Posted on 06/09/2008 6:08:02 PM PDT by nuconvert
Iran is a threat that can't be overlooked
George Jonas , Canwest News Service
June 9, 2008
For the benefit of those who missed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's 2005 threat to wipe out Israel, he repeated it last week. Israel, he said, "will soon disappear off the geographical scene." The occasion was the 19th anniversary of the death of theocratic Iran's founder, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Whatever one thinks of the sentiment, the sentence is bizarre. Threatening to wipe a country off the map is like threatening to slay all men and women and let dogs lick their blood. It's Genghis Khan stuff. Politicians don't say things like that in the 21st century - do they?
Well, the president of Iran did.
"Are these people mad?" an acquaintance asked me a couple of years ago. He was looking at news photos of a mob torching a building in Beirut. At that time the rioters were objecting to the Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.
"No, only differently sane," I suggested. "They're sane in a manner suitable to their times."
"What do you mean, their times? Muslims live in the 21st century, the same as you and I."
"Some do. Others have bought a pied-à-terre in the 21st century and commute between it and their home in the 12th century. Some maintain a 21st-century address solely for email."
"I hope you're wrong," said my acquaintance. "Because if you're right, we have a problem."
We do. The slick Boeings that leave Western airports for Asia and the Middle East double as time machines. They whisk travellers back to the Middle Ages.
The upheavals of the 21st century are about many things, but one of them is turning back the clock. This is the essence of militant Islam. Turning back the clock was also the essence of Nazism and communism, the earlier totalitarian revolutions against the dominance of Western-style liberal democracies. Despite their modern facade, both were essentially neo-medieval movements. Theocracy, in turn, is totalitarianism without the facade of modernity.
Threatening an enemy with extinction sounds raving mad in our humanistic, liberal, and - let's not forget - nuclear age. We acquired cultural scruples about genocide, along with the means to carry it out. Militant Islam has been quicker with the means than the scruples, and seems ready to combine the destructive power of the 21st century with the 12th century's lack of inhibitions.
If there's method in Islamist militancy's madness, there's also madness in its method - a deliberate, cultivated madness. The poet Nizar Qabbani gives expression to it in his ode to the Intifada, a panegyric to the "children of the stones."
O mad people of Gaza, as thousand greetings to the mad The age of political reason has long departed so teach us madness.
In other words, don't mess with us, we're crazy. We'll throw stones at armoured vehicles, strap on suicide bombs, respond to cartoons with riots. We're irresistible because our kingdom is not of this world, because we cherish death more than you, our enemies, cherish life.
The Arab/Islamic awakening of the 20th century, just like the earlier (or parallel) Oriental/Asiatic awakenings, measured itself against the seemingly invincible West. However, the two awakenings took opposite turns. The Far Eastern/Asian powers of Japan, China, Russia, and India, tried to challenge the West, but then concluded that if you can't lick them, join them - maybe try beating them at their own game. Today Japan and India are embracing liberal-capitalism with remarkable success, while Russia and China are experimenting with authoritarian-capitalism. Though a contradiction in terms, it's working better than totalitarian-socialism ever has.
The Arab/Islamic world started out by trying to join the West, but kept taking wrong turns on the road to Westernization, choosing blind alleys of fascist-style nationalism and quasi-Marxist socialism. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the Grand Mufti Amin al-Husseini of Jerusalem, and later Col. Gamal Nasser, Dr. George Habash, and Yasser Arafat were all part of this pattern. Ironically, so was Saddam Hussein.
Eventually, the Arab/Muslim world concluded that Westernizing was too burdensome and probably impossible. Since joining the West wasn't in the cards, licking it seemed another option. A new generation began to eye fundamental Islam as a route to Arab/Islamic renaissance. Enter the Ayatollah Khomeini, followed by Osama bin Laden.
Today, Pakistan has the bomb, and the Islamists aren't far from having Pakistan. The Islamists have Iran, and Iran isn't far from having the bomb. It already has President Ahmadinejad. The bright flash you see next may mark the fulfillment of his threat. Conversely, it might mark its end.
Theocracy, in turn, is totalitarianism without the facade of modernity.
Well put.
pong
I thought that was well put also.
Well, if that's the way they want it, I say we give them what they most want. Lets arrange for them to meet Allah in the most expeditious manner.
Current day Iran is an example of *exactly* why Israel wanted nukes.Let’s pray to God that she has the guts to use them...for the sake of Western Civilization.
I don't see any irony when recalling the reign of Saddam Hussein.
“Iran is a threat that can’t be overlooked”
Wanna bet? Obama just thinks that if we would completely disarm ourselves to show the world what peace loving people we were, the Islamofascists would be so warm a fuzzy inside that they would all weep with shame and come running and begging for forgiveness for ever thinking that West wasn’t understanding of their beliefs.
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