MartiniPundit

Mark Helprin on Iran

It’s Mark week apparently here, and that’s good as there are many things on my plate to do. So, I’ll point you to Mark Helprin this time:

Even were one to believe that, despite its low and stagnant per capita gross national product and having the world’s second-largest reserves of petroleum and natural gas, Iran would invest uneconomically in nuclear power generation, one would also have to disbelieve that it wanted nuclear weapons. But with an intermediate-range strategic nuclear capacity, it could deter American intervention, reign over the Persian Gulf, further separate Europe from American Middle East policy, correct a nuclear imbalance with Pakistan, lead and perhaps unify the Islamic world, and thus create the chance to end Western dominance of the Middle East and/or with a single shot destroy Israel.

Lot’s of people like Helprin are speaking sense on Iran. People like Brent Scowcroft are not. He, apparently is part of the Madeleine Albright school where we reward obnoxious regimes with nuclear candy. I read a phrase like “Tehran has every right” and I wonder if I’m living on the same planet as an ostrich like Scowcroft. Iran is not - as Mark Steyn has pointed out - a nation that we can deal with as a sovereign state. It is a Thugocracy, and it must be challenged, thwarted, and ultimately, overthrown.

1. A “unify Islamic world,” only if one could remove the historical hatred that exist between the pan-Arab socialist states and Persian Iran and that will never occur.

   Those that view the conflict in Iraq as an Islamic conflict are at best naive and ignorant of the Middle East history. Arabs hate Persians and vice versa.
   Turkey, Syria, Egypt and others will never align themselves with Persian Iran nor will they let a Persian dominated Shiite government in Iraq. As soon as the US pulls out they will reinstate a pan-Arab socialist government.

   Pan-Arab socialist leaders also know that nuclear fall out does not discriminate and that an attack on the small state of Israel would devastate their countries, a fact that few pundits ever bring up.

   The solution to the Iran nuclear problem will not be settled by the US, look to its neighbors on the north and east of its borders to settle this matter - They, are most vulnerable and not smallish Israel no matter what the pre-emptive strike advocates may want everyone to believe.

   Posted by camus  on  04/14  at  01:42 PM

2. You may be right, however, I’m not willing to leave this issue to Iran’s neighbors. Nor am I interested in Pan-Arab socialism.

   A quarter century ago I was a naive pup who thought that the right response to Iran was to turn it into a parking lot. Now, in 2006, I find myself wondering again if that isn’t the right solution. Iran is playing with fire - and it boggles the rational mind that they don’t get that.

   Posted by Matt  on  04/16  at  12:15 AM

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