Ashby 2008

I am continually baffled by this Administration’s seeming hatred of Iran. At least with Iraq, you could point to the fact that Iraq had invaded two countries in the previous twenty-five years. In addition, even North Korea invaded South Korea in the last sixty years. However, to my knowledge, the nation of Iran has not invaded another country in over two hundred years. Like it or not, Iran just has not been a threat to its neighbors. In addition, whether we care to admit it or not, Iran is the third most democratic country in the Middle East. This President, who claims to want to support democracy, seems to hate one of the few functioning democracies in that part of the world.

I know the President of Iran has said that he would like to see Israel wiped off the map. However, numerous Arab leaders have said the same thing, and we have not labeled them part of an “Axis of Evil”. It is worth noting that even if Iran had nuclear weapons, does anyone really think they are going to nuke Israel? How exactly would that benefit the Palestinians? Further, Israel is not really all that big – if it were nuked, think about what this would do to Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and a part of Egypt. If Iran develops the bomb, it will not be a modern Neutron Bomb that just kills people and leaves buildings – it will be a dirty old-school, lots of radiation bomb. Iran bombing Israel would make a sizable chunk of the Middle East uninhabitable, not to mention killing as many Arabs as Israelis. I am sorry, but this just does not make any sense.

Now the President is suggesting that the U.S. needs to go forward with the Missile Defense shield as protection for the U.S. against attack by Iran, and that Iran even getting the knowledge of how to build a nuclear bomb is the start of World War III. Does anyone actually believe that Iran is going to shoot a missile at the United States? Does the President really think that the leaders of Iran would risk actually having their country wiped off the map by the United State’s thousands of nuclear missiles? Again, the President’s statements baffle me. Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), the promise that if either side uses nuclear weapons the other will respond with nuclear weapons, worked for decades. Does the President really think that somehow this would not work with Iran?

I hear Republicans say something to the effect of “It just takes one crazy person with their finger on the trigger, and the President of Iran is just such a nut.” Then they inevitably make comparisons to the suicide bombers. It is worth noting that the suicide bombers have not been representatives of democratically elected governments – they have instead been members of groups not in power intent on taking power. Most of the suicide bombers of 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia. The government of Saudi Arabia did not send the bombers. They attacked us in part because we support the non-democratic government of Saudi Arabia. Iran is an actual nation, with a functioning and vaguely democratic government. Elected leaders rarely do things that would cause the destruction of their country – they are far too focused on staying in power to risk starting World War III. The President of Iran is not going to order an attack on the U.S. because he wants there to be a nation of Iran for him to be the President of.

I also hear Republicans complain that Iran sponsors terrorist organization, in particular Hamas and Hezbollah. While I do not support their tactics, both of these groups are pushing for proportionate political representation for more of their members, a worthy goal for those of us that support democracy as a form of government. And I can pretty much guarantee you that Iran hasn’t done anything in the international arena that the U.S. hasn’t also done. We used to be against double standards in the United States, and this is absolutely a double standard.

For some strange reason, this President has committed to spending $75 million to “support the growth of democracy in Iran”. Here in the United States, it is illegal for candidates for office to accept donations from foreign countries. Why wouldn’t Iran be mad about this – we would be mad too, if Cuba, for instance, was trying to impact U.S. elections by funneling money to its preferred candidates. Again, it is clearly a double standard on the part of President Bush.

Over dinner last week, a moderately Conservative person suggested that the hatred of Iran was based in part on the Hostage Crisis. Are we really basing our foreign policy on something that happened almost thirty years ago, and that was not all that damaging to the U.S.? Further, if we are going to start cataloguing historical slights, its worth noting that the U.S. supported the overthrow of the democratically elected prime Minister of Iran in the fifties.

Unfortunately, I cannot help but thinking that the President’s focus on Iran is a political tactic. Focusing on Iran keeps people from thinking about what a disaster this administration has been – if everyone is concerned about keeping the President from starting the next ill-considered war, then they are paying less attention to the current disasters that are costing our country trillions of dollars. And conveniently, this issue flows through to the presidential election. It gives Republicans yet another way of suggesting the Democrats are soft on terrorism.

This is what is so maddening about this administration. If they are clever enough to realize the electoral uses of Iran as an enemy, then they should be clever enough to recognize that this position actually hurts U.S. interests, and further hurts the spread of democracy. Whether we care to admit it or not, Iran is the third most democratic country in the Middle East, even if it is a rough and developing democracy. That crazy president – he was elected as an economic populist, in part because the Iranian economy isn’t doing well. The Iranian economy still is not doing well, but Ahmadinejad has not been called to task for it, because instead attention is focused on the situation with the U.S. Just as President Bush is using confrontation with Iran to avoid the fallout from his many mistakes, the President of Iran is using the confrontation to avoid having to talk about his failures on economic issues. If President Bush really wants to push for expanded democracy in Iran, the best thing he could do would be to tone down the rhetoric, and give the Iranian press the room to focus on Ahmadinejad’s economic record. This of course, this would allow the U.S. press to focus on Bush’s economic record…

So there you have it – yet another example of this Administration both getting the problem wrong, and then proposing the wrong answer to the non-existent problem. Yet another example where the only logical reason for a position taken by the President is that it will help Republican electoral chances. This is yet another example of President Bush putting the well-being of the Republican Party ahead of the well-being of the United States of America.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 12th, 2007 at 1:55 pm and is filed under Blogroll, Middle East. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.