Iranian Meltdown
By Denise Best | Related entries in Blogging, The WorldIsrael is a “disgraceful blot” that should be “wiped off the map”
You know, Iran’s leadership is sure softing up in its view on Israeli relations …
Prudence would suggest these comments be taken seriously and a proper response be made ideally by the international community.
“I think it reconfirms what we have been saying about the regime in Iran,” White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters in Washington. “It underscores the concerns we have about Iran’s nuclear intentions.”
Ahmadinejad also condemned Iran’s neighbors which seek to break new ground in their relations with Israel. “Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation’s fury,” state-run television quoted him as saying.
Well, we haven’t actually seen any nuclear volleying yet, so best to let sleeping dogs lie … right?
I’m sure the threat of a strong chastising by the UN will make Iran’s leadership think twice before doing anything too radical.
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October 26th, 2005 at 1:28 pm
Denise,
How about the international community says that Iran’s comments were vile (which has been done already). After that, we should probably continue with inspections since those have been proven to be incredibly effective at detecting nuclear weapons programs. Or is that too “UN-ish” for you. What do you suggest we do to “not let sleeping dogs lie”? Should we show them who’s in charge of wiping disgraceful blots off the map?
October 26th, 2005 at 2:33 pm
Elephonkey,
I’m wondering whether Iran is feeling more empowered by the media drubbing that’s has been occurring with the Iraq situation and views this as a sign of weakness that can be of great advantage to their agenda.
Yes, rhetoric is rhetoric, but there needs to be a vigilance maintained which insures that the situation does not get out of hand. Given the environment right now, there’s a void of effective leadership being demonstrated, much less supported in the international arena. Where there’s a void, there’s something waiting to fill it … that “something” could certainly be aggressive actions by Iran.
Conditions are prime for letting the pendulum swing too far in the opposite direction of appeasement with dangers that will multiply considerably and be far more difficult to counter.
October 26th, 2005 at 3:41 pm
Personally, I prefer the good cop-bad cop approach to Iran. Iran has historically survived in the modern world by playing larger powers against one another (and occasionally seeing a third-party savior). If the U.S. and the E.U., or the U.S. and the U.N., could get their behind-the-scenes act together sufficiently, I think it could be effective in containing the ambitions of the Iranian government.
Unfortunately, I have little hope that that really will happen.
Call me what you like, but I rather like the idea that the president of Iran looks over his shoulder when he hears a sudden noise to see if there’s an incoming cruise missile with his name on it.
But I think the real hope for Iran is to keep encouraging — from a distance — the secularist democracy movement.
October 26th, 2005 at 3:47 pm
The likelihood of THIS president actually negotiating with and compromising with anyone regarding anything is slim…more likely he’ll bluster useless threats at Iran and then get the guy with the anger management problem at the UN to yell at some people to do it his way or else.
With all the extremists in power in Iran I don’t doubt that they will begin issuing nuclear threats and blackmail demands as soon as they’re capable of delivering.
October 26th, 2005 at 4:12 pm
Democracies have a notoriously difficult time maintaining a consistent foreign policy over a course of more than one electoral cycle. Get together the 12 or so democratic states that would be necessary to implement a coherent pressure on Iran over sufficient time to have an effect … well, do the math. In the short term, I expect the anger-management guy can get more results. Not pretty, but who’s got a better solution?
October 26th, 2005 at 7:07 pm
How dare you criticize Ahmadinejad’s comments! you racists! Why can’t you understand that our religion demands that Jews must be subjugated under Islam; they cant be rulers in any muslim land!
If you don’t allow muslims to kill Jews who won’t submit, you are violating our right to express our religion which is protected the constitutions of every free nation in the world. That means you are discriminating against muslims and therefore you are “islamaphobic”
I am going to call my CAIR representative and have this website shut down!!
-Allah’u Akbar
October 26th, 2005 at 7:18 pm
Nice try, but please delete.
October 26th, 2005 at 7:27 pm
hey come on you know im being sarcastic… I’m trying to make a point here.
October 26th, 2005 at 9:07 pm
I know you’re being sarcastic. It’s the nom de plume that I think we should lose.
October 27th, 2005 at 3:59 am
Let’s get practical. Would Iran threaten the US? Would North Korea? If either country threatened the US, we could flatten them without any casualties. The media have dictated, and the public agrees whole-heartedly, that taking down a dangerous regime is not worth 2,000 US lives. The time has come to face the consequences of the past 4 years. The US is not going to lift a finger to defend Japan or Taiwan or Israel or any of the corrupt emirates on the Gulf. Did you notice that the Russians have guaranteed a veto of any Security Council action against Syria? It may be wrong for the US to take out the head of another government, but not for Syria. The UN has never and will never do anything about this stuff; and now the US will not either.
October 27th, 2005 at 11:08 am
Your argument would work if these people were sane. Nough said.
October 27th, 2005 at 1:09 pm
sleipner,
“The likelihood of THIS president actually negotiating with and compromising with anyone regarding anything is slim…more likely he’ll bluster useless threats at Iran and then get the guy with the anger management problem at the UN to yell at some people to do it his way or else.”
Just how do you negotiate with someone that wants to ‘wipe you off the map’? What kind of compromise can you make with someone like that?
October 27th, 2005 at 2:47 pm
I’ll grant your point debsay, I was commenting more on the president’s inadequacies than on those of his negotiation target.
I personally think that Iran’s current fundie government will continue their nuclear weapons program unless extreme political pressure is brought to bear on them – and even that may be inadequate.
Fortunately their statements are extreme enough to invite and enable just such an extreme response – we’ll see how things shape up in the near future.
Of course we have no resources left to do anything about it, so we should probably just back off a bit and let the UN or Europe take charge.
October 27th, 2005 at 3:27 pm
We are so used to putting the blame or onus on our pesident to do something regarding matters such as this, although we can act unilaterally regarding military action, it is impossible for diplomatic punishment (i.e. sanctions, embargos, ect) to be imposed unilaterally from the U.S.
Russia is practically building nuclear bombs for the iranians, China is building natural gas pipelines, who knows what french companies are doing. The UN is feckless and obsolete. The Iranian situation would be completely solved in one month if EVERY security council member stood up and boycotted Iran. How can we make China and Russia and Europe give up their investments in Iran? We already have, why can’t they?
October 27th, 2005 at 3:41 pm
Noodles,
This is the ‘whole problem with the UN’. It will never work, because we all have different ‘interests’, we all have different needs, and countries are not going to go against their ‘best interests’. Pretty soon it becomes a paper tiger, nobody takes it serious because they are ‘bound by inaction’ by competing interests. There were bribes (oil-for-food, oil kickbacks to some individuals including an official from France) from Saddam to people in the UN to vote ‘NO’ to the resolution and to work to lift the sanctions….
Add to that the level of corruption that is going on within the UN and we have a ‘big problem’. How does it get corrected? We only have a voice in the UN, who has the authority to correct the problem? What if they decide that they don’t want to ‘listen’?
The UN has to be overhauled and some serious changes need to be made before they have any credibility. I mean, come on, just because you don’t use the ‘genocide’ word, you don’t have to do anything? Just because you have somebody on the council that is being bribed by a rogue nation, they can thwart the wishes of most of the countries? How about punishment for wrong doing???
October 27th, 2005 at 7:41 pm
debsay, I agree with you 100%. I guess my point is that there are certain countries who are ready willing and able to tackle the Iran situation, the United States under the Bush administration being one of them.
If Sh** hits the fan anytime soon, especially if Isreal launces preemptive strikes, everyone is going to blame the U.S, even when it is clear to me that lack of action on account of other countries within the UN is to blame.