Fareed Zakaria is the voice of reason in this insightful Newsweek article on the ludicrous notion that Iran represents a more dangerous threat to the world than did Stalin and Mao (!). Excerpts:
The American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality. Norman Podhoretz, the neoconservative ideologist whom Bush has consulted on this topic, has written that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is "like Hitler … a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system and to replace it in the fullness of time with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-political culture of Islamofascism." For this staggering proposition Podhoretz provides not a scintilla of evidence.
Here is the reality. Iran has an economy the size of Finland's and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?...
In a speech last week, Rudy Giuliani said that while the Soviet Union and China could be deterred during the cold war, Iran can't be. The Soviet and Chinese regimes had a "residual rationality," he explained. Hmm. Stalin and Mao—who casually ordered the deaths of millions of their own people, fomented insurgencies and revolutions, and starved whole regions that opposed them—were rational folk. But not Ahmadinejad, who has done what that compares? One of the bizarre twists of the current Iran hysteria is that conservatives have become surprisingly charitable about two of history's greatest mass murderers.
Naturally, Giuliani is cheerleading the loudest for an unprovoked attack on Iran. It appeals to his recklessness, his violence, and his megalomania. I've been pleading with anyone who reads my tiny little blog to do what they can to help stop this madness from happening, but at this point Bush and Cheney may be completely beyond reason.
And that scares the hell out of me.
2 comments:
Lets see, Iran is a threat to the world. It sponsors terrorists, it has nukes, and it can hold the world hostage as it cuts off its supply of oil to the world. If the last option happens the world will suffer a massive depression.
Many states sponsor terrorism. Iran does NOT have nukes, and they are not likely to for some time. Many other states could take up the slack from Iran's oil production.
Pakistan is FAR more dangerous than Iran.
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