Iran Despises Weakness - Henry Kissinger
So long as Iran views itself as a crusade rather than a nation, a common interest will not emerge from negotiations.
(Sunday Times-UK)
Calibrating the Centrifuge - Zvi Bar'el
Iran has [an] "advantage": a president who looks like a poet and sounds like a lunatic, whose words swell like a radioactive cloud.
His threatening rhetoric even makes one forget that he is not the one responsible for the nuclear development. Rather, it was his predecessors, Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammed Khatami, presidents who were considered moderate in the West.
(Ha'aretz)
3 comments:
Kissinger is probably correct, which is sad. Sad also, is that he is probably correct about Iraq too, which I see you did not get a chance to post yet, where he said victory is no longer possible for the US in Iraq. As for who is responsible for Iran's nuclear program, I do not believe that has shown to be accurate. There has been enough time during this new regime to have made the small advances that they have. I have not found evidence, although my search was brief to say the elast, that things were clearly going on during the moderate administration. Nevertheless, even if theyw ere, we must remember that the moderate administration did not control the country or the army, but was still under the rule of the hard line mullahs.
Yes indeed, Kissinger also stated that victory in Iraq was elusive. I didn't post that since it's not terribly unique...but his status as a statesman does gives the statement particular status.
In general, there has been a shift in the way warfare is conducted. Few of us have made the shift. In this new world, victory will no longer be defined by ticker-tape parades and the like. How to accomplish victory against radical Islam is a big question...but it certainly includes a big shift in the Moslem, Arab and Persian worlds, where moderates are increasingly silent.
The downside of conflicting financial and ideological realities. So much in this world could be accomplished, virtually wiping out terrorism, if the world took a united and hardline stance. But China has trading issues with North korea, and China has energy needs from Iran. Russia and others have both energy issues and their desire to balance the power of countries like the US; so they support countries of the middle east even though those countries support terrorism. Obviouly, in the longer term, North korea needs to trade with Chins, and the mideast nations need to sell their oil, so likely any supply disruptions or embargo would be short lived. When the world community learns to put the good of the world before short term interests, something will finally be accomplished. Hopefully, the impetus to do this will not be another major terrorist attack, or even a nuclear threat. Sadly, history tells us it might take something "big". This was the opportunity of 9/11, to have worked to unify the world against the terrorists, instead of focusing the world on new reasons to distrust America and its brand of preemptive cowboy intervention. Since that was squandered, it is hard to see where to act short term. I believe one of the reasons there has not been a "9/11" in Europe, is the terrorists fear it would galvanize the world, where the US, even when it was more respected in the 80's and 90's was never one to engender a 'cause celebre'. Ultimately, this is why, as mundane and technical as it is, and not nearly exciting to simple minds as picking a fight with someone you think you can beat, but why diplomacy is going to be a major tool in the fight against terrorism. World unity against terrorism could theoretically end terrorism, leaving only clearly established and undeniable strongholds for terrorists that could then be dealt with militarily, as we were supposed to complete doing in Afghanistan.
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