If Diplomacy Fails
Disorder and confusion seem accurate descriptive words when describing what is going on in and around Iran these days. But those terms don’t necessarily apply to that country alone. Half of the world—those countries with a vested interest in what’s going on there—are just as susceptible to the disarray.
According to a NYT report dated June 14, 2010 Senator McCain (who I am a fan of) called on the US to support regime change in Tehran, saying the UN sanctions are ‘inadequate’ and that it is unrealistic to expect the current government (Ahmadinejad/Khamenei and the IRGC) to stop pursuing nuclear weapons, supporting terrorism and cracking down on its own people.
Is there anyone in any of the pseudo or semi civilized countries around the globe that doesn’t know the UN sanctions are inadequate? And that it is unrealistic to expect… All this talk is wearing me down and personally I am so far removed from all that is going on regarding nukes and Iran that I can’t imagine what a burden it is to all who are immersed in the fray all day everyday. The problem lies in how we—the good guys, the naïve guys and the scared guys—respond to Iran’s slight-of-hand, shuck-and-jive, smoke-and-mirror approach to negotiations. All of us together—The US, China, Russia, GB, France—can not proffer a plan acceptable to the Islamic Republic that’s in turn acceptable to the participating countries. After a while everyone gets tired of the rhetoric and lack of success and just wants to go out for a drink or round of golf. In the meantime the citizens of Iran are between a rock and a hard place, suffering the consequences of their leader’s errant ways while the IRGC gets closer and closer to building a bomb.
I have a question, just curious; what would be the outcome, the price some country would pay in aftermath consequences if that country slapped Ahmadinejad with missiles through the front door of two or three nuclear enrichment facilities? We know the global uproar would be deafening but like everything else the hue and cry would be short lived. Of course there would be loss of life and, of course, there would be anti-US or GB or Israeli sentiment floating about and it would take time to recover diplomatically. However, the rhetoric used to chastise that government would most likely be in the form of an artificial rebuke to be documented within UN records. No government lashing out at the country responsible for the missiles would actually mean what they say. The ulterior message on the other hand would be tacit approval.
Now, all that country—the one willing to strike the enrichment facilities—has to do is make sure Iran is in fact enriching uranium to weapons grade and exactly where they are doing it. When it comes to aggression there is no room for error, there will be errors enough even if the strike is absolutely perfect.
Marvin Wiebener
IF IRAN’S PRESENT REGIME IS OVERTHROWN, CONSIDER THIS
Of course I am all for the overthrow of Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme religious leader (a higher rank than president). But I am very concerned about what kind of leadership will evolve in the interim, that chaotic period between the downfall of one regime and the rise of a new and hopefully a better one.
My concern is based on the fact that while Ahmadinejad and the theocratic leadership are losing ground in favor of a growing democratic mentality there exists in Iran a shadowy element that covets power and authority at any cost. They are radical in the strictest Islamic tradition, and ruthless, they control the military and are business savvy—an ominous set of characteristics when considering possible outcomes of a government overthrow. The organization of which I speak is of course the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), think Delta Force, CIA, FBI and Warren Buffett all wrapped up in a bit of fascism. The IRGC was originally formed by the Ayatollah Ali Khomeini in 1979 during the fall of the Shah and the resurgence of theocracy in Iran.
This Khomeini (now deceased) should not be confused with the present supreme leader Khamenei—note the slight difference in spelling of the name.
The IRGC was given powers commensurate with the needs of a supreme religious leader. Since then those powers have grown substantially and today their influence is both feared and respected.
My concern is an obvious one, as they say—“It isn’t rocket science.” What if during the turmoil of a regime change the IRGC decides it doesn’t like what it sees for its future and decides to intervene. Lets not fool ourselves, they are powerful enough to do it and their propensity toward fanaticism is unmistakable. And the IRGC leadership makes no bones about their nuclear ambitions. What happens then?
Marvin Wiebener
Religion and Politics in Iran
I’m not an expert in these matters but I think I know enough to say that religion and politics don’t mix well in Iran. Cooperation between the two is an illusion, an illusion the people of that country realize is getting them no where fast. Iran was on its way to becoming a democracy (sort of) during the Shah’s US backed reign. Of course the Shah—Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi—had his problems with the religious right because of his White Revolution (visit White Revolution in Wikipedia—very interesting) that, among other things, extended suffrage to women, modernized the nation and recognized the sovereignty of Israel, a no-no for any Muslim nation.
Modernization in Iran was seen by Shi’a clergy as secularization and they began withdrawing support for the Shah. In 1979 a revolution occurred that brought to power the Ayatollah Khomeini and his rule by the Supreme Jurist. Many Iranian citizens were opposed to the return of theocracy but knew better than to complain. Religious zealots remember, have ways of bringing the wrath of God to bear when needed to bring about unquestioned compliance, or so those zealots say. I became acquainted with an Iranian family that was able to escape the Ayatollah’s Supreme Jurist rule in 1982. A well-to-do family, the result of an education and hard work, eventually made their way to Tulsa, OK where we met. The patriarch and his wife were in their seventies, both were ill, and they were broke. The Supreme Jurist wouldn’t allow them to leave Iran to seek medical assistance with any thing but the cloths on their backs. The families home, jobs, and retirement fund were lost, never to be retrieved. The good news is that Americans—many were Iranian themselves—helped this family get what they needed and the bad news, of course, is they could never return to their beloved Iran.
A product of the 70’s revolution in Iran was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, now into his second term as Iran’s blowhard president. Strange indeed how Ahmadinejad began his ascent because of a cleric’s government take over in 1979, a puppet groomed by theocracy to lead a country back into the dark ages and now theocracy and Ahmadinejad are both suffering a significant loss of respect and power.
Jon Meacham, in a Newsweek editorial, wrote; In an imperfect world there will never be a complete end to theocracy any more than there will be a complete end to tyranny. Power will ebb and flow, regimes come and go. But in the main, history’s path leads to more liberty, not less.