The Return of Weakness

The Weekly Standard ^ | 4/6/09 | Reuel Marc Gerecht

[gridlock]

In diplomacy and espionage, there is no worse mistake than "mirror-imaging," that is, ascribing to foreigners your own actions and views. For Westerners this is especially debilitating, given our modern proclivity to assume that others pursue their interests in secular, material, and guilt-ridden ways. Confession is an important part of the Western tradition; self-criticism is less acute elsewhere. Americans, the British, the Spanish, and the French have written libraries about their own imperialistic sins; Arabs, Iranians, Turks, and Russians have not. In an unsuccessful effort to reach out to Iran's clerical regime in 1999, President Bill Clinton apologized for the actions of the entire Western world. Last week, in response to President Barack Obama's let's-talk greetings broadcast to Iran, theocratic overlord Ali Khamenei, "supreme leader" of the Islamic Republic of Iran, enumerated 30 years' worth of America's dastardly deeds against the Islamic revolution--but not a peccadillo that the clerical regime had committed against any Western country.

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I would bet the national debt that the president and the supreme leader share not a single hope or dream that could possibly have any bearing on the relations between their two countries.

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In his public orations, Khamenei has regularly dreamed of Muslims' uniting in one line and amassing all the elements of their power to strengthen the Islamic community (...) so that it can attain glory, independence, and spiritual and material progress, and the enemy [the United States], in its pursuit of grandeur and the control of Muslim lands, can see defeat.

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It is clear that President Obama means well, yet his good intentions could end up accomplishing the exact opposite of what he wants. Irony is, of course, a Persian forte. It is less appreciated in the United States.

[gridlock]

Gerecht is giving Obama a little more credit than I am prepared to. Frankly, it looks to me like Khamenei and Obama both desire to see American defeat, and are both working toward that end.

[samtheman]

This is an important article.

[Wicket]

Obama’s gonna get us attacked and killed in large numbers, IMHO. It’s not a matter of whether, but when.

[nascarnation]

Your correct, and initially I thought that might lead to Baraq being defeated, but someone pointed out that any terror attack will produce martial law and no elections

[Tainan]

Quite so.

"For Westerners this is especially debilitating, given our modern proclivity to assume that others pursue their interests in secular, material, and guilt-ridden ways. Confession is an important part of the Western tradition; self-criticism is less acute elsewhere."

It should also be understood that this characteristic is also absent from the mainland Asian, specifically Chinese, mentality.

[gridlock]

I am surprised how little attention this article is getting. This guy hits it right on the head, IMHO. Except he keeps assuming that President Obama’s errors are unintentional, which is assuming more than can be safely assumed.

As Napoleon said, “Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence.” I think we are beyond the point, here, where incompetence is sufficient explaination.