Protesting and nuclear bombast spewing from Tehran

An interesting piece in the Times today.


The "green" protests seem to have been contained with relative ease by the Basiji/security forces and never reached "critical mass." Are Ahmadinejad and Khameini revving up their nuclear rhetoric to deflect growing domestic unrest? It would certainly appear so. At the same time, however, they are giving a healthy and hearty 'Fuck You' to the West. Obama has been made to look foolish by this year's 'outstretched and unclenched fist' year of negotiations debacle, especially when his similar outreach to China has been thrown back in his face repeatedly (Chinese Premier's Wen Jiabo's refusal to meet with Obama in Copenhagen, and his replacement by a mid-level official, is particularly embarrasing). When first announced, I was in favor of giving Obama's method a chance. No question Bush's "with us or against us" policy created difficulties with our Western allies. At this point, however, it's hard for me to see the US as anything more then appeasers of Iran's complete disregard for the concerns of the West.



Would an attack on Iran be smooth or even succesful? There is no doubt that it's highly risky, and at the worst would open a can of worms that could take a generation to get under control. In addition, as Bush II showed in Iraq II, if you threaten force, and are ignored, you pretty much have to use it--but I think anything other then muscle-flexing is allowing the Iranians to inherent world security. Obama's true value will be in building a coalition to confront Iran. How he will ever get the Chinese on board, I have no idea, but new negotiations or sanctions without their cooperation are a joke...and it's on us.

This next link is to a Charlie Rose debate with The Atlantic's Jeff Goldberg, Ethan Bronner of the NY Times (interesting side note- he is in a bit of ethical hot water as his son has recently enlisted in the IDF), The Wall Street Journal'sBret Stephens and Abbas Milani of Stanford University.

Milani brings up the oft-proposed idea that an attack or increased pressure on Iran would be the only way to ensure the survival of the regime, and that the internal collapse of the regime is "imminent." I find this to be complete nonsense. While an attack might indeed rally the country around the government, banking on the internal pressures to topple the Islamic Republic is bankrupt foreign policy. No one has any way of knowing if the regime can withstand 5 months, 5 years or 50 years of internal pressures. To build our foreign policy, and allow the Iranians to develop Nuclear weapons because we think some students can bring down a regime with one of the most effective track records of domestic repression, is pure folly.