Posted on 01/26/2007 5:47:43 AM PST by nuconvert
-Excerpt-
"I believe that the Vilayat Faqih in Iran is a theocratic totalitarian movement for which destruction of Israel and the United States is not a policy but its very essence. It defines itself in that way. Saying that is should change its policy with respect to destroying Israel and the United States is like trying to persuade Hitler away from anti-Semitism. It was his essence and it is the essence of the Iranian Vilayat Faqih. I believe that the nuclear weapons program of Iran is an important part of this and as Bernard said the recent up tick in fanaticism, the Hujetia, the End of Time Movement does represent a real and crazed part of Iranians today and the Iranian Shiite ideology.
If we think of Iran as a chess master and the Persians after all invented chess and are very good at it, and look at its various pieces I think we might characterize its nuclear weapons program as its queen, its most lethal and most valued piece. Other pieces on the board under the control of the chess masters in Tehran are Syria which might rise to the level of a rook, since it is in fact a nation state, and various pawns: Hezbollah, Muqtada al Sadr, Hamas and the others. As one piece gets put in to jeopardy perhaps Muqtada al Sadr a bit today, it’s played conservatively, then others are moved forward, such as Hezbollah last summer, which was part of an effort to protect the queen. I agree with Dore Gold, we cannot effectively deal with these individual chess pieces.
Negotiating with Syria over the Golan Heights or Hamas and the Palestinian authority over some political solution, which someday will be possible with the Palestinians, is today, in my judgment, fanciful. Nor do I believe that the current Sunni concern over the Shiite nuclear weapons program in Iran will lead to some sort of covert Saudi, Egyptian, American, Israeli modus vivendi to protect ourselves together against the Shi’a.
In 1979, which I think is probably the key year of the modern explosion in fanaticism in this part of the world; the seizure of the great mosque in Mecca and the rise to power of a Shiite theocracy in Iran produced an intense increase of Wahabi fanaticism as expressed in the madrasas of the Middle East and Pakistan. These expressions in the sermons, in mosques, and in the United States, are all very heavily funded by the increases price of oil. Little boys are being taught to dream of being suicide bombers in both Pakistani Madrasas and in the West Bank with Wahabi oil money, and that money is a huge part of our problem.
So I believe that the Wahabis, Al Qaeda, the Vilayat Faqih in Tehran, although often lethally competitive with one another, in the way the Nazis and communists and within the communist movement were competitive with each other in the 1920s and 30s are capable of unification. Those who say that these movements will never work together because of their ideology are precisely as correct as those who in the 1930s said that the communists and the Nazis will never work together. They didn’t, until they did.
So, what do we need to move forward today? First of all we need to take their theocratic totalitarianism authority seriously. We should pay attention to what they say. Hitler meant it when he said he wanted to exterminate the Jews. It was all spelled out in Mein Kampf. We need to take seriously what people like Ahmadinejad and others say to their own followers. They are not lying; they are stating their true objectives."
(excerpt)
" We must not accept totalitarian regimes, we should, I think as Richard Pearl stated so yesterday, try with some of the tactics Bill Einhorn mentioned for regime change in Iran peacefully, if possible."
Good speech, but it is getting kind of late in the game regime change through peaceful means.
Maybe so, but in the big picture it has minimal cost and a pretty good payoff.
James Woolsey is a remarkably smart man, and well-tuned to the realities of the world. That is surely why our leaders don't pay more attention to him.
The Book of Kings says it was a gift from an Indian king.
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