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.

Repeat as Necessary

Can you tell what war David Frum is talking about?

"You want realism? It's this: The emerging US-____ confrontation is a confrontation of ___'s choice and ____'s making. It is ____ that has determined to seek nuclear weapons, ____ that has declared it will use those weapons aggressively against its neighbors, and ____ that has made a nonsense of the long negotiations with the UK, France, and Germany. We are rapidly reaching the point - maybe we have reached it already - where ____ has succeeded in reducing our choices to two: acquiesce in a nuclear bomb or stop it by force. As for the idea that the present ____ regime can be a negotiating partner - a constructive force in the region - or anything other than a menace to its neighbors or its own people, well we need another term for that. How about "fantasy"?"

(HT) I pretty much have nothing more to add to that. That said, George Bush thinks an old saying applies here:

The Invisible Hand Job of the Market

Among the many, many bad news stories coming out of Iraq, Juan Cole reports (third item) that unemployed factory workers have started protesting the fact that they are, well, unemployed.

It seems that the occupation shut down these factories in the hope that capitalism would magical restart them in a matter of months (weeks). So far it has not happened. The magical market fairies have not descended on Iraq to fix things up.

I think you can make a case for market economies, but the neocon architects of Iraq do not appeal to the market as an economic mechanism, rather they entreat it as it were a god.