Words from Iranian clerics you probably won't see on TV

Juan Cole found this gem:

"...our eminent Leader [Ali Khamenei] -- has made it abundantly clear, as have others, that the destruction of nations, any nation, women and children, large or small -- the massacre of innocents is wrong. The same is true of the atomic bomb and atomic weapons. The very idea of an atom bomb is forbidden, the very deed is a sin."

These are the words of Ayatollah Mohammad Emami-Kashani who, being a member of the Assembly of Experts is probably as well connected to government thinking as Ahmadinejad. Could this be a ruse? Maybe. But so could some of the more bellicose statements that have emanated from Iran.

Yes I know that the neo-cons love to use 1937 as their model for everything, but what if this is 1962? Kennedy had conflicting messages from the Kremlin, he chose to respond to the more conciliatory ones and not the belligerent ones. Perhaps this should be our model now.

Whatever you do, don't talk to them!

Juan Cole has linked to an article that states that the Bush administration is pressuring Iraq leaders not to have the Iranian president visit them. Real leaders never talk to their enemies, right Ronald Reagan? Oh... Never mind.

Psst... Ahmadinejad is a failure at home

It looks like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is, well, a bit of dud with folks in his own country. According to this Star article, he's now getting blamed for stuff that wasn't even his fault. That's usually a sign that the public is really fed up with a given leader. For the all the hyping of this guy as the next really vicious monster on the world stage, he's really fizzled. Notice how no air strikes were needed.

Who's afraid of Iran?

Juan Cole writes today about the threat (or lack thereof) that Iran poses to the US:

"Polling shows that the percentage of Americans who view Iran as the number one threat to the United States has risen to 27 percent now. I think it was only 20 percent in December 2006. First of all, how in the world can a developing country with about a fourth of the population of the US, about a $2000 per capita income (in real terms, not local purchasing power), with no intercontinental ballistic missiles, with no weapons of mass destruction (and no proof positive it is trying to get them), with a small army and a small military budget-- how is such a country a "threat" to the United States of America? Iranian leaders don't like the US, and they talk dirty about the US, and they do attempt to thwart US interests. The same is true of Venezuela under Chavez. But Tehran is a minor player on the world stage, and trying to build it up to replace the Soviet Union is just the worst sort of fear-mongering, and it is being done on behalf of the US military industrial complex, which wants to do to Iran what it did to Iraq. It is propaganda, and significant numbers of Americans (a 7 percent increase would be like 21 million people!) are buying it."

The only thing that I would add is that the typical response of those that would have Iran as the number one threat is that Iran could also project force through asymmetrical means (i.e.: terror attacks). The original critique holds though as there could be no doubt that the response by the US to an Iranian terror attack on US soil would be overwhelming.

This is the part where Iranophobes will mention Ahmadinejad's eschatological outlook. Aside from pointing out that a fair number of Christians think the same way if you replace "12th Imam" with "Jesus Christ" in the rambling speeches, it is worth remembering though that Ahmadinejad does not hold authority over the armed forces and really does have a limited amount of power under Iran's constitution.

Showdown of the Under-Qualified Premillenialists

This is what seems to be happening now between Ahmadinejad and Bush, or at least Bush's proxy, Tony Blair. Or not.

The office of president in Iran is rather unlike the office that goes by the same name in the United States. Ahmadinejad is not the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and he therefore may not have a whole lot of say in the fate of the British sailors held in Iran. Ahmadinejad may be a terrible person, but at least his power is limited under the Iranian constitution.

Moreover, it appears in an article that Juan Cole linked to that Iran is simply looking for the British to admit wrongdoing in the affair, i.e.: admit that they were in Iranian waters. It is also worth remembering that the waters in question have been subject to boundary disputes, and that makes me wonder whether the maps that are constantly put in the newspapers and on TV are of the Iraq territorial claims, or of the Iranian territorial claims. Are they some melange of both sets of territorial claims?

Of course, it may be that the British were indisputably in Iraqi waters, but the question of where the boundary is has been cast aside - perhaps in the hope that we'll just start assuming that the British were correct. The Iranian offer to free the soldiers may be a ploy, but regardless, it's interesting that that element of the story has been far less reported than images of Tony Blair looking indignant on TV.