Expert Mother tongue: English Posts: 1807 Joined: February 1, 2008 Location: United States
RE: Situation in Iran
I think that Iran's main foreign policy goal is the following:
a. Be the main Muslim power in the world
b. Dominate the Middle East.
Subordinate to those goals are things like acquiring nuclear weapons. I personally do not think that negotiation will do a lot here, because there is really no middle ground here. If Iran wants to dominate the Mid-East and Persian Gulf, and other states want it not to (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, the U.S., etc.), there really is no room to negotiate. You either dominate the region, or you do not (you are either Nr. 1, or not).
Also, the danger here is not so much Iran using a nuke, but a spiraling arms race: Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Turkey then arming themselves with nukes, to defend against Iran.
The real "use" of such a weapon would be something like this: Iran uses conventional forces or various guerilla or terrorist forces in the Gulf, and then the U.S. cannot use its army for fear of the Iranians dropping a nuke on an infantry division. That would be probably sufficient to inhibit U.S. conventional forces, and thus would provide a "shield" for Iran in the region, to do what it wants.
Iran, I have no doubt, will continue to fund and support terror groups (Hezbollah and Hamas) in the entire region, and continue to destabilize the region (Lebanon and Israel) through those groups.
... no it was not, as Obama has indirectly or directly stated, been all a misunderstanding, caused by the Bush administration (not all conflicts go back just to 2000, some go back even further !!).
BTW, I personally believe that a big part of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 was to punish and inhibit the Saudis, by taking away their "Sunni shield" (Saddam Hussein) against the Shiites and Iran.
Many problems in international relations are intractable and cannot be negotiated, because the oppposing sides just want something totally different, and think that this is one case of that. We just have to try to manage the situation, and not allow it to totally "blow up" (no pun intended). Attacking Iran would be hugely counterproductive, because the "Muslim world" would rally around Iran, and Iran wants that.
[Edited by John Bunch on October 30, 2009 12:42 PM]
Mother tongue: Polish Joined: February 18, 2003 Location: Poland
RE: Situation in Iran
Originally written by John Bunch on October 30, 2009 6:34 PM
I think that Iran's main foreign policy goal is the following: a. Be the main Muslim power in the world b. Dominate the Middle East.
It doesn't bother me at all as long as they behave rationally, comply with treaties, talk, are open to inspections, etc., as suggested in that article.
So you'd rather stir up that hornets' nest with little games and dirty wars like when you say
I personally believe that a big part of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 was to punish and inhibit the Saudis, by taking away their "Sunni shield" (Saddam Hussein) against the Shiites and Iran.
Expert Mother tongue: English Posts: 1807 Joined: February 1, 2008 Location: United States
RE: Situation in Iran
No, I call it "power politics" and "payback"...
Regarding Iran playing by the rules, being rational, and following treaties, that is about the same chance as Linsday Lohan never partying again. i.e. zero. What makes you think that a major Shiite power whose religion involves the belief in the end of the world brought on by a major war against non-Islamic powers (and within Islam) is a "rational actor" ? That to me seems to be a very tall order. Iran since 1979 has never abided by reason and treaties and logic and all that good stuff. Arming Hezbollah and Hamas to blow up civilians also doesn't qualify.
Mother tongue: Polish Joined: February 18, 2003 Location: Poland
RE: Situation in Iran
Originally written by John Bunch on October 30, 2009 7:41 PM
What makes you think that a major Shiite power whose religion involves the belief in the end of the world brought on by a major war against non-Islamic powers (and within Islam) is a "rational actor" ?
The same that makes me think that the other side, who believes in Rapture (Post #54019, Post #67850), can ever be rational too...
Expert Mother tongue: English Posts: 1807 Joined: February 1, 2008 Location: United States
RE: Situation in Iran
Rationality is a (European) Enlightenment value. Not only was there no Reformation within Islam, as there was in the 1500s in Christianity, but there was no Enlightenment. So it is a very tall order to expect the imams and Shiite clerics to act as if they had been reading Voltaire and Rousseau and John Locke.
I recall hearing a British woman on NPR (National Public Radio) here in the U.S., discussing having lived in Saudi Arabia. She said that a baby fell to its death from a building in the town she lived in. But no one blamed the parents, they talked about it being "the will of Allah". This is a very, very different mentality than what we have in the West, of reason and science.
[Edited by John Bunch on October 30, 2009 2:19 PM]
Expert Mother tongue: English Posts: 1807 Joined: February 1, 2008 Location: United States
RE: Situation in Iran
Easier said than done. I personally don't like just rolling down the curtains and letting the rest of the world do what it wants. When we Americans do that, we get accused of "not caring". In fact, that was the critique coming from Europe and in particular France in the first 6 months of the Bush (W) administration: the Americans over there in their SUVs, and in their malls, not caring, as the world goes to hell... Should we stand by as the Shiites kill the Sunnis in Iraq (or the Iraqis the Kuwaitis, or the Turks the Kurds, or the Pakistanis the Hindus, etc.), or try to moderate that issue and do what we can (the opposite would be to say "If we cannot be perfect, we cannot be good, and might as well not try). I personally would rather do what I can. The U.S. is by no means perfect, but - ideally - can have positive effects around the world, under Bush, or Clinton, or Obama.
[Edited by John Bunch on October 30, 2009 3:28 PM]
Mother tongue: Polish Joined: February 18, 2003 Location: Poland
RE: Situation in Iran
"Most important, the Obama administration is ignoring the altered international order that has emerged in the wake of the global financial crisis triggered by Wall Street's excesses. While its stimulus package, funded by taxpayers and foreign borrowing, has arrested the decline in the nation's gross domestic product, Washington has done little to pull the world economy out of the doldrums. That task—performed by the U.S. in recent recessions—has fallen willy-nilly to China. History repeatedly shows that such economic clout sooner or later translates into diplomatic power. …
When it comes to the nuclear conundrum, what distinguishes China and Russia from the U.S. is that they have conferred unconditional diplomatic recognition and acceptance on the Islamic Republic of Iran. So their commercial and diplomatic links with Tehran are thriving. Indeed, a sub-structure of pipelines and economic alliances between hydrocarbon-rich Russia, Iran, and energy-hungry China is now being forged. In other words, the foundation is being laid for the emergence of a Russia-Iran-China diplomatic triad in the not-too-distant future, while Washington remains stuck in an old groove of imposing "punishing" sanctions against Tehran for its nuclear program.
Tehran and Washington
There is, of course, a deep and painful legacy of animosity and ill-feeling between the 30-year-old Islamic Republic of Iran and the U.S. Iran was an early victim of Washington's subversive activities when the six-year-old CIA overthrew the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Muhammad Mussadiq in 1953. That scar on Iran's body politic has not healed yet. Half a century later, the Iranians watched the Bush administration invade neighboring Iraq and overthrow its president, Saddam Hussein, on trumped-up charges involving his supposed program to produce weapons of mass destruction.
Iran's leaders know that during his second term in office—as Seymour Hersh revealed in the New Yorker—Bush authorized a clandestine CIA program with a budget of $400 million to destabilize the Iranian regime. They are also aware that the CIA has focused on stoking disaffection among Sunni ethnic minorities in Shiite-ruled Iran. These include ethnic Arabs in the oil-rich province of Khuzistan adjoining Iraq, and ethnic Baluchis in Sistan-Baluchistan Province abutting the Pakistani province of Baluchistan. …"
Expert Mother tongues: English, German Posts: 7848 Joined: September 26, 2003 Location: Canada
RE: Situation in Iran
I'm still on the edges of knowledge and in the middle of studying history (music history - but you need history for that) - In regards to:
Not only was there no Reformation within Islam, as there was in the 1500s in Christianity, but there was no Enlightenment.
The trail that I have followed so far is roughly thus:
The Greeks had a fair bit of knowledge, which got written down. Then with the fall of the Roman Empire, the official start of Christianity, Constantine had his "with this sign shall you conquer" thing and moved the whole shebang to Constantiple, previously Byzantium, presently Istanbul. The writings and knowledge went with it. Then we had the split between East and West of the Christian world. If I have it right, our Western part was busy beating the daylights out of each other with their knights, small kingdoms and whatever. Maybe the East did too, but maybe in a more sophisticated manner. Unfortunately for some weird reason even if we do get to learn history in school, rather than 10 years of "Discovery of America", the Byzantine Empire gets left out.
Anyway, at some point Islam starts, and at some point Byzantium is conquered. The religious climate at that time pushed for learning, science and such, so the conquering Arabs got busy studying all the scientific and philosophical material in Byzantium. They transcribed the Greek writings into Arabic, spread the information, and their scientists etc. got busy working on those various things. The ended up holding this knowledge and expanding it.
Some time later this reverted back to the West. The knowledge that had been tucked away in Byzantium got spread back into Western Europe. They made extensive use of the Arab Muslim scholars who had transcribed and then worked with that knowledge. When this information came to be in main Europe, the "Enlightenment" also happened. There's a documentary that suggests there is a link.
Now - if the Enlightenment involved acquiring the ideas and knowledge which was held in Byzantium, and which the Arabs were acquiring and expanding on, then there is no sense to the idea tha the Arabs needed to subsequently acquire what they had already acquired.
Of course things might have worked a little bit backward after that, and I didn't study it. But that's the bit that I have.
Forums Disclaimer: The views expressed in the forums are those of the authors and are not necessarily the views of the site owner and/or moderators. If the reader considers a post to cause offence, then she or he should address a complaint to the moderator of the forum concerned. The complaint should be dealt with within 24 hours, but please respect the fact that the moderator may be living in a different time zone. Use of the forums signifies your agreement with the Forum Posting Rules.
Language, Literature, Arts, Religion, Other 
TC Mobile |
Forum Settings |
Log On
BTW, I personally believe that a big part of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 was to punish and inhibit the Saudis, by taking away their "Sunni shield" (Saddam Hussein) against the Shiites and Iran.
Many problems in international relations are intractable and cannot be negotiated, because the oppposing sides just want something totally different, and think that this is one case of that. We just have to try to manage the situation, and not allow it to totally "blow up" (no pun intended). Attacking Iran would be hugely counterproductive, because the "Muslim world" would rally around Iran, and Iran wants that.
Reply
Quote
Edit
Delete