Ahmadinejad's return of hostage British sailors as a "present" for the Easter holiday to the "British people" demonstrates two irrefutable truths: (a) Blair was right not to give in on a single point; (b) Ahmadinejad is utterly inept and is flailing about, trying to find some means to gain prestige abroad and legitimacy at home.
Our only regret is that the intrepid Brits were also the polite Brits on departure. Their consent to the smiling, waving photo op seen here, apparently after a quick trip to the suit department of the Tehran Sears and Roebuck, speaks volumes about the polite folkways of their culture but nothing about the creepy reality of the situation. Iran remains a country ruled by wing-nuts, and incompetent ones at that.
So let's keep up our staring contest with them. A blinking wing-nut is safer than an unblinking one. And sooner or later, the internal contradictions of the "Islamic State" will lead to Iran's collapse as a threat, no less than the same happened for the Marxist Soviet Union.
4 comments:
While I think that in the end the Iranians simply found a way to mask their own mistakes, I'm not sure whether, had they stayed the course, we would have not found ways to wimp out ourselves. Note the following from today's NYT
"On Tuesday, an Iranian diplomat held by Iraqi forces for eight weeks was released, and on Wednesday, American officials said they were reviewing an informal request from the Iranian government for an envoy to visit five Iranians imprisoned after an American raid in northern Iraq in January."
I think you're wrong that Ahmadinejad "wimped out". First, the mullahs are the ones pulling his strings and secondly, the mullahs achieved their purposes, i.e., for 13 days the focus of the whole world was on this third world country that had the Brits on their knees! While it is true “Blair did not give in” he was hardly a pillar of strength. In my view he was “wimpy”.
Mullahs = 1 Brits = 0
Why does the world and especially the US continue to capitulate to the demands of this false religion and continue to view it as a “peaceful” religion? The world needs to know that Allah is an evil god and Islam is a man-made religion founded by a pedophile. It is the basic tenant of Islam that men die and go to heaven and spend eternity with a certain amount of “virgins”. I ask, “What kind of heaven is it for these women. To be forever the sex slaves of these men?” The fact is Islam is a penis-driven religion! Why else would they force their women into mobile prisons? Why else would they practice genital mutilation?
St. Jamie and Cookie remind us that the West can find a way to interpret every victory as a defeat.
I think the bigger victory, here, is that Ahmadinejad has now set a precedent for all of Iran and the Middle East to see (and, perhaps, follow): the (relatively) fair and humane treatment of foreigners. Of course, he can always revert to his former ways, but only at the risk of admitting to his peers, his followers, and the entire Islamic community that he made a mistake in this case--something I'm sure even he would want to steer clear of. It's a small victory, no doubt, but a positive one, no less.
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