The boomer generation grew up with an ever less threatening, supremely rational and not entirely ill intentioned Soviet Union as the big enemy.

They formed all of their attitudes about diplomacy and force with that enemy as the context, and now they're too old to comprehend any new situation or that none of the principles they fought for were general enough to apply to our new enemies.

But people who were kids when 9/11 happened have a completely different context to build their world view on. They will understand that Islamists are completely different species, and growing up with Google they have infinitely more information to use to build that world view.

When the that generation gets into power then you can expect miracles.

It's funny that you wrote this, Josh, because I was just thinking the exact same thing, even though nothing Noah wrote suggested it. Weird.

I offer up this bit of data without comment:

http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/posters/hj.jpg

This thread got Godwinned early.

Respect, dialogue, gestures of goodwill. I’ll bring my acoustic guitar and some big fluffy pillows and we can do a sing-along for Ahmadinejad.

It may be flippant, but it's a cogent appraisal of our government's relationship with Iran and other Islamist regimes.

When Iran's negotiator said “We rubbed dirt in the nose of the world’s greatest superpower.” he also expressed Iran's attiude towards the West. They're like toddlers, seeing how much they can get away with. For decades, we've been letting them get away with everything.

This indulgent attitude is based on the Carter administration's 'Green Belt Strategy', which planned to use the Islamists as a weapon against communism. We and the Russians still think we're players in some grand game, but unfortunately, we're the ones who are being played.

We can elect new leadership, but we also need to get rid of the fossilized realpolitikers in the State Department.

I was down at the revolutionary council discussing the merger between neo-nazi's, crazy muslims and socio-anarchisto-antiglobal-sydisocialists and how that might effect our effort to confront global warming when the truthers showed up and it was facinating. Would you like to join the movement to overthrow the fascist American hegemony?

---Thread has been Blaired:)---

It's funny that you and scholar both thought that. When I was reading the article I was thinking about how much I hate baby boomers.

"I’ll bring my acoustic guitar and some big fluffy pillows and we can do a sing-along for Ahmadinejad."

Imagine all the people...

Let's see, what have we done to Iran over the past few decades?

Toppled their government and put a brutal monarch back in power for 20+ years.

Backed Saddam when he invaded Iran.

Shot down an Iranian civilian airliner.

I don't see what they have to "pay" for.

I'd say we're about even.

Frankly, a lot of the blame lies with Mrs. Esfandiari for going there in the first place (using her Iranian passport to enter the country).

It's no secret the US is funding pro-democracy groups inside and outside Iranian. For a prominent Iranian-American scholar, the risks in traveling there should have been self-evident.

Just which boomers do you hate? All of 'em? Or just the ones who'd love nothing more than to wipe the planet of anything Islamofascist, communistic, fascist, fill in the blank, you know the bad guys. Or maybe the ones who put up with pouty welfare slackers, the corporate billion dollar welfare assholes, and the hiphop criminal ho beating bullshit. Or is it the boomers who turned into lawyers, then politicians, then appeasers. Look, the same thing happened to my generation. And it will happen to yours. Those buddies of yours that are becoming lawyers and politicians, a certain segment of them will sell you out just like they do in every damn generation. You'll see....and just like the boomers who thought it'd be different this time, you can't do a goddamned thing about it. You can't get into the politicians' covey unless you become one. And that's where the leadership comes from. But I'll damn sure root you guys on if you got the nads to finally kick the bastards out of your generation. Call me in twenty years...just about the time the new young 'uns are thoroughly disgusted with your generation.

I have Iranian-American friends who travel back to Iran with regularity to visit family.

This will probably make them think twice about future trips.

It's at the same time a sickening yet bold/brilliant (meant strictly in the objective sense) move by the Mullahs - they know no quick action can be taken, they know it's not enough of a provocation to start a war, and they know then can "sell" it to the Euros as a "response" to our taking the 5 Iranian "diplomats" in Iraq into custody - and they likely have nothing to worry about.

I hate the Iranian government. Evil psychopaths.

At a minimum, the U.N. should expel the Iranian delegation from New York (and Geneva, if they're on some body there) until Esfandiari is released - maybe kick them out altogether.

Josh, the Islamists don't represent even a 10th of the threat to the US that the Soviet Union did. And the Soviet Government was certainly never "supremely rational." We're not doing ourselves any favors by pretending that "Islamo-fascism" is a world wide menace. It really isn't. People are always looking for drama and importance in their lives and I suppose this often leads them to exaggerate the threats and menaces they confront. Iran is a third-rate power - it exports nothing of consequence to the world other than what it can pull out of the ground using foreign technology, produces no scientists capable of original research, has an under-equipped badly trained military with aging equipment, and is riven by internal dissent and ethnic tensions. The only reason we care about them is oil, otherwise we could let them rot. Yes, they fund some nasty terrorist organizations, but again without oil money they couldn't even afford to do that, they have none of the deep structural capabilities the USSR had. I'm not saying Islamic terrorism isn't a threat, just that a lot of you people really need some perspective. Do you how many naturalized US citizens China has arrested over the past 5 years? Heard of David Ji? David Wei Dong? Xei Chunren? For every evil thing Iran has done, I could probably name 5 that the Chinese government has done. Do Iranian government agents force women to have abortions and then boil their 7-month old fetuses in front of them? Does Iran have a large network of forced labor camps? Does Iran have a large network of espionage agents dedicated to stealing US military and industrial technology? The difference is the US actually needs China so we can't afford to go around posturing and making idle threats - it's easy to talk big about Iran since they actually have no power to hurt the US in any significant way. Iran can talk big about "rubbing dirt" in our noses all they want, we know, and more importantly most Iranians know, that Iran is a failing state. We don't need to ramp up the tension and waste our time and resources on Iran, the best thing to do is treat them as the minor annoyance they are and not give them the satisfaction of being treated as an equal.

Josh, the Islamists don't represent even a 10th of the threat to the US that the Soviet Union did.

Can you back this up somehow? What was it that made the Soviet Union more of a threat? Nuclear weapons? They'll have them in a few years unless we do something.

We're not doing ourselves any favors by pretending that "Islamo-fascism" is a world wide menace. It really isn't.

What constitutes a world wide menace in your opinion? The Vogon fleet firing up the lasers?

I'm not saying Islamic terrorism isn't a threat, just that a lot of you people really need some perspective.

I would suggest that it isn't just a few terrorist attacks that worry people, but the fact that several other states are on the verge of joining in the Islamic revolution, and a number of European countries are allowing a fifth column to develop quietly, but do nothing to stop them from the fear of being politically incorrect.

China is a nasty regime, but lately they seem to be more concerned with conquering the business world rather than actually forcing us, by the sword mind you, to live by their way of life.

The Iranian Revolution of 1979 is a new phenomenon in history: it is the first successful weld of salvific theology with fascist ideology: "theofascism." As such, it is another example of political homicidal/suicide, the first two examples being 20C Marxism and Nazism.

The Khomeini ideology of the 'learned jurisprudent' is a puritan's doctrine (Hitler), fueled by a fierce religious fanaticism that will not stop either its expansion (the honored Islamic doctrine of da'wa) or its aggressive seeking of constant confrontation until the ideologues meet with their deep psychic desire: their own suicidal death, after killing the 'other' first.

There will never be 'accommodation' or 'containment' or 'negotiations in good faith' with the theofascist True Believer; as you are negotiating to reach some form of peace-building consensus, the fascist is--by his nature--secretly planning your murder.

Theofascism is humanity's newest 'dance with death.' At a minimum, Tel Aviv and Tehran are at risk of incineration; between those cities lay Amman and Baghdad. The entire world--and especially Europe--have a terrible record of accommodating fascism until it is too late.

The latest abduction by the Iranian theofascists is merely one in a long string of 'detentions' over the past several years, although now the detentions are mostly intellectuals; many more abductions are to come, slowly and steadily, like dripping water, until there is a flood.

Vanya,

Okay, so Iran looks like little more than a nuisance at worst. I almost believe that myself.

But.

How threatening did Afghanistan look in 2000? Who would have thought the worst attack on America ever would come from that country?

I don't think Iran is going to nuke anybody if they get nukes. They (probably) want nukes as a regime-insurance policy so they can continue using proxy militias to bully the region with impunity.

That would be bad for the region and bad for us, and not just because of the oil. Deranged politics in the Middle East means more dead people in the Middle East and more dead people in the West (and elsewhere), as well.

9/11 was an example of Islamist political science. I'll worry about China when they start exporting that sort of thing to New York. I very much doubt it will ever happen.

I'd say we're about even.
-Alphie

Not even close.

They're like toddlers, seeing how much they can get away with. For decades, we've been letting them get away with everything.
-Mary

Yep. It's long past time to remedy that.

When the that generation gets into power then you can expect miracles.
-Josh Scholar

That's what the Boomers thought, and they've made quite a mess of things. I am optimistic that the US will eventually come to it's senses with regards to indulging thugs who despise us, but will it all turn out for the best? I dunno... but I do know that it will be better to be in the US than in the country run by the thugs.

When a nation gets in a pissing match with a superpower over something the superpower considers important, the smart money bets on the superpower.

Nuclear proliferation and energy security are very high on the list of things the US considers important. I don't think the Iranian government really understands that.

Hi -

As always, Michael, a rather nice rant.

Denial isn't a river in Egypt: it is the pampered elite reaction to events and people who don't fit into their ivory-tower preconceptions of how the world works.

I remember a discussion way back when on the Soviet threat I had with a fellow student in Germany (he was German): we talked about the difference between capabilities and intents, and the importance of understanding capabilities. His reaction at one point was whether he could take the Soviet threat seriously: he realized that if he did, it meant that his world construct no longer worked (he was basically a socialist) and that his world view would collapse.

He became a vehement denier of any Soviet threat whatsoever. The vast militaries deployed in eastern Europe - this was 1982 - were there only because NATO was so aggressive and threatening.

Right. In reality he didn't have the personal courage to recognize that he was wrong, that his world view didn't match with reality.

Is there any difference with so many of the "powers that be" today with Iran? Dealing with Iran means hard choices and hard politics, as their government is truly dedicated to the propagation of their theology and the subsumed politics, regardless of the cost and regardless of the real interests of the Iranian people.

Politics is also not a zero-sum game of "you did that, we did this, we're equal". That way lies madness and idiocy, the core beliefs of the appeasers and those who actively deny or belittle the threat of Iran.

This is nothing new: after the takeover of the American embassy, it was business as usual for almost all countries dealing with Iran, instead of the immediate withdrawal of all and any diplomatic personnel that should have happened in a more rational world. The failure of the UN to resolve the situation, the flaunting of international protocols dealing with diplomatic personnel and the failure of the world community to isolate and deny Iran the fruits of its actions all add to the conviction of the Iranians that they are, indeed, following God's will (they did what they wanted, and nothing happened to them!).

This kind of denial just lets the problem fester and makes the problem grow worse. In perfect 20/20 hindsight, the US should have demanded the return of their personnel within 24 hours and restitution, followed by the gradual, deliberate dismantling of Iranian oil industry infrastructure by international sanctions (no trade with Iran whatsoever) and by military action.

Carter was too much of an appeaser and coward to do anything until it was far too late and far too difficult.

The mullahs understand only two things: faith and force. You can only defeat a faith-based political system by its complete collapse and destruction: that is how Germany and Japan were defeated.

A pox on France for having harbored Khomeini for all of those years and tacitly allowing his takeover of Iran from exile. Lovely geopolitics there, done more damage than imagineable at the time.

Who would have thought the worst attack on America ever would come from that country?

But it didn't - not one of the 9/11 terrorists was an Afghani, and they mounted the attack from within the US. Nor did they get any financial resources, as far as I know, from the Taliban - Bin Laden is independently wealthy. Afghanistan provided a convenient base, but the same team could have operated in North Eastern Pakistan equally easily. But your basic point is right - instability in the Middle East in the long term is dangerous for the US, I agree. I think Noah's post is basically right, my disagreement is more with some of your commenters who treat Iran as if it were the second coming of the USSR or Nazi Germany which is simply ludicrous and paranoid. Even ignoring the incredible industrial power that both the USSR and Nazi Germany had, and Iran does not, both european fascism and Communism were attractive ideologies to large segments of the West, constituting real "5th columns." Islamism has almost no real traction even with the most disaffected leftists in the US. If we really wanted to contain and control the Islamist threat, it really wouldn't be that difficult.

No pox on the people who jammed the Shah and his secret police down the throats of the Iranian people, Opie?

Two words to the people trying to paint Iran as the Evilest Empire ever - try harder.

Vanya,
You don't think they have an attractive ideology? Tell that to the more than 1 billion Muslims in the world today. I'm not saying they are all extremist fundamentalists, but neither were the Christians of Europe that embraced Nazism and Communism.

"number of European countries are allowing a fifth column to develop quietly"

So are the US and Canada.

>>>But it didn't

This is an example of why I never get past the first sentence. I see her monicker and I just move on.

Trackbacked by The Thunder Run - Web Reconnaissance for 05/17/2007
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention.

Jonorose,

That's the point - Islamism so far is only attractive to people who grow up Muslim. Contrast that with Communism which was popular everywhere from Berkeley, to Santiago, to Cairo to Pyongyang. Look at all the Muslims, Japanese, South Americans who even now buy Mein Kampf. Islamism doesn't have a mass appeal beyond its culture - if you isolate that culture our problem would be over tomorrow. And if some of you are right that Muslim immigrants in Europe constitute a 5th column, then explain to me how invading Iraq and creating even more Muslim refugees flooding into Europe helps us control that 5th column. The more we interact with the Middle East the worse we are making things for ourselves.

Islamism so far is only attractive to people who grow up Muslim.

Heard of David Hicks? Richard Reid? Germaine Lindsay? Don Stewart-Whyte? Oliver Savant? Brian Young? Cat Stevens?

You'd think you'd at least take 0.25 seconds to google something before spouting such crap.

Oh, yeah, I forgot - we should ignore hard facts and only listen to emotional rhetoric.

If we really wanted to contain and control the Islamist threat, it really wouldn't be that difficult.

If we really wanted to contain and control the Islamist threat, what would you suggest we do?

The boomer generation grew up with an ever less threatening, supremely rational and not entirely ill intentioned Soviet Union as the big enemy.

Absolutely freaking hilarious.

The Soviet Union directly controlled half of Europe through police states and had a conventional army large enough to overrun the other half. It had a military-industrial complex strong enough to make it the second strongest industrial power in the world and to give it technological near-parity with the U.S. for decades. It was founded on an ideology interrelated, at least in theory, with social justice concerns that had immediate resonance to the daily lives of billions, if not trillions, of third-world individuals. It's peak ruler killed thirty million of its own citizens, and it was on one side of a civil war in about fifty different countries. It had an armada of nuclear weapons and a delivery system able to vaporize all life on the planet.

And don't even get me started on "supremely rational". This is post-hoc sanitation by leaps and bounds.

To hold up Iran to the Soviet Union in any of these measures is more than a stupid joke. There's actually a reverse psychology at work here - the Soviet Union was such a genuine challenge that the difficulty of succeeding forced a certain level of rationality out of most of the people confronting it. Whereas, Iran is such a relatively lame and harmless foe by comparison, that there are no real incentives not to allow oneself to be overtaken by your grandiose delusions of the Coming Apocalypse. No matter how ridiculous you are, America will win.

Mike is right, a little, in his counterpoint that the risk to individual American citizens on American soil, in scenarios other than full-scale strategic collapse in the Big Game and as a threat from radical Islamism in general, has risen from very close to zero to very slightly more than zero, but no one thinks that Iran is sponsoring terrorist attacks in the U.S. To sponsor terrorist attacks in the U.S. is a fatal idea, and everyone knows it. The struggle at hand is Iran's struggle to survive, not ours.

Iran is now holding three American citizens. How many Iranian citizens is America holding?

I think it's rather inaccurate to portray Iran as laughing in triumph. They're surrounded by the U.S. military on all sides. Most of the region is fighting to keep their ethnic kin on the bottom of the boot. Their semi-democratic system is unhappy with its leaders. To gloss it, they're under quite a lot of pressure. They think America is out to destroy their system, and they're not wrong.
None of that, of course, makes their hostage taking morally legitimate: just an ugly scene in an ugly business.

"lives of billions, if not trillions"

Ants?

Josh: The boomer generation grew up with an ever less threatening, supremely rational and not entirely ill intentioned Soviet Union as the big enemy.

Glasnost: Absolutely freaking hilarious.

What I think Josh meant (and he can correct me if I'm wrong) is that communism is a potentially less deadly ideology than Islamsim.

Not that Stalin killed fewer people than Osama bin Laden. Obviously Stalin killed many many more.

But look. I accidentally ended up in an armed communist camp in Northern Iraq. (I wrote about this if you will recall.) Nothing bad happened to me. The communists gave me interviews, lunch, and a tour.

If I would have ended up in an Al Qaeda camp in Iraq I probably would have been killed.

Your average communist were political fools, often well meaning political fools. Your average Al Qaeda member is more like a political Hannibal Lector.

Ask yourself this, Glasnost.

Who would you rather be a nuclear superpower that can rule one-third of the world, sponsor armed insurgencies that often succeed in another third of the world, and plausibly threaten the remaining third of the world with total annihilation? The Soviets? Or Al Qaeda? And why?

I would choose the Soviets, but that's me. This (I think) is what Josh was getting at.

I do not, however, think Al Qaeda will ever become anywhere nearly that strong.

al-qaida does not have to become strong. they only have to inspire nuts all over the world, as they did those in fort dix.

barbarians attack when their target is already in decline and weakening -- check out history.

islamism did not rise randomly, it did because the west not only is in free fall, but in fact has been building and developing its own enemies and betraying its allies. Practically all the west's enemies were creatures of the west, including saddam and obl.

A lot of it has to do with ignorance, incompetence and willful thinking. Just one minor example:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,273055,00.html

fp
http://fallofknowledgeandreason.blogspot.com/

oops, i meant wishful thinking.

Remember olmert's statement that "we're tired of winning, of fighting etc."? What do you think that tells hamas, hezbollah and iran, whether they are strong or weak?

The comparison of Iran and the Soviet Union is an interesting one, especially, in my opinion, when it comes to understanding an important similarity: the way that a belief in historic determinism has animated both ideologies, which after all are revolutionary.

Now, I don't mean to gratuitously plug the magazine I work for, but we took up the similarities between the Iranian and communist revolutions in the editorial of the current issue. It's worth a look.

Such comparisons are nothing new and to knowledgeable and intelligent observers the similarities are quite obvious. There have been quite a few writings on the subject. It is but one of the reasons the lunatic left is in bed with islamists. See, for example:

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/2125

But there is a critical difference: the left is not a death cult, which is the distinction that Michael was making, I think.

Here's another, not as strong though:

http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/05/leftwing_extremists_and_salafi.php

I read the article and thought it was a snoozer. Nothing new or insightful. And the author must be very out of touch to think that Israel could act as a role model for other western nations. Even our best friends downplay the relationship to appear like honest brokers in the region, not to mention the many who think of us as "that shitty little country", to quote the French ambassador to England.

The article's main point was the need for "clarity of purpose", but that just begs the question. One of the chief strategies of the anti-western forces is to defeat that clarity of purpose, which they do by a)depicting themselves as victims while acting as aggressors b) hiding their actions behind proxies and shadowy organizations c)dividing themselves into good guys (moderates) and bad guys (extremists), so that the west will hesitate for fear of hurting "the good guys".

All of these tricks, and others, defeat clarity of purpose. Combined with post-colonial guilt, hatred of war, worship of human rights, etc. from the West, it is highly effective. And now the apparent failure in Iraq. Whereas for the other side, the purpose is clear - drive out the westerners. So there is assymmetry as far as clarity of purpose as well.

Mark,

You are correct. Except that a lot of the effectiveness of those tricks is due to the fact that western societies suffer from ignorance and inability to reason due to a collapse of the educational system. Academia in the west is riddled with lunatic left and multiculturalism nonsense.

Had the west been inculcated with history, logic, the classics -- instead of just propaganda and training for jobs -- all these tricks would not have been so effective. And something like this would not have happened:

http://www.pajamasmedia.com/2007/05/the_silencing.php

NP: "The comparison of Iran and the Soviet Union is an interesting one,"

I would also add that the Islamic Republic seems to be in an advanced state of Brejhnevication. Its economy is stagnated, and its driving ideology is largely a farce for many if not most Iranians. It can still inspire fools abroad, but at home it has feet of clay. The fact that the Mullahs fear some sort of Velvet revolution (something I'm sure neither Kohmeini nor Saddam would ever consider as a threat) shows how brittle the regime is.

This uncertainty about domestic support is probably the greatest constraint on foreign adventures on the part of the regime. Getting attacked, on the other hand, would probably be a godsend to them, as far as solidifying their support is concerned.

All utopian totalitarian logic-defying states reach that state sooner or later. But belief in allah may make the collapse slower and longer than belief in the proletariat.

I've been away from this thread all this time and just took a quick look back before running off to work.

Some people misunderstood the time frame I was referring to. I said "ever less threatening," by which I meant that the USSR started out extremely threatening, but Andropov? Gorbachev? How threatening were they? How rational were they?

I grew up with adults around me overreacting to a Soviet threat that had largely evaporated already because containment was already working and working well.

And ultimately, the thought processes of the Soviets were extremely rational.

Rationality wasn't a weakness, but it did mean that our main fear from the nukes was accidental war not deliberate genocide or mass suicide.

Remember the refrain:
"if the Russians love their children too"

Go study the Palestinians, the Iranians (during their war with the Iraq) then get back to me on that.

"if the Muslims love their children too"

We can't count on rationality This time, we can't count on raionality at all.

Josh, the Islamists don't represent even a 10th of the threat to the US that the Soviet Union did.

Technology is a multiplier of destructive ability, and destruction is inherently infinitely easier than protection.

As long as your enemies are too irrational to be deterred by your threats of reprisal, then ANYONE will be able to kill millions soon enough.

Factor in the will to commit genocide with the will to die, and there is no such thing as a small threat eventually.

In this way, like the others I was talking about, your thinking is entirely obsolete. A vial of ebola or some such is a much more potent weapon than an A-Bomb; and the right vial would be worse than MIRV. Think about that. EVENTUALLY, any mass will to genocide will be all it takes to create an enemy as threatening as the Soviet Union was. You have to think ahead.

The computer sitting in my lap right now has as much power as one that cost 10 or 100 million when I was a teenager. You have to understand your enemies much more deeply than many people have been willing to do to see the threat looming.

I prefer that we prevent massive threats than we respond to them after we lose cities, thank you.

Anyway this is very poorly written because I'm late and in a hurry, but I hope you understand my point

Mary,
You asked the real question.
If we really wanted to contain and control the Islamist threat, what would you suggest we do?

I have said it around the net but nobody has read it. If we want to really tackle the issue of Islamic fundamentalists we need to tackle it with the pen.

We need to create schools of a westernly looking Islam. Effectively we need to do an "Embrace and extend" on Islam. Why? The religion and the nations in that section of the world have built in a very good level of purity security. If you try to worship in any religion that is not Islam, you will be stopped.

How can this be done? The US needs to build an institute to do this and a school to teach the new variation. To build it we would need to staff it with top notch Muslim teachers, Christian teachers, Jewish teachers and psychologists. The variant might have to be Islamically coherent, easily picked up and secular facing version of Islam.

Right now, Saudi Arabia is colonizing the US by funding the building of Mosques and providing Saudi leaders. This institute would need to be providing leaders for mosques all over the west and into the Middle East.

If we want to deal with Iran quicker well there is a way for that. Connect up the guy who was designing cruise missiles in New Zealand with the Iranian dissidents. (if possible NOT the Kurdish groups)

Mark,

This isn't a one-sided battle.

Anti-Islamism is a movement itself.

While there may be a rational, reasonable "clarity of purpose" behind it, the anti-Islamists have made common cause with the very worst elements of western society.

Nationalists, racists, radical Christians, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" war lovers, etc., all march behind the anti-Islamist banner these days.

And I (and, I think, a majority of Americans) now see the anti-Islamist movement as a much bigger threat to western society than radical Islam.

Game over.

Dump the freaks (you know who) and start all over again, or fade away.

crazyman,

the west is an utter failure in teaching its own youth the fundamentals of knowledge and reason, and you mean to tell me that they will be able to fight indoctrinated fanatic islamists via education? you can't be serious.

haven't you seen the link i posted about the US-funded arabic TV network that broadcast hezbollah and hamas propaganda without realizing it because nobody spoke arabic there?

after 9/11 a tv channel assembled together former CIA ME desk chiefs to comment and none of them spoke arabic or studied islam.

Do you recall who bush appointed to promote the US brand in the ME?

The reason western foreign/ME policy in the ME is the utter failure it is is precisely because the west knows zilch about the enemy. and you expect it to win by education? u gotta come down to earth.

fp
http://fallofknowledgeandreason.blogspot.com/

Alphie,

perhaps that is so because the left is in bed with the islamists and full of hatred of the west as they are, leaving the anti-islamist fight to the right.

If you want to see lunacy go visit daily kos and their ilk, they're rabid. or read dershowitz's articles about Norman Finkelstein et. al.

Some more evidence:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0517/p13s01-legn.html

Noah Pollak, history didn't start at the point when it is convenient for your argument. The 1979 revolution was not the beginning of the world, nor was it the beginning of the United States' often-sordid relationship with Iran. Besides the obvious, what other tunes do you want the Iranians to dance to, and if you don't, consider what tunes others may want played.

I welcome the attempt to refine your argument, Josh, and I heard some of the other people here.

The comparison of Iran and the Soviet Union is an interesting one, especially, in my opinion, when it comes to understanding an important similarity: the way that a belief in historic determinism has animated both ideologies, which after all are revolutionary.

I think certain kinds of comparisons between Iran and the Soviet Union are potentially warranted, but it's hard to even get into them because of how easily they are distorted to make arguments that are the opposite of the conclusions I'm arguing for. An overall understanding of the strategic situation now vs. then is best arrived at by focusing on the differences.

If you compare Iran to the USSR, they're long past the Stalin times and well into the Brehznev times.

Josh, you've now pared down to your fundamental premise, one which Mike echoes, a little.

I grew up with adults around me overreacting to a Soviet threat that had largely evaporated already because containment was already working and working well.

In contrast:

And ultimately, the thought processes of the Soviets were extremely rational.

Rationality wasn't a weakness, but it did mean that our main fear from the nukes was accidental war not deliberate genocide or mass suicide.We can't count on rationality This time, we can't count on rationality at all.

The problem here is the conflation between radical Islam, in general, and small groups of jihadists, vs. Iran as a nation-state.

"Rational vs. irrational" is, generally speaking, both a simplification and a fallacy. As an example, the nation of Imperial Japan was a rational nation that made rational policy - for example, it invaded the weak, like the Dutch, and appeased strong threats, like Russia during its struggle with America. For another example, its battle plan in Leyte Gulf in 1944 rationally accepted the U.S.'s massive advantage in carrier air power and sought to distract it, rather than fight it head on.

Nevertheless, this rational organization trained thousands of young pilots to deliberately kill themselves in attempts to blow up U.S. Carriers. If you base a claim of irrationality on a willingness to die, then you have to include the Japanese. You also have to include militant communists everywhere who pursued collectivization of agriculture in the face of severe famine. You also have to include Western soldiers who commit self-sacrificial acts and receive Medals of Honor.

In short, first of all, lots of communists were willing to kill and die, just like the Islamists, rational vs. irrational is a red herring. The question is only deterable vs. indeterable. Small terrorist groups are often rational, but not deterable by the threat or even promise of death - this is in a decentralized way comparable to elite Western military units.

On the other hand, Iran, like all nation-states, and perhaps all bureaucracies, is both rational and deterrable. If you study the behavior of the Iranian government in any depth for any length of time, it's absolutely littered with rational responses to threats - and not suicidally, monochromatically aggressive responses, either. Some, they buy off, others, they compromise with, others, they ignore, others, they try to kill.

Mike does the same thing in his argument - Noah's article is about Iran, but he ends up making an example based on Al-Quieda.

I support the ultimate goal of eradicating Al-Queida precisely because Al-Quieda is undeterable, and I smack down exaggerated depictions of Iran as laughing at the West because they are deterrable.

(PS: just because Al-Zawahiri in Pakistan is undeterrable, and the Al-Quieda faction in any multi-faction war is probably the most fanatical and best to kill, this does not mean that all military non-state actors are undeterable, nor that the same approach to all of them is sensible from a cost-benefit perspective.)

fp,

Let's take it as a given that the American Left and the American Right hate each other far more than they hate any foreigners, and the win on any issue goes to whichever side attracts the most independents.

The anti-Islamist movement allied itself with the wrong side at the start.

They shoudda sold anti-Islamism as a leftist human rights campaign first, then brought onboard the crazies later for the big push.

Effectively we need to do an "Embrace and extend" on Islam.

The problem with that is that there is no opening in Islam to create moderation with. You'd have to invent a new history of Mohammad, invent new scriptures, whole cloth. As things stand, there's no material to work with.

I think the answer is to attack the premise of Islam

Islam promises salvation through conquest. The only sure way into heaven is to die in battle or to be close to someone who did die in battle.

When the world is too damn well armed to make war on anywhere when Muslims have learned the lesson of WWII that its nothing more than group suicide to make war on a well armed enemy in the modern age, Islam itself will expire, having nothing left to offer.

alphie: The anti-Islamist movement allied itself with the wrong side at the start

That's because too many leftists sneer at Arab liberals as miniscule and irrelevant (which is true in places like Egypt) or, worse, vaguely sinister and duplicitous Achmed Chalabi types or, even worse, CIA tools and collaborators.

Trust me, Alphie, anti-Islamist Middle Easterners could not give two shits about American domestic politics. They will take whatever help they can get and they could not possibly care if that help comes from one political "side" or the other.

What they want is help from both sides, but right now only one side is interested.

This is the reason I had to walk away from the left. I was interested in siding with Arab and Muslim liberals, but most of my fellow lefties were not.

Whenever I write nice things about liberals in Lebanon or Iraq or wherever else, Western liberals give me a bunch of crap and think I'm being "right-wing." Don't assume for a minute that the Middle East's liberals don't know what you guys on the left in the West think of them. They know. They know.

It never ceases to amaze me how when I take the side of the liberal-democratic "March 14" movement in Lebanon, supposedly liberal Democrats in the United States give me shit for not siding with the Syrian-Iranian-Hezbollah axis, or at least for not being "fair" to that axis.

Feh.

glasnost,

iran MAY be deterrable, but the problem is there are NO deterrers and I don't think there'll be any any time soon, at least in a time that counts.
would you be deterred by how the west, particularly UK, handle themselves? if their marines acted the way they did, would the general population? would the dhimmicrats and the ignorant US population deter them?

alphie,

i'm not sure what you're arguing here, but the point is that the left has associated itself with a side that is anathema to the left's principles. therefore, it is no longer real left, but a mockery thereof. they actually hate the domestic nonleft more than they hate islamists. that's the whole point.

people like me who consider themselves left of center were left to choose between their nonsense and the right, who understand reality much more than the now so-called left. the latter demonize sites like lgf and jihad watch as full of hatred and lies, and embrace the death cults, without looking in the mirror to see that it is themselves who are the demons.

the problem with the so-called left is that they are sore losers of the socioeconomic fight and try to take revenge on that by allying themselves with nutters. iow, they're nuts themselves.

Well, I don't really consider myself a "leftist" Michael.

It may have been expedient for the anti-Islamists to jump in bed with the right after 9/11, but now that the GWOT has devolved into a Klan rally sponsered by the oil and defense industries...the party's over.

Bad move.

scholar,

but they may expire AFTER they bring the west down first, in main because the west lets them.

the fact of the matter is that it is the west -- its technology, innovation,products -- that has built and maintained the islamic world, without which the latter would have indeed, expired. the west saved it from that and pumped them up.

what do you think will happen if and when the advanced arsenal that the west has pumped into pakistan or saudia fall into islamist hands? I would guess that they will expire together with a lot of us.

alphie: Klan rally sponsered by the oil and defense industries

There is no point in talking to you about this at all.

Maybe my comment was influenced by my recent readings about John C. Breckinridge, 14th Vice President of the U.S., a brilliant and decent guy who got sucked into the pro-slavery movement and was ruined by it. Had things turned out differently, he might have been more famous than Lincoln.

He did find some redemption later in life by speaking out against the Klan when he returned to Kentucky after the post-Civil War amnesty.

A lesson to be learned, maybe.

I think the anti-Islamist movement is dead here in America unless it separates itself from the racists, radical Christians and war lovers and profiteers it has partnered with.

Yelling about "multi-culturalism" and "leftists" is just making things worse.

Mike,

I concur regarding alphie.

1st, nobody's yelling here. 2nd, leftism and multiculturalism are accurate descriptions of the pro-islamist so-called left. 3rd, it is certainly more accurate than their yelling 'islamophobia' whenever one provides sensible descriptions/criticism of the islamist creed and actual behavior.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that the liberals in the muslim world are indeed two weak and too few to make a difference (given the mass islamic indoctrination that susbtitutes for education in the muslim world, one wonders how even those few exist). The so-called left always claimed they are the principled ones. So embracing the islamists and ignoring the liberals, is that a principle that drives them?

Leftists are not very good at consistency.

I don't get this. Please tell me you are all serious about being baffled how to get rid of this so-called 'Islamic threat'. It's so easy that you've completely missed it. Just leave the people alone. SIMPLE. Maybe too simple? not at all. Here's my arguement;

Osama Bin Laden had originally become a militant after afghanistan was invaded by the Soviet Union. He felt the need to protect muslims from foreign invasion (just in case you think i'm trying to defend any of Osama's ideologies, i'm not, i'm a Shia and strictly protest against any ideology of any likes to that of Osama or any other group which believes in killing innocent people to achieve any type of goal - I personally believe the best resistance, defence mechanism and progressive policy is education).

So we have an Osama fighting off the Russians, rightfully at the time (even the American people + leaders hailed the 'mujahideen' of Afghanistan - i'm almost certain this was a cold war tactic rather than genuine support). Then the American decided to built an army base on the Holiest Islamic location in the world. Big mistake. Osama protested at first - and i must admit he did it peacefuly - but then he saw that the democracy they expected from him didn't work and therefore adopted his brutal ways to gain recognition, and it actually worked.

Then he became really fanatical to a point that hardly anyone supports him, even if they agree with his main reasons for 'resisting' (more like terrorising) the west/americans. I don't think there's any normal everyday man/woman who does believe in his reasons anymore (since Zawahiri - the terribly ugly/uncharismatic/illiterate Osama right-hand man claimed he will stop the fight when america becomes a muslim country - lol i mean come on - even the almighty Soviet Union couldn't get what it wanted from America, how can a bunch of sandle-wearing inexperienced fighters who die in their hundred to kill one NATO soldier be able to pull it off - bad luck i bet hahaha).

Anyway, back to the point. So Osama started militancy when SU invaded Aghanistan, then terror war when America placed barracks in Saudi.

Then there are the two so called 'terror intifadas' of the Palistinians. On some Palistinian issues, I can hardly make my mind up of who is right or wrong. To be even more genuinly honest, i hardly know how the first intifada happened, but I know how the second happened, and i'm guessing how the thrid will take place. The second intifada, which cost the lives of 1000 Israelis and 3000 palistinians, was the result of just one ignorant action by Ariel Sharon to step on the head of every Islamic group and say 'look, we're in control here, not you, say byebye to your dominance, it's our turn now, your worst enemies, the jews'. Then the intifada kicked out. I know that what this man did was stupid, wrong, crazy and profoundly dumb, and i'm sure alot agree with that, but i also think what he did was intentional.

It wasn't like, woops i think i took a wrong turn. Oh look am on that holy mosque of those muslim peepz. No. He went there knowing he will spark a reaction. During the intifada 2, alot of terrible things happened, on both sides. Thousands of Civilians on both sides paid the brunt for the ignorant action of a single person, which then set a chain reaction to the rest of the events. I believe, if you are going to call the Palistinians the terrorist side in the intifada 2, you must call the Israeli side with the same label for many reasons, primarily for adopting the same tactics as the Palistinian clans and for sparking it off in the first place. The former meaning the settlers who were regularly attacking and killing palistinian workers and the IDF for targetting the Palistinian civilian infrastructure and people to 'apply firm pressure' in response to the 'mass civilian illegal activity'.

Then we get to Iran. Now you are thinking - great a propaganda lesson from a shia about the likewise shia Iran. Not at all. I believe in the flexibility of Islam. Yes we have laws which makes non-muslims living in a muslim country pay a special tax, but likewise, in western countries people without a 'green card' or citizenship do not enjoy the same rights as those that do, no argument their. I believe in the Islam which exempted non muslims from all Islamic tax (such as the one where you have to pay a fifth of all earnings for a charitable cause - thats a hell of alot of tax) and being exempt from military service with the sole responsibility being placed on the muslims to protect the non-muslims (some may interpret this differently, but it's main interpretation is to put others before yourself). Anyway, my point is for any islamic country to place the sharia as conventional law with other aspects of it as common law i.e. all aspects of the sharia which are not widely accepted being enforced using incentives and through conventional means rather than obligation through punishment and other aspects of the sharia law which are accepted by all society being placed as common law such as stealing, perverting the course of justice, killing an innocent etc and at all times being flexible, lenient and evolving to meet the societys needs.

Iran isn't like that at all. It almost forces all people within its borders to oblige by every aspect of the islamic code, whether they like it or not and instead of encouraging people by using incentives, they force them by almost terrorising them of the harsh consequences. That i believe is wrong. But the very least is that Iran is better off than all other islamic countries concerning they do have constitutional change, and to a certain extent democracy. Thats another issue for another day.

My point concerning Iran is that they have so far never hurt anyone. There was a post in this thread i read just now telling of what the west, namely america, has done to Iran i.e. all the sanctions, dropping its airliner, placing a brutal monarch (which by the way encouraged to seek nuclear power). Irans permission was actually seeked by the Americans to go into Afghanistan and Iraq, and Iran, believe it or not, found side-by-side with the NATO forces in Afghanistan to combat the Al-qaida and Taliban terrorists. Before you deny it research it and you will know im not bullshitting you.

Then we get to Hezbollah. This is probably the easiest one. Hezbollah's presence was made after Israel repeatedly attacked - and at some stages even invaded - Lebanon and in 1982 occupying 3/4 of the country as well as trying to place its own proxy government, failing to do so by popular protest, creating a buffer/proxy lebanese army - the SLA, arming and financing them to terrorise the local inhabitance into submission to the occupation without resistance, discourage resistance and punish it if it were carried out - therefore the IDF was successful in retaining control of a whole section of a country without being directly responsible for the submissiveness of the people or even the control (the IDF field of control wasn't very large - it hardly penetrated more than 8miles of lebanese land, whereas the SLA controlled at least 5 times the ammount of land as the IDF). Therefore Hezbollah was a response. You may disagree with what kind of response it was - a popular response, a military response, a terrorist response or even a proxy response - the only thing im concerned out of how hezbollah was created, is the word response.

I personally believe it started off as a proxy-militant response, but then forming into a popularly supported one which made it evolve over time to become independent. But just like every country, faction or party, Hezbollah is not totally sovereign because it does have allies and interests, just like any other nation or party. I don't think being a proxy at the begining as something wrong - the lebanese were too into eachother (as in thirsty for each others blood - civil war) that it is shameful a foreign country had to come in and put lebanon's interests above those of internal strife to combat the occupier through foreign intervention via lebanese combatants. This is not a terror tactic. Its a popular tactic, a conventional tactic, everyone everywhere does it. Even individuals (you get into a fight with someone, hes too strong for you and you call your bigger brother to protect you - just an example - you're using your brother to protect you i.e. hes your proxy against your enemy and notice the word use). Yes Hezbollah may have been used at the begining by a foreign country - or countries to that matter - but hezbollah, as i have said so many times before, have been able to be clever enough to use their host nations/allies as well in bostering there power, credibility, influence and making sure they fulfil their aims and achieving the desired outcomes. Finaly, just like any other event in this world, the matter of the fact is that no-one has pure intentions. Nations tend to think even dirtier than individuals. They strictly do tit for tat. Israel invades lebanon, they must pay. They create a proxy, why don't we create a proxy i.e. israel create SLA, next morning you hear a hezbollah coming out of nowhere with iranina flags before lebanese ones.

SO. The best way to stop all this mess is to leave the Arabs alone and stop the influence over them, then no angry arabs/muslims would be created anywhere therefore even the most appealing maniac wouldn't be able to recruit the 'fascit' jihadis because since the problems have been solved, theyre too busy making a family and trying very hard to prosper like any good citizen does.

THE END please comment back on anything you agree/disagree. I always like learning from others and trying to understand their p.o.v/opinions.

you gotta love hearing yourself talk, huh?

Please tell me you are all serious about being baffled how to get rid of this so-called 'Islamic threat'. It's so easy that you've completely missed it... blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

You know only 1% of what you think you know, kid.

How annoying.

It's funny that you wrote this, Josh, because I was just thinking the exact same thing, even though nothing Noah wrote suggested it. Weird.

The disconnect was suggested by the entirely inappropriate conceptual framework used by the Washington Post, politicians and others in this story.

It's really no surprise that they haven't managed to absorb the fact that nothing in our previous experiences has prepared us to deal with Islamism - who has time to take out of their busy lives to learn a new culture and prove to oneself that it's the world's odd man out?

It's an odd fact noted in the thread above, that people's attitudes about Islamism are mostly determined by their preexisting beliefs. Many, (and at first most) who are right are right by accident, and for the wrong reasons - and unfortunately everyone else is wrong.

But it is frightening to realize how naive we can be.

PHENOMENAL COMMENTS SECTION!! WOW. Josh, you rock! (as some do others here) My only exception-taking is the broad, tar-slathered anti-boomer brush you wielded. Speaking as a demographic, I think you might be startled at how many of us (at least in the over-fifty crop) DO understand the difference, and do see that the stall-and-appease process is a ghastly, potentially suicidal mistake. And, no doubt true to our Hippie roots, we tend to see BigCorp and Gov't,Inc as the driving force behind that blindness, just as it is in our dealings with China. And those forces predated us, and will probably postdate us.

The sad fact is, a large chunk of the younger generation you believe in WILL sell out. They always do.

In fact, of the 18-22 year-olds I see in my work, nearly all of them have a narcissistic sense of entitlement and a lack of any concept of personal sacrifice that does not bode well at all for your premise. I find myself hoping every time I am just seeing an exceptionally skewed bunch, but my friends who teach HS and college unhappily assure me it's quite prevalent, maybe the norm. These kids are deeper into escape than my generation was at its stonedest.

Also -- The Soviets may have sought death and total destruction for us, but they certainly did not seek it for themselves. That lent the situation a backstop somewhere, that if not 'rational,' at least gave us a small shared ground to work from -- neither side wanted to be obliterated. I truly don't think guys like OBL and Ahmadinejhad care.

Thank you, Pam.

Anyway I know nothing specific about gen "y" or "z" or whatever it's called, I just know that children incorporate information that their parents ignoring, and that adults, left to themselves, seem to stop forming new attitudes after a while.

For instance I believe that environmentalism waited until a generation had grown up exposed to tales of environmental threat. The boomers picked up environmentalism as kids and then their parents followed suit, the older generation following the lead of the younger one, not the other way around.

These kids are deeper into escape than my generation was at its stonedest.

Of course. They're facing a life of much harder work, complete insecurity in their careers, no time for family etc. etc. Ie, they're facing a life that sucks balls. What else can they be but escapist?

... once again things have changed and the older generation hasn't noticed that the frog has finally boiled and that the American dream has given way to the American corporate sweat-shop.

Americans may be cash-rich but we're largely so time-impoverished that by any rational measure we're miserably exploited.

So the key fear the "anti-Islamists", for wont of a better term, seem to have is that despite the complete absence of any industrial, scientific, cultural or technological advantage over the West, the Jihadists are a dire threat to us because they are irrational and don't value their own lives. I'm open to hearing some real evidence in support of that position. Note that Iran has behaved exceedingly rationally for the past 10 years - they always push the West to the edge, but they have never gone farther, and they seem to have a pretty good sense of where that edge is. If you read any Iranian dissident literature, and MT I'm sure you have, you will be struck by how corrupt the Mullahs actually are, just like the late period Communists in the Soviet Union. My impression is that 90% of them are only lip-service believers and their real interest is maintaining their power. Even if Ahmedinijad himself actually wants to go out in a blaze of martyred glory I'm sure none of his hangers-on do. Al Qaeda is the same way - they find desperate people and convince and intimidate those people into killing themselves. The number of people who truly want to martyr themselves isn't that great - at least this is the impression I have from reading Israeli literature on suicide bombers. These organizations like Hamas and Al Qaeda are evil, and apply pressure to find these martyrs, but they are also acting rationally. Haven't you ever noticed that the leadership of Al Qaeda seems very intent on staying alive? Certainly Islamist are incredibly callous about using other peoples lives, but that was also true of Communists. So evil - yes, irrational death cult? Only if you actually believe the Islamists own propaganda.

I was interested in siding with Arab and Muslim liberals, but most of my fellow lefties were not.

Maybe it's your definition of liberal. Other than supporting the Iraq war I don't see many conservatives who care much about human rights in the Middle East, usually they are just looking to score political points against the US left. If you want to see a "leftie" who sides with Arab liberals look at someone like Mark Lynch over abuaardvark.typepad.com - he's deeply involved with Arab pro-democracy forces. I can't think of anyone on the Right who is as deeply engaged. My impression is that the real split is not concern for Democracy in places like Iraq or Egypt, the split is that you seem to regard any Arab who is anti-Israel as by definition not liberal, most leftists who are engaged with the Arab world tend to sympathize with the Arab position on Israel.

"they always push the West to the edge, but they have never gone farther,"

Why the F*** should we put up with always being pushed to the edge? At some point, they will judge, rightly or wrongly, that they can finally make their real move, as Hitler invaded Poland, and then we'll be off to the races. Better to stop them before, as we should have done with Hitler.(I realize that this was not your point, which was to refute the proposition that Iran acts irrationally).

"despite the complete absence of any industrial, scientific, cultural or technological advantage over the West,"

Why do you insist on this irrelevant point? Didn't you learn the obvious lesson of 9/11? Blitzkriegs are out, mass death suicide terrorism is in.

" Al Qaeda is the same way - they find desperate people and convince and intimidate those people into killing themselves."

Prove this statement. The 9/11 hijackers were educated and from wealthy families. Many of the jihadis who go from Saudi Arabia to Iraq are as well. As for Hamas, sure, the bombers are mules, but the ones who send them don't enjoy a much longer life span, including leaders like Rantizi and the Sheik Yassin. They are every bit as much suicide terrorists as the bombers.

The number of people who truly want to martyr themselves isn't that great -

Doesn't have to be. Suicide martyrs get a really good kill ratio (see 9/11).

"but that was also true of Communists"

Communists by and large did not use terrorism against civilians (other than in certain war zones). Big difference in my opinion, both morally, and in terms of the danger they pose to the societies they target. We were able to live under the threat of assured nuclear destruction for decades. Terrorism will bring a society to its knees a lot faster than that.

Vanya, I don't have time to prove anything right now, and it would be an awfully depressing night if I did (I have an arguement and a list of sources in mind, but I really don't want to drag either of them out - I'd rather be able to sleep tonight).

But I do want to clear up what I meant. I didn't mean that suicide soldiers are the main threat. I meant that a view so clouded by faith that one can destroy one's own society, destroy one's own children is the main problem. No one who's both weak and sane would pick the best armed country in the world as an enemy and one that firebombed cities, and nuked two cities... As Iran funds terrorist organizations and makes speeches about destroying the economy of the west and of genocide, and yet they're a barely armed third world country that couldn't survive a large earthquake or even manufacture their own petrol...

I think it's only our pity, as for the retarded and mentally ill that keeps us from taking them seriously and putting them down.

Anyway, just as the Palestinian schools, TV, radio and sermons trained their own children, en-mass, to want to be suicidal mass murderers (for a decade now!), the Iranians armed ten year olds with satchel bombs and had them throw themselves under Iraqi tanks. They still have museums devoted to this war crime. No, Muslims don't love their children too. Or yours.

And the other big problem I alluded to was what we can see so clearly in Palestine (but also the rest of the world if we look closely enough) - a public will to slaughter and genocide. I swear to God that this is the part I could prove, but would rather be able to sleep tonight.

I would add that their form of warfare has probably always included deniability. I don't think that funding terrorism through charities or governments doing it indirectly will save them from suffering the consequences of their wars. But they think it will.

On the other hand, Iran, like all nation-states, and perhaps all bureaucracies, is both rational and deterrable. If you study the behavior of the Iranian government in any depth for any length of time, it's absolutely littered with rational responses to threats - and not suicidally, monochromatically aggressive responses, either. Some, they buy off, others, they compromise with, others, they ignore, others, they try to kill.

Iran may be deterrable, but I see little evidence of it. Instead, I see a very consistent pattern of seeking to undermine governments friendly to the US, attacking the US via proxy, and general diplomatic antagonism.

The Soviet Union was contained until it collapsed- a process that took around half a century and required numerous proxy wars, in which millions died- because the alternative was a military confrontation with a MAD-capable nuclear power in which billions would die. Containment did not become policy because it was a good plan, it became policy because it was the least-bad plan.

While it is true that Iran is not a Soviet Union-scale threat to the US, it is also true that Iran is not a MAD-capable nuclear power... and that means the US has far more options than it did with the Soviet Union.

.....

Ultimately, what it comes down to is that I see no compelling reason to allow a government that has demonstrated a consistently antagonistic position to the US to become a nuclear power, and many many reasons to take any action necessary to prevent it. In rough order, those reasons are 1) If Iran has nuclear weapons, other governments in the region will also seek to acquire them to preserve their own freedom of action, 2) the instability the region is noted for makes a conflict between nuclear powers likely, 3) the consequences of a conflict between nuclear powers in the ME are likely to involve massive damage or outright destruction of part of the energy infrastructure that supports every industrialized economy on the planet.

..and I haven't even gotten to the shipping-container bomb scenario that keeps customs officials awake at night.

Do I need to go on?

If Iran was 'just another country', nobody would care that they were building a nuclear reactor to generate electricity. Unfortunately, we're not talking about 'just another country', we're talking about a government that has "Death to America" for a motto.

I am inclined to take their word for it, and see little reason to wait for them to act on it.

In any case, the more likely threat isn't a big war immediately, it's an ever worsening situation where terrorism slowly gets worse over the decades, eventually backed up by regimes that are very well armed...

It could lead to a world war EVENTUALLY, because there's no way in hell we're ever going to submit, and because radical Islam fully expects to be fighting massive wars when God rewards them with the end of days... They may even decide that God won't reward them until they prove their worthiness that way. And don't forget the bits about how they're going to please God and please all of God's creation by killing the Jews (all of the Jews) when the end of days comes.

Josh,

The Christian bible has the exact same endgame.

No Alphie, I may not be a Christian, but I know that the Christian Bible does not end with the Christians killing all of the Jews as even the trees and rocks call out "there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him!"

Nor any other snarky, poetic allusions to all of creation hating Jews, or to stoning them to death or hanging them from trees.

But thanks for playing!

Haha Josh,

I'm not a Christian either, but I'm pretty sure the Jews don't survive the end of days according to the Bible.

And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him...

Oops got a word wrong:

It should have read "nor."

It's a relief to get that out!

Why the F*** should we put up with always being pushed to the edge?

^^^^^^^^^^^^
What he said.

At some point, they will judge, rightly or wrongly, that they can finally make their real move, as Hitler invaded Poland, and then we'll be off to the races. Better to stop them before, as we should have done with Hitler.(I realize that this was not your point, which was to refute the proposition that Iran acts irrationally).

(quoted because it's worth reading twice)

Terrorism will bring a society to its knees a lot faster than that.

Not necessarily.

Terrorism committed by an identifiable sub-group of the overall population is very likely to result in what has been euphemistically referred to as 'ethnic cleansing'.

In such a scenario, one of the better outcomes would be internment (to protect people in that sub-group from lynch mobs looking for jihadis to kill) for the duration of the conflict.

The other likely outcomes are uglier.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_Race_Riot_of_1921

This really is a fascinating comments section. Except for YO YO who is a waste of bandwidth.

No one who's both weak and sane would pick the best armed country in the world as an enemy and one that firebombed cities, and nuked two cities... You wouldn't think so, but if you look more deeply, isn't that an expression of Iranian weakness? The only thing that keeps the mullahs in power is fear, and now, especially with Iraq neutralized, the mullahs have to convince their own people that the US and Israel are the enemy, and they have to keep beating that drum because they have nothing else to offer - the country is an economic disaster, riddled with corruption and cynicism. So you can make a case that the mullahs are quite sane - they have a choice between definite death at the hands of their own people, or possible death at the hands of a foreign invader and they've chosen the better option from the view of their own hides. I agree with you about the extreme callousness of the Islamists, I just don't see how that makes them any different from the Communists - who also sponsored multiple assassinations of "enemies" on foreign soil, including the West, killed millions of their own people on a far worse scale than even Hizbollah would conceive of, and showed little concern for the civilian populations of Afghanistan, Hungary, Czech Republic, Cambodia, etc. And let's not forget that "secular" North Korea has sponsored terrorist attempts that are exactly like what the Islamists do - including suicide bombers on passenger airplanes.

You wouldn't think so, but if you look more deeply, isn't that an expression of Iranian weakness?

Not exactly in the way you think but yes

... Are they hoping that publicly demonstrating their hatred for the west will make them more popular with Sunnis? Is the message really, "We're all Muslims here. See, we even hate the right people, just like you do!"

That's part of it. Shias (or Muslims who belong to a small sect) are considered to be traitors. This can be very troubling: the last thing one wants is to be put in the same group as ex-Muslims. So, to convey their loyalty, they attack America and Israel with a vicious passion. (The Iranian regime has made this practice into an art form.) ...

The only thing that keeps the mullahs in power is fear, and now, especially with Iraq neutralized, the mullahs have to convince their own people that the US and Israel are the enemy, and they have to keep beating that drum because they have nothing else to offer - the country is an economic disaster, riddled with corruption and cynicism. So you can make a case that the mullahs are quite sane - they have a choice between definite death at the hands of their own people, or possible death at the hands of a foreign invader and they've chosen the better option from the view of their own hides.

Many middle eastern countries have never had any more to offer. They have surprisingly low expectations in the middle east, as we're finding out in Iraq.

I agree with you about the extreme callousness of the Islamists, I just don't see how that makes them any different from the Communists - who also sponsored multiple assassinations of "enemies" on foreign soil, including the West, killed millions of their own people on a far worse scale than even Hizbollah would conceive of, and showed little concern for the civilian populations of Afghanistan, Hungary, Czech Republic, Cambodia, etc.

But the communists mellowed over time until they gave up the ghost voluntarily in the Soviet Union.

But Islam has had a millennia and half to mellow out, hasn't it? If only we wait a few more thousand years and they'll ready to be good neighbors right?

And let's not forget that "secular" North Korea has sponsored terrorist attempts that are exactly like what the Islamists do - including suicide bombers on passenger airplanes.

NK is the worst of the worst. I wish I could call such madness beyond categories like "secular" and "religious". But that's wrong; nauseating as it is, they really do worship their leader as a God. NK, honestly, must be called a theocracy.

What, in the end, is the difference between Kim Jong Ill and Mohammad?

"So you can make a case that the mullahs are quite sane - they have a choice between definite death at the hands of their own people, or possible death at the hands of a foreign invader"

Is this really the case? From what I've read, the pro-democracy movement in Iran has never represented a real threat to the regime, nor any other movement representing disaffected Iranians. I'm not even aware of any serious crackdowns by the mullahs, a la Tianman Square. I don't think internal dissent has risen to that level. I don't claim to be an expert, and would be happy to be shown wrong.

"The only thing that keeps the mullahs in power is fear"

Fear will keep you in power an awfully long time, especially in the middle east. No need to cite examples, I don't think.

By the way, the fear that keeps the mullahs in power would seem to me to be the fear of the secret police, torture and imprisonment, rather than the fear of foreign invasion, as Vanya claims. The idea that the Iranian government needs to "convince" its people of anything, (beyond providing routine propoganda and sermons in the mosque) seems naive.

It's tiring and expensive to torture and intimidate everyone. It's a simple recipe in most authoritarian countries to hold on to power - you intimdate, arrest or kill anyone who could be a potential leader of a subversive movement, but you keep the masses in line by a combination of subsidies (in Iran's case oil and I believe bread), and jingoistic appeals to patriotism, and maybe the random imprisonment just in case. That's the way it worked in the USSR as well, most average working people did not live in constant fear of the secret police, only the elites did. I hardly think I'm being naive, if anything perhaps too cynical.

Vanya, you said "Islamism so far is only attractive to people who grow up Muslim. "

Not true. Richard Reid, the wouldbe shoebomber, did not "grow up Muslim". Nor did at least one of the 7/7 suicide bombers in London. A number of the most virulent Islamists in Britain are converts.

It's tiring and expensive to torture and intimidate everyone.

What an astonishing line. I may have to steal it sometime.

That's the way it worked in the USSR as well, most average working people did not live in constant fear of the secret police, only the elites did. I hardly think I'm being naive, if anything perhaps too cynical.

I guess I'm missing your point here, but I think you are ignoring a great many examples to the contrary, where the common people did indeed live in fear of the State and for damn good reason -- Chile, NK, the Shah's Iran, Cambodia, China under the Red Guard...

The strategy of the Mullahs has not been to continually terrorize their own people into a massive smoldering rebellion, but after the first horrific decade or so, to allow a small degree of economic development and modernity, doing as you describe -- bread and circus for the scruffy masses. The post-Mao Chinese model rather than the USSR. President 'Stinky' however is screwing this up a bit (from some reports) and the Mullahs aren't ecstatic with his job performance. They are, after all, as corrupted by power as any other leadership in history. It really is a corrosive.

I will return to my own premise, in any event -- if Ahmadinejhad didn't exist, the Saudi's would have had to invent him -- he is perfect -perfect - for the advancement of the Whahhabi perspective in the West. How mind-blowing that our government has declared 'The Sunnis will prevail,' as it did on recent visits to Syria, and considers the Saudi form of Islamism less risky to the West. And even Israel seems momentarily seduced by this insane bullwash.

Having thought about Josh Scholar's opening gambit, it occurrs to me perhaps this piece is shaped in part by our cold war experiences with China and the USSR, and our enormous fear 'if they ever got together against us.'

I am still not convinced it's due to a generational rigidity, as much as it is to the other view someone expressed -- we simply have no idea how to deal with theofascism, we don't even have political concepts to let us recognize it.

I don't think the youngsters now do, either, and with the kind of education we aren't giving them, they may not have concepts to recognize anything having to do with social or political structure or history.

But let me para-quote someone with whom I was discussing that point -- after mentioning that his adolescent kids are relatively well-behaved, disciplined, etc., but that they and their peers are inconceivably materialistic -- 'My kid's friends are the most frightening people I have ever met. I have no question if they get annoyed enough by the Islamists, or anyone else who frustrates them, they would nuke them without blinking."

Pam,

>In fact, of the 18-22 year-olds I see in my work, nearly all of them have a narcissistic sense of entitlement and a lack of any concept of personal sacrifice that does not bode well at all for your premise. I find myself hoping every time I am just seeing an exceptionally skewed bunch, but my friends who teach HS and college unhappily assure me it's quite prevalent, maybe the norm. These kids are deeper into escape than my generation was at its stonedest.>

You may want to check the following, to get a better understanding of the reality you describe. Must reads.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1178708563824&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2007/05/14/final-thoughts-on-the-finkielkraut-debate/

FP
http://fallofknowledgeandreason.blogspot.com/

Scholar,

What makes you think we're not going to submit? In fact, if you watch closely, Europe is already in partial submission (the scandinavians and the dutch politicians already tell their people it is so, see the UK marines case; and don't be misled by Sarkozy's talk, parts of france are not accessible to the french). And judging by the dhimmicrats and the lunatic left, there are signs that the US may not fare better.

Pam,

Having been born and raised in Romania, one of the worst communist regimes, I can attest to all those in the west and the US who speak of those regimes without having a clue what they really were that not only did their populations live in abject fear, but that they were turned into animals ferreting for food to survive to such a degree that they did not have any time or inclination to even THINK about revolting.

Vanya -

I don't mean to argue you with you all the time. Nor am I any kind of expert on Iran. I just think that they're probably closer to other middle eastern dictatorships, like Iraq under Saddam Hussein (or the shah, for that matter), where people did need to live in constant fear of the secret police. Of course, if you don't want to live in fear, you simply don't engage in dissent, which is why I think things are pretty quiet on the domestic front in Iran. If your own life isn't unbearably miserable, you simply become apathetic.

What a great thread! My only meager observation is the mullah's in Iran look very shakey and weak these days. Their "big day" to rekindle the heady 1979 embassy takeover in seizing British sailors fizzled into an feeble, anemic street protests and an awkward hostage handover. (Gift bags???) Capital is fleeing the country and even the thickest of Ayatollahs are getting it. To be sure they are mischeif making in Iraq and Afghanistan but a bus strike or a bread riot looks like it could take down the whole tottering regime.

Pam,

We don't give kids (and even students) an education -- knowledge and reasoning skills -- anymore. We mainly train them for jobs by using what I call the cookbook approach: recipes that manimize to the max the burden of having to think for oneself. No wonder that when they face situations for which they do not have recipes, they resort to forcing the situation into one of the recipes they have, instead of acquiring knowledge and reasoning about it.

Training is not education. Do you know of any schools or universities who focus on history, the classics, logic? And I don't mean lip-service "courses".

fp, we've had this discussion, and you know I agree with you to a large extent -- certainly that adequate, much less classical, education has all but vanished.

I have watched a superb HS science teacher, my dearest friend, as his HS has lost all arts coursework and most advanced science, math, and literature classes, most non-critical administrative and support staff, and barring a change in local tax levies his school is looking at the loss of 30 or so more faculty next year -- which will come from core areas.

You and I differ as to whose grossly failed leadership and misplaced priorities bear the brunt of the responsibility; I believe we agreed to disagree on that?

But -- I don't think that education's the only problem. To me it's more a symptom of a deeper cultural crisis than it is the cause.

pam,

social problems almost never have just one cause, but poor or no education is a biggie, with huge direct and indirect effects.

the poor education itself is a result of multiple, not one factor, and failed leadership is certainly one of them.

but leaders in western democracies are themselves products of their societies and their failed education systems, so their reinforcement of that failure is to be expected.

As to the question on how to contain terrorism, it may not be possible due to structural reasons.
Check out this:

http://freedemocracy.blogspot.com/2007/05/david-brooks-insurgent-advantage.html

'My kid's friends are the most frightening people I have ever met. I have no question if they get annoyed enough by the Islamists, or anyone else who frustrates them, they would nuke them without blinking."

Wonderful, that's a sign that they do get it better than we do. Being terrifyingly violent and completely selfish is exactly what's needed. Moronic boomers would try to appease tigers by covering their bodies with mustard and steak sauce - and talking about how hard life is for poor oppressed wildlife!

FP, I didn't say that Europe would not submit, I said that we won't submit. As they burn hundreds of cars a night, have double the casualty rate of Iraq, and respond by outlawing journalism one wonders if there's no depth of craven cowardice the French are incapable of.

But they did just vote the bastards out, so things are changing.

I meant to write that French police have double (or something) the casualty rate of soldiers in Iraq.

Obviously things are still safe for the public compared with the Iraqi public.

It seems clear that, over the last 30 years anyway, Ahmadenijad's opinion of the West and America is correct. We can easily be bullied. Meet the new boss, at least 'til his oil runs out.

We are a culture that has lost its will and self-respect.

FP, your friend over at "free democracy" has it wrong. He can't fight terrorism not because it's decentralized, but because it's funded by big countries that he doesn't want to face attacking. It's deniable war with big countries enemies, but still war with big countries.

Now this isn't always the case with terrorists, but it's probably mostly true in Iraq.

If we want to stop a terrorist organization in Iraq, one way to do it is to bomb the fuck out of the country that provides the funds and weapons - probably Iran, Saudi Arabia or Syria.

We'll get down to that eventually. We're not stupid enough acquiesce to all that deniability forever.

Josh,

First, he is not my friend.

2nd, you are right about the funding and about the unwillingness to face the problem.

However, this does not negate the decentralization argument. The point is that tons of groups arise given the weakness of the nation states in the west and not all of them are funded by states.

States like Iran and Syria take advantage of the decentralization to make it easier and more deniable to fight the west, given the latter's gullibility. For this argument see:

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/cm/main/viewArticle.aip?id=10882

I hope you're right about "getting them down". I am not that optimistic--the evidence of abject stupidity is quite persuasive. The article compares very validly the current situation with 1938 which, if accepted, it means that the best we can hope is to pay an exorbitant price by the time we come to our senses.

Mark,

Absolutely. Have you seen Bernard Lewis's article "Osama was right?"

Could anybody do a TV expose which "follows the money".........?
So, Sunnis get money from S.Arabia, Iran (rumors included) feeds Sunnis as well as Shia, Nasrallah gets it from Iran as well as from their ilegal operations in S. America.........and etc., etc.,etc.,
Yes,follow the trail of the money would be an excelent, although dangerous, TV program........Besides, once one really know the source, one can stop it or let it run in its normal fashion........

I hope you're right about "getting them down". I am not that optimistic--the evidence of abject stupidity is quite persuasive.

I don't think we would bomb Saudi or Iran for Iraq's sake, but we would do it for our sake.

So I think they're going to get a pass this time. After I wrote that we wouldn't put up with deniability forever I regretted implying that we were going to stop it in Iraq.

I think we're going to get wise on this eventually, and the next time the mainland is hit, it will be no-holds-barred on the funding countries, contributers etc.

To disagree with the central premise of most of the posts here:

Iran, the Shia, the Twelvers, and the Mullahs are exactly as rational as the West and the Soviets.

From a completely alien thought-process to ours.

The Soviets wanted to have the vast majority of their people to live in peace under egalitarian socialism. To the Soviets, "peace" meant the absence of external threats (or capitalist materialistic temptations), so they had to conquer the entire rest of the world. Peacefully. By starting local civil wars.
And since "peace" also meant no noisy arguments or dissent, disbelievers had to be re-educated. Re-programmed. Taught the value of work over counterproductive speech. In sub-zero siberian gulags.
Stubborn problems were dealt with by kinetic lead treatments when psych ward treatment or electroshock failed. Ethnic problems were death with by disbandment, relocation and more re-education.
Since true communists were atheist, only this world matters, so suicidal attacks are only relevant in the military and tactical sense ... "for the better lives and greater good of those who will live on after you."

Muslims (specifically Wahibbis and Twelvers) also want peace ... at Allah's side in the afterlife. Dying in battle against the infidel (even if the infidel is a divergent sect of Islam) is the guaranteed way to get to heaven and to bring N (N=10?) members of your immediate family along too. Living a good life, following all the rules does not get one to the highest levels of heaven, but dying in_battle ... specifically in_battle ... is the only way to get to the highest level of heaven.
Sending kids with satchel-charges under Iraqi tanks sends them directly to heaven for all of ethernity. From the true-believer perspective, why should you make them wait 50 more years and only get to a lower level of heaven when they can
shortcut right to the top, not waste time, rack up sins, etc.
From the purist perspective, billions/trillions of years in the afterlife is more important than this life. The only purpose this life has is to establish what level of heaven you will spend the next many trillion years on.

Even more disturbing is the anti-MAD point-of-view:
If Ahmadinejad gets 1 nuclear bomb, uses it on TelAviv, he gets a triple-bank-shot:
1: 30%(?) of the jews on earth die, making Allah very happy.
2: Israel nukes all of Iran. Ahmadinejad will be standing on the roof of the highest building to make sure he dies first / early, going straight to heaven ... his personal goal since he was first indoctrinated.
3: All other Iranians killed in the attack (90%+) also go directly to heaven since they were killed in a battle with infidel jews, even if they were not directly front-line-combatants. Ahmadinejad will therefore have been personally responsible for the largest mass influx of souls into heaven in the entire history of Islam, beating even Saladin for the top-soul-bringer trophy.

MAD only works from a secular/atheist/life-loving perspective.

"You love life and we love death, which gives an example of what the Prophet Muhammad said."

"The Jews love life, so that is what we shall take away from them. We are going to win, because they love life and we love death."

In his first speech on the guiding principles of his politics, Ahmadinejad made this clear: "We are in the process of an historical war, . . . and this war has been going on for hundreds of years," he declared in October 2005. This is a war, then, that is not fundamentally about the Middle East conflict and will not end with the elimination of Israel."

In his letter to George W. Bush, the Iranian president described his objective: "A bad ending belongs only to those who have chosen the life of this world. ... A good land and eternal paradise belong to those servants who fear His majesty
and do not follow their lascivious selves."

The Islamists are rational ... rationally seeking their place in the afterlife by killing us and dying in the process. The more of both, the better.

Western societies assign no honor to those who die in battle against the enemy, sarnac?

Even more disturbing is the anti-MAD point-of-view:
If Ahmadinejad gets 1 nuclear bomb, uses it on TelAviv, he gets a triple-bank-shot:
1: 30%(?) of the jews on earth die, making Allah very happy.
2: Israel nukes all of Iran. Ahmadinejad will be standing on the roof of the highest building to make sure he dies first / early, going straight to heaven ... his personal goal since he was first indoctrinated.
3: All other Iranians killed in the attack (90%+) also go directly to heaven since they were killed in a battle with infidel jews, even if they were not directly front-line-combatants. Ahmadinejad will therefore have been personally responsible for the largest mass influx of souls into heaven in the entire history of Islam, beating even Saladin for the top-soul-bringer trophy.

Maybe.

And maybe as a response, Shiites the world over go out and shoot their mullahs or hang them from the rafters. We win.

Sarnac,

There is rationality of goals and rationality of means.

The islamists/jihadists may be rational in terms of their goal, if it is to go to paradise to get 72 virgins and drink all alcohol they want.

But to kill yourself or your children in order to kill others in order to get in paradise what some supernatutural allah forbids you in this world is not exactly rational, is it?

Religions are irrational because they are beliefs in the supernatural. GIVEN those beliefs, though, the means to achieve them may be rational indeed.

Josh,

Optimism in the face of contrary evidence can be dangerous. That's probably one the roots of western gullibility, which is exploited: it'll be OK, things will be worked out.

The decision when to bomb will be extremely difficult rather than as clearcut as you imply. That's exactly the reason iran wants the nukes.

There is an episode in the TV series "yes prime-minister" when a scientific advisor gives the PM a gradual scenario and at each small step asks: "do you push the trigger now?". There is a chains of no until it's too late.

That's what iran is doing now and what it will do even better with nukes. and it will also use its non-nuke proxies in the bargain.

sarnac,

to clarify, what i meant is that islamists are rational in terms of MEANS to achieve their goals, but their goals are irrational.

FP, I know all that.

I was just pointing out one of the possible dynamics. Islam will end because it preaches war and modern warfare with a well armed enemy is suicide. Eventually, the religion will expire.

The more intransigent our enemies are, the more of them will die. But frankly it can't be our problem whether our enemies survive. That has to be their problem.

Josh, you have a lot more faith in common sense of the rank-and-file religious faithful than I do,and I'm surprised to see that. These are the same people who stone their daughters to death, happily send their kids to madrassas to learn martyrdom specifically against the Jews and the West, and say in polls they would prefer to live under Sharia. The ones who riot over fucking cartoons or a papal historical parallel they can't even comrehend, because the Imam said to.

It really is the nature of the belief system that they consider life --any life -- a pain-in-the-ass bus stop on the path to heaven, and the fastest route is to obliterate the next bus full of Israeli schoolchildren.

This is not a new development in Islam -- just the methodology is different. Been the same recurrent violent global jihad in one place or another for a thousand years. Why would anyone think it's going to mellow out any time soon? On the basis of exactly what cultural evolution?

Diana, the money trails are quite well known. There's books, there's even been TV shows -- but Saudi influence over their media subsidiaries, control over politicians and State Dept hacks studying in Saudi-endowed University programs, and general reluctance to alienate the men who fill our gas tanks means that any strong, concerted effort to hit people over the head with it will never get off the ground. Plus, it'll never beat out American Idol.

What is interesting to me is the number of people I meet in various walks of life who (pardon the arrogance) I expect to be pretty damn obtuse about this stuff, but actually KNOW the Saudis and Gulf States are funding terrorism, and who KNOW Pakistan is not an ally, and that we've myopically fastened only on the madman in Iran.

Somehow, the word has gotten around. I think what surprises them, though, is the extent to which crime -- counterfeiting, smuggling, sex trade, extortion -- funds terrorism, and the extent to which we allow the Saudis to establish domestic programs and influence our largest educational centers.

Josh, you have a lot more faith in common sense of the rank-and-file religious faithful than I do,and I'm surprised to see that. These are the same people who stone their daughters to death, happily send their kids to madrassas to learn martyrdom specifically against the Jews and the West, and say in polls they would prefer to live under Sharia. The ones who riot over fucking cartoons or a papal historical parallel they can't even comrehend, because the Imam said to.

Well it's hard to communicate with writing. If I say things too exactly it makes a boring read and people miss all the points because they're too subtle. And if I exaggerate so that you get the point then everyone says I'm exaggerating.

So yes, Islam will die because war is disastrous. But no, it won't happen in a single day the way I described it. But it might happen quickly.