Political correctness can kill - Part deux

[Bill Glasheen]

what you are saying is nothing has been changed by Obama's policies, he's getting the same results with Iran as previous presidents did.

I absolutely am NOT saying that.

Obama policy on Iran is hurting U.S.

There's nothing subtle about that, Glenn. I am not saying his policies aren't helping, am I? I'm saying that his choices have caused harm.

after 16 months of an “extended hand” policy, in response to which Iran actually accelerated its nuclear program

***

On Tuesday, one day before the president touted passage of a surpassingly weak U.N. resolution and declared Iran yet more isolated, the leaders of Russia, Turkey and Iran gathered at a security summit in Istanbul “in a display of regional power that appeared to be calculated to test the United States,” as The New York Times put it. I would add: And calculated to demonstrate the hollowness of U.S. claims of Iranian isolation, to flaunt Iran’s growing ties with Russia and quasi-alliance with Turkey, a NATO member no less.

***

Six weeks ago, Iran was elected to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women, a grotesque choice that mocked Obama’s attempt to isolate and delegitimize Iran in the very international institutions he treasures.

Increasing isolation? In the last year alone, Ahmadinejad has been welcomed in Kabul, Istanbul, Copenhagen, Caracas, Brasilia, La Paz, Senegal and Gambia. Today, he is in China.

Three Iran sanctions resolutions passed in the Bush years. They were all passed without a single “no” vote. But after 16 months of laboring to produce a mouse, Obama garnered only 12 votes for his sorry sanctions, with Lebanon abstaining and Turkey and Brazil voting no.

[Republican House leader] Boehner said, "We've coddled our enemies and pushed our friends aside in the process."

And it's not just Obama's enemies saying this, Glenn!

[House Democratic Majority Leader Steny] Hoyer said, "This is not a partisan difference."

It sounds to me like there's bipartisan consensus among members of The House. Contrast that with your own consensus of you, Ian, and Justin who opine that - at best - he's done no harm and nobody can prove otherwise.

I'm going with my own consensus here.

as Justin asked earlier, are you suggesting we should attack or invade Iran?

Nobody's asking the guy to start a war.

But asking him not to make things worse is reasonable, don't you think? And yet... that's EXACTLY what he's done. And there's plenty of fact-supported opinions from all ends of the political spectrum which supports that hypothesis.

you aren't fooling anyone, you thrive on debate and wouldn't bother posting this stuff it you thought it wouldn't get a reaction.

I dedicate this thread to my Iranian friends who fled post-Khomeini Iran.

a disgraceful silence when the regime’s very stability was threatened by peaceful demonstrators.

This is for Ian, who inexplicably mocks my love of Jefferson. (see last thread)

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

Anything subtle there?

- Bill

[Bill Glasheen]

it's those peripheral minority homeland regions that can be separatist. The Kurds for example have resisted Persian authority for centuries, and last fought an uprising 1979-1982 when they saw an opportunity after the revolution to try to gain independence from Iran.

That would give Iran one and not two significant "separatist" factions, making them more cohesive than neighboring Iraq.

If chunks of Turkey, Iraq, and Iran broke away and formed a Kurdistan, the world wouldn't be worse off. And Iran would still be a strong world power.

There have been times when Texas has threatened the same. The South actually fought a war over it. And yet we're considered a united power.

I would not say the common people love all things western

So how does this straw man statement refute my assertion?

And what do you say about these pictures?









See any Western influence there? Oh and in case you didn't notice... virtually all of those women have had cosmetic rhinopasty - a.k.a. nose jobs. See Rhinoplasty All the Rage in Iran.

Iran ... has been called the "nose job capital of the world."

***

Iranian women are also influenced by images of Western culture and Hollywood, where smaller noses are considered beautiful. The ethnic Persian nose is out of vogue.

You would do well to study the baby boom generation of the post Iran-Iraq war. Compare their restlessness and influence to that of the U.S. Boomers after WW II.

- Bill

[Bill Glasheen]

Once again, Barry O proves the law of unintended consequences. Rather than affect change, he's uniting the people behind their totalitarian government. That just plays into the hands of the oppressors.

Good job! Maybe you'll get another peace prize for it all.

- Bill

* MIDDLE EAST NEWS
* JUNE 14, 2010

On Vote Anniversary, Iran Is Quiet Amid Heavy Security

By CHIP CUMMINS

DUBAI—Iranian officials, including the country's most powerful opposition cleric, rallied behind the regime Sunday following last week's fresh United Nations sanctions and after security services managed to suppress protests intended to mark the anniversary of last year's contested presidential election.

Opposition supporters emailed accounts and videos of isolated protests and clashes across Iran Saturday, a year after the vote that triggered the worst internal unrest since the Iranian revolution. But security services fanned that out across many cities in a dramatic show of force, and streets were mostly quiet. Protest leaders who had sought permission to demonstrate in Tehran, reversed course late last week and advised supporters to stay at home.

Saturday's quiet anniversary represented the latest setback for the opposition, whose leaders have struggled to bring people back onto the streets after security forces increased efforts earlier this year to silence them.

Some analysts said the timing of last week's fresh United Nations sanctions against Iran might have played into the regime's hands in suppressing the planned protests, possibly weakening a recent appeal by opposition leaders to win over Iran's economically disenfranchised. Mustafa Alani, a security analyst at the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center, said the U.N. vote allowed Tehran to paint itself as the defender of the Iranian people in the face of foreign economic pressure.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's insistence that Iran has the right to develop a peaceful nuclear program is deeply popular, and many Iranians have bristled at past U.N. and U.S. sanctions. Even leading opposition figures have rallied around the policy.

On Sunday, top opposition cleric Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani joined regime hard-liners in condemning the U.N. sanctions. Mr. Rafsanjani, a former president, is an outspoken critic of Mr. Ahmadinejad. While he was silent on the election anniversary in comments carried on his website and reported by state news agencies Sunday, he lashed out at the new sanctions. "Nowadays, we can see new things in the way arrogant powers treat the Islamic Republic of Iran," he told the country's powerful Expediency Council, a committee of clerics, which he heads, that has the power to name and remove the supreme leader.

Opposition websites, including Iran's Human Rights Association, said about 200 people were arrested over the weekend.

Write to Chip Cummins at chip.cummins@wsj.com

A wiser approach would have been to support the Iranian people's aspirations for self-determination.

Change - if it happens at all - can only happen from the inside out. Having the second largest supply of oil and natural gas, they have all they need to determine their own future. And that's the way it should be. Applying sanctions will hurt and alienate the very people who seek to draw from the principles we aspire to. That in turn means more of the same funding of terrorist groups in the Middle East - particularly in The West Bank and in Lebanon.

The reality is that their oil money talks. Sanctimonious bullschit walks. With or without nukes, Iran will be a well-behaved member of the world community only when the Iranian people choose for it to be that way. And that opportunity was there a year ago.









Now the totalitarians reap the benefits of a trumped-up external enemy.



- Bill

[Glenn]

If chunks of Turkey, Iraq, and Iran broke away and formed a Kurdistan, the world wouldn't be worse off. And Iran would still be a strong world power.

The Kurds have wanted that since Turkey blocked the creation of Kurdistan in the 1920s, after it was promised to the Kurds when the Ottoman Empire was being split up by the victors of WWI at Versailles. Kurdistan is still not likely to happen because none of the six countries that have a piece of the Kurdish terrtory are likely to give up that territory.

I would not say the common people love all things western

So how does this straw man statement refute my assertion?

It doesn't, nor is it a straw man. You forgot to quote the "either". Our statements are not mutually exclusive.

Iranians are comfortable with western things and westernization, but like many they have been concerned about change occurring too fast.

From Persia: Ancient Soul of Iran(National Geographic - August, 2008)

The shah had his own uses for Persian identity. He was big on promoting Persepolis and Cyrus while at the same time pouring Western music, dress, behaviors, and business interests into Iran. One attempt to instill nationalistic pride, which backfired and helped turn public opinion against him, was the ostentatious celebration he staged in 1971 to commemorate the 2,500th anniversary of Persian monarchy. It featured a luxurious tent city outside the entrance to Persepolis, VIP apartments with marble bathrooms, food flown in from Paris, and a guest list that included dignitaries from around the world but few Iranians.

The shah's vision apparently involved too much modernizing too fast, and many Iranians bristled. "We were getting westernized," said Farin Zahedi, a drama professor at the University of Tehran. "But it was superficial, because the public had no real under­standing of Western culture." Iranians experienced it as a cultural attack and rebelled in the press and with street demonstrations. The more paranoid the shah became, the more heavy-handed were his secret police—SAVAK, created in 1957 with the help of American and Israeli advisers. At least hundreds of people are believed to have been executed by SAVAK; many others were imprisoned, tortured, and exiled, and more than a thousand were killed by the army during demonstrations. So when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini spoke in the late 1970s of liberating the people from this latest yoke, they were moved by his eloquence and moral rectitude, and for a time the reemergence of religion after the shah's relentless modernism felt like a cleansing.

You would do well to study the baby boom generation of the post Iran-Iraq war. Compare their restlessness and influence to that of the U.S. Boomers after WW II.

...part of the Generation of the Revolution, who grew up after 1979 and account for more than two-thirds of the country's 70 million people. Variously described as jaded and lacking belief in their futures—"a burned generation," as Kurdish filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi put it—they are increasingly leaving for Europe and elsewhere. Some have a rich consciousness of their Persian past while at the same time supporting the idea of Islamic unity; some feel only Persian or only Islamic; and others immerse themselves in Western culture through television programming received on illegal satellite dishes. Farin said: "They're schizophrenic."

The parallels are striking, it will be interesting to see whether this Iranian generation will have the same effect on Iran that the post WWII baby-boomers had on the U.S. in the 1960s.

[IJ]

Bill, I think you completely misunderstand me. Partly that seems deliberate: instead of answering reasonable questions, you just say the person you're arguing with is wrong. And you don't get my point. You started this thread with a lecture (habit of yours) directed at me intending to teach me a lesson about this president I'm infatuated with. And I have been trying to tell you that I'm not infatuated with him. I don't agree with all his policies. This is like a political ploy where you get one nonsense theme going (I'm a shill for Obama) and then instead of discussing issues I'm spending my time refuting charges (cuz I'm not, but you may well be a shill for anti-Obamanism). Here, I'm merely been arguing that you don't apply the same scrutiny to past actions, but of course, you've ruled that that's off limits I'm NOT interested in studying Obama's Iran policy, supporting it, or refuting it. You're picking a fight with someone who's not interested, and you'll be on the playground by yourself.

As for the Jefferson stuff, it just gets tiring. More lectures on religious freedom, for example, as if I don't support it, then you go and support a government scheme to restrict the freedoms of churches you disagree with. It's similar with the libertarianism lectures. Insulting remedial lessons, but then you won't live up to the rhetoric. (Go ahead, tell me I'm off topic (another favorite ploy of yours) but remember you brought this up yourself).

[Glenn]

I dedicate this thread to my Iranian friends who fled post-Khomeini Iran.

a disgraceful silence when the regime’s very stability was threatened by peaceful demonstrators.

This is for Ian, who inexplicably mocks my love of Jefferson. (see last thread)

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

Anything subtle there?

I'm not sure debating on a MA forum meets these goals, wouldn't you accomplish this more with a column in a newspaper? You certainly produce enough op-eds here to keep a regular column going, and you're more readable than most columnists I've seen.

[Valkenar]

A wiser approach would have been to support the Iranian people's aspirations for self-determination.

Simple question: What form do you think that support should take? Is there any actual action you recommend? Or are you suggesting less action and more rhetoric? Given how much you criticize Obama for being (as you seem to think) all-rhetoric and no substance, that would be a surprising position, except that it seems to be exactly what you're calling for now. So you don't like sanctions, and you don't like war, and you don't like speeches. What *would* satisfy you?

As far as I can tell, via-a-vis Iran, all we have is less-bad options. Everything we might do is a damned if we do, damned if we don't proposition. Personally I still think adopting a less-meddlesome, diplomatic approach is worth a real try.

[Panther]

I have no idea how Bill or anyone else would answer your questions, but...

One of the Founders once warned to "stay out of the entanglements of other nations"... That was very good advice, which unfortunately hasn't been followed for a very long time. Perhaps a better approach than what any modern President (or Congress, etc) has done would be to simply follow that advice and mind our own business. Some people think that we have to be there for all manner of reasons (oil, domino effect, the list goes on). Maybe we should go back to "walk softly and carry a big stick". Maybe...

[Glenn]

One of the Founders once warned to "stay out of the entanglements of other nations"...

That might work if those entanglements would stay self-contained, unfortunately history has shown that there is a danger in being too isolationist. Obviously we do not want to jump into every entanglement, nor always with guns blazing when we do, but there are times when it is necessary for our interests if nothing else. Unfortunately the U.S. doing something internationally for its own interests is seen as a bad thing anymore, both at home and abroad.

And we do not jump into every entanglement, there are many conflicts in the world at present and we are currently only operationally active in two of them. We pick and choose the entanglements we enter.

[Valkenar]

Perhaps a better approach than what any modern President (or Congress, etc) has done would be to simply follow that advice and mind our own business. Some people think that we have to be there for all manner of reasons (oil, domino effect, the list goes on). Maybe we should go back to "walk softly and carry a big stick". Maybe...

I can agree to this, to some extent. But Bill seems to be screaming that Obama somehow isn't doing enough.

That said, I think the US would be better off leaving people alone, even at the expense (gasp) of failing to exploit their resources.

That said, there's always a question. If Bob says "As soon as I get a nuclear bomb I'm going to nuke you" and then you see Bob whistling as he pushes a wheelbarrow full of uranium (Bob is very strong) what do you do? A "big stick" doesn't deter a mad dog.

[IJ]

Agreed that I don't want a nuclear armed Iran. But the good news is they would be annihilated if they used one locally, or if they used one afar and it were traced. Also, there's a fair chance that Israel would bomb them if they got too close. It's happened before.

FYI,

Drop by the libertarian party web page for advice on leaving Afghanistan and Iraq, and speaking with Iran, and not getting involved in foreign aid or nation building / political change elsewhere. The libertarian approach was the purest just threads ago.