Posted in political on September 6th, 2006
Standing at an estimated 5′ 4″ (no one seems to know for sure), Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the current president of Iran, doesn’t really strike you as a threatening character. In fact, most of the pictures I’ve seen of him show him with a rather pleasant smile. He does however; remind me a bit of Marvin the Martian from the old Bugs Bunny cartoons, a short little guy from another planet who has an arsenal of giant weapons for one purpose, to destroy the Earth. So exactly where did this Islamic Napoleon come from? What are his true goals? And most importantly, should we worried about the man who once said, “Israel should be wiped off the map.” and now appears close to having a nuclear weapon?
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, (pronounced mah-MOUD ah-mah-dih-nee-ZHAD) was born in the small town of Garnsar, Iran in 1956. He was the 4th son out of 7 children born to an middle class ironworker. He served in the Iran-Iraq war through the early 80’s in the Special Forces and when the war ended, went on to get his Doctorate in engineering and traffic transportation planning at the University of Science and Technology in Tehran. In early 2005 he ran for President against cleric Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on a platform of the common working man vs. the wealthy and politically-connected. On June 24, 2005, he won the election by nearly a 2 to 1 margin, becoming the first non-cleric President of Iran in 24 years. Well, once again, he doesn’t seem all that bad or threatening to me.
So what’s got everyone’s undies in a bunch over this Tiny Tyrant? Is it because he says outright what most of the Middle East says privately? No, I think to get a better understanding of Mr. Ahmadinejad, you have to look at the little things he has said or done that are less obvious.
Mr. Ahmadinejad wasn’t just in the Special Forces, he was the Iranian equivalent of a CIA spook. He was a Senior Commander of the elite Qods Force of the IRGC, who’s basic function was to assassinate enemies of the state. Far from being a Liberal, or even a moderate, Ahmadinejad was supported by the Guardian Council, a council of strict, traditionalist Muslim Clerics who are the actual power structure of Iran. The goal of the Guardian Council is to form a sort of Ideological false Democracy, who would then put a face on the presidency while controlling the government from within the Mosques. All of this is done to falsely appease Europe by making it appear to be a freely elected government, while all the time moving more and more power to the Clerics to form a theological government with Fundamentalist Islamic rule. Ahmadinejad also had the support of the Supreme Leader of Iran, the Ayattollah Khamenei. The Ayattollah already controlled the media in Iran, and through religion, most of its population. Now with a puppet President to do his bidding, he is poised to control foreign affairs as well.
Since Ahmadinejad was elected, he has quickly moved Iran from a near Democracy to a therocratic state. With all the clerics behind him, Ahmadinejad has made a string of changes in Iran. Men are now required to wear mustaches and beards; women have to wear the traditional hajibs. Liberal or secular professors have been banned from University campuses (the opposite of what we do here, check out my previous column Freedom of Speech Dies at Harvard). Satellites for radio or T.V. have been banned and websites deemed unsuitable by the government have been blocked. When confronted by other countries, Ahmadinejad laughs off these accusations by asking, “And you don’t have trouble with your youths?”
One thing that is very important for all of you to understand about the politics of the Middle East is that they learned a long time ago that we (meaning the U.S. and Europe) are a little naive when it comes to being lied to. If there’s a chance that peace can be brokered through diplomacy, we will risk trusting absolute liars over and over again. A great movie that shows this is “Mars Attacks“, particularly the scene where Jack Nicholson, after the invading Martians have destroyed all of Congress, is meeting with his cabinet. Looking around the room at the stunned faces before him he states, “You know, I’m starting to not trust these guys.” This is the policy that cripples us when dealing with Middle East leaders.
Ahmadinejad, for his part, is probably the most honest of all the Middle East leaders. Since G. W. has stupidly tied up all of our troups in Iraq, Ahmadinejad has wisely concluded that Bush has no real good options to stop Iran from interfearing in Iraq or getting a nuclear weapon. That leaves stopping Iran up to the United Nations, which is nothing more than a small barking dog, or Europe, which is a bigger dog afraid to even bark. So confident is Ahmadinejad of this that he laughs out loud at U.N. threats of sanctions, or Europe’s idle complaints. This leaves me with no other conclusion than to believe that we will soon be dealing with a nuclear armed Iraq.
Now, exactly how bad is this for the world? Well, once again the political cards have been shuffled and a new nuclear country has to be added. With every new country comes increased possibility of a nuclear weapon getting into the wrong hands. Is this any different than when India or Pakistan went nuclear? No. But, the odds of something bad happening are indeed getting greater, and we should all be concerned. My guess is that Iraq, like other countries before it, will be afraid of the consequences of being tied to a nuclear terrorist attack. But it only takes one nutty group to overthrow one of these governments and a bomb is theirs. That is, and should be, one of the world’s greatest fears. We should not take that threat lightly. H.C.
Standing at an estimated 5′ 4″ (no one seems to know for sure), Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the current president of Iran, doesn’t really strike you as a threatening character. In fact, most of the pictures I’ve seen of him show him with a rather pleasant smile. He does however; remind me a bit of Marvin the Martian from the old Bugs Bunny cartoons, a short little guy from another planet who has an arsenal of giant weapons for one purpose, to destroy the Earth. So exactly where did this Islamic Napoleon come from? What are his true goals? And most importantly, should we worried about the man who once said, “Israel should be wiped off the map.” and now appears close to having a nuclear weapon?
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, (pronounced mah-MOUD ah-mah-dih-nee-ZHAD) was born in the small town of Garnsar, Iran in 1956. He was the 4th son out of 7 children born to an middle class ironworker. He served in the Iran-Iraq war through the early 80’s in the Special Forces and when the war ended, went on to get his Doctorate in engineering and traffic transportation planning at the University of Science and Technology in Tehran. In early 2005 he ran for President against cleric Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on a platform of the common working man vs. the wealthy and politically-connected. On June 24, 2005, he won the election by nearly a 2 to 1 margin, becoming the first non-cleric President of Iran in 24 years. Well, once again, he doesn’t seem all that bad or threatening to me.
So what’s got everyone’s undies in a bunch over this Tiny Tyrant? Is it because he says outright what most of the Middle East says privately? No, I think to get a better understanding of Mr. Ahmadinejad, you have to look at the little things he has said or done that are less obvious.
Mr. Ahmadinejad wasn’t just in the Special Forces, he was the Iranian equivalent of a CIA spook. He was a Senior Commander of the elite Qods Force of the IRGC, who’s basic function was to assassinate enemies of the state. Far from being a Liberal, or even a moderate, Ahmadinejad was supported by the Guardian Council, a council of strict, traditionalist Muslim Clerics who are the actual power structure of Iran. The goal of the Guardian Council is to form a sort of Ideological false Democracy, who would then put a face on the presidency while controlling the government from within the Mosques. All of this is done to falsely appease Europe by making it appear to be a freely elected government, while all the time moving more and more power to the Clerics to form a theological government with Fundamentalist Islamic rule. Ahmadinejad also had the support of the Supreme Leader of Iran, the Ayattollah Khamenei. The Ayattollah already controlled the media in Iran, and through religion, most of its population. Now with a puppet President to do his bidding, he is poised to control foreign affairs as well.
Since Ahmadinejad was elected, he has quickly moved Iran from a near Democracy to a therocratic state. With all the clerics behind him, Ahmadinejad has made a string of changes in Iran. Men are now required to wear mustaches and beards; women have to wear the traditional hajibs. Liberal or secular professors have been banned from University campuses (the opposite of what we do here, check out my previous column Freedom of Speech Dies at Harvard). Satellites for radio or T.V. have been banned and websites deemed unsuitable by the government have been blocked. When confronted by other countries, Ahmadinejad laughs off these accusations by asking, “And you don’t have trouble with your youths?”
One thing that is very important for all of you to understand about the politics of the Middle East is that they learned a long time ago that we (meaning the U.S. and Europe) are a little naive when it comes to being lied to. If there’s a chance that peace can be brokered through diplomacy, we will risk trusting absolute liars over and over again. A great movie that shows this is “Mars Attacks“, particularly the scene where Jack Nicholson, after the invading Martians have destroyed all of Congress, is meeting with his cabinet. Looking around the room at the stunned faces before him he states, “You know, I’m starting to not trust these guys.” This is the policy that cripples us when dealing with Middle East leaders.
Ahmadinejad, for his part, is probably the most honest of all the Middle East leaders. Since G. W. has stupidly tied up all of our troups in Iraq, Ahmadinejad has wisely concluded that Bush has no real good options to stop Iran from interfearing in Iraq or getting a nuclear weapon. That leaves stopping Iran up to the United Nations, which is nothing more than a small barking dog, or Europe, which is a bigger dog afraid to even bark. So confident is Ahmadinejad of this that he laughs out loud at U.N. threats of sanctions, or Europe’s idle complaints. This leaves me with no other conclusion than to believe that we will soon be dealing with a nuclear armed Iraq.
Now, exactly how bad is this for the world? Well, once again the political cards have been shuffled and a new nuclear country has to be added. With every new country comes increased possibility of a nuclear weapon getting into the wrong hands. Is this any different than when India or Pakistan went nuclear? No. But, the odds of something bad happening are indeed getting greater, and we should all be concerned. My guess is that Iraq, like other countries before it, will be afraid of the consequences of being tied to a nuclear terrorist attack. But it only takes one nutty group to overthrow one of these governments and a bomb is theirs. That is, and should be, one of the world’s greatest fears. We should not take that threat lightly. H.C.
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