Iran, but then maybe most of the Euro-twits and Democrats here really just don't care if Iran does get nuclear weapons.


13 posted on 01/05/2006 11:43:54 AM PST by Enchante (Democrats: "We are ALL broken and worn out, our party & ideas, what else is new?")
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To: F14 Pilot

When the time comes, Isreal will take out Iran's nuclear capability. They have nuclear armed diesel electic subs that will slip into the Gulf and launch a few bunker-busting tactical nukes or conventional warheads designed destroy those "hardened" targets.


14 posted on 01/05/2006 12:16:18 PM PST by PsyOp (The commonwealth is theirs who hold the arms.... - Aristotle.)
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To: F14 Pilot

"In some ways, the thief in religious robes is even more repugnant than the usual greased-palm bureaucrat."


I agree, and I like this..."thief in religious robes."


"Democracy may not be a panacea, but Iranian youth see it as a source of political and economic opportunity."


It is a very good read.
Thank you for the post and ping.


15 posted on 01/05/2006 7:35:45 PM PST by dixiechick2000
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To: Enchante
...or we might say he's crazy, but not irrational!! He knows exactly what he's trying to accomplish and how to go about it, but his goal (nuclear destruction of Israel) is crazy and insane and depraved.... not to mention evil.

That's what he's up to alright...

16 posted on 01/05/2006 8:45:55 PM PST by GOPJ
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