Female morality police in Iran deal exclusively with 'crimes' committed by women
How to Deal with Iran -Shoshana Bryen
Real power in Iran is in the hands of the clerics who formulated Iran's broad, well-thought-out and very serious religious and political worldview. It is Shi'ite in design. Their program is not born of imagined slights or misdeeds by a particular U.S. president, and a new president will not reverse it. They don't want to be our friends; they want us not to be in their way.
The nuclear quest began with the shah, was adopted by the Islamic Revolution and has proceeded through "reformist" and "reactionary" Iranian presidents. Ahmadinejad is nastier, but no more important than the others. Nuclear capability is a tactical goal in the strategic quest for regional hegemony and expansion of Shi'ite Islam.
Inside Iran, the clerical police are the guardians of "public morality." They are the ones who hang homosexuals and stone adulterers. They arrest and "disappear" student leaders, ban books, monitor phone calls, break up demonstrations and persecute the Bahai.
(JTA)
3 comments:
True enough, but doe not really go anywhere. Iran feels with oil and nuclear weapons they will be a true world power, possibly able to spread their idea of Islam much better than your garden variety terrorists, but ultimately they want money and power. Though in the guise of a deeply religious country, that is the real motivation for them. We have dealt with countries like this all throughout history. What make sit harder for us to garner world support against Iran now, is some have come to see the Unite States of the last 8 years in a similar light; though christian instead of Muslim, we have been on our own power trip. We didn't like Iraq and felt they were a threat and manufactured false evidence to support this. Did we make many claims about Iraq that Iran and the Palestinians don't make about Israel now? It is just one more way we have empowered Iran during the Bush years. It is also a small part of the motivation behind Russia and China asserting themselves in some ways. It will be much harder to reign in Iran because of the way we have chosen to run our foreign affairs the last 7 years.
I can't really wrap myself around your comparison of US actions and Iran. Whatever power trip one thinks the US is on, the imperial goals of radical Islam are absent: no US Christians dreams of setting up a world dominated by Christian law. Even the Popes have given up on that one.
That part is true, about seeking a Christian world, but certainly we have stated in our doctrine of the last 8 years that we intend on seeing "y'all turn to our brand of democracy", no?. And I am not sure what is so hard to grasp about the comparison. By many international organization accounts, over 100,000 Iraqis died in the war, we imprisoned, tortured and killed scores of others after we invaded. We did not like the leader of the country, but he did not declare war on the US or launch any attacks on the US or its interests. He did not have any WMD and it was proven that we manufactured the evidence against him, (and outed a CIA agent when her husband spoke of this, by the way.) Our actions empowered their nasty neighbor Iran and allowed Al-Qaeda into their country. We call those Iraqis that don't appreciate our invasion--insurgents, and then sent in thousands more troops to 'take care of them' and look---we killed enough additional Iraqis that the violence decreased! The surge worked! Why, if we send enough soldiers and kill enough Iraqis that there is one soldier for each remaining Iraqi, we can end all violence there and achieve peace!! It is hard to believe that from the point of view of an Arab citizen, America would look as bad to them as Iran looks to us??
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