Much as I don't like the guy - and I say that knowing that I have never met him so I only know what I read and hear - doesn't it seem not unreasonable (and I use the word in its correct definition) for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Iranians to be getting nervous?
Think about it: Imagine you're Ahmed Mahoummed from Tehran. Not 5 years ago a foreign power invaded/liberated a country on your eastern border - they're still there; 3 years later the same power liberates the country on your western border - they're still there. And to your south is the Navy of the power engaged in permanent manoeuvres - still there.
The power on your eastern border has some 300,000 highly trained and well-equipped troops, spy satellites, bunker busters, and nuclear weapons. They are also saying that they have the nuclear wapons only for peaceful purposes, yet they are also the only nation that has ever used them.
So it is not a paranoid response to want to appear tough by rattling sabres. When the USSR decided to put nuclear weapons in Cuba, does anyone think that the US reaction was "paranoid?" Wasn't rattling the sabre a totally reasonable response? And look at the flap the US is in at the moment because of the immigrants from our borders? If we feel like we're threatened by invasion from Mexican laborers - who I don't believe have nuclear weapons, a skilled fighting force, and deep pockets - isn't it rather easy to see how the Iranians must feel?
I appreciate that it is very difficult to imagine the point of view of others, but just calling the Iranians "crazy," "zealots," "fanatics," and so on using the rhetoric of belligerence, doesn't help. The ability for humans to use language to make other humans seem less-than-human is spectacularly demonstrated on a day-to-day basis. It wouldn't take a PhD in Media Studies and Semiotics to see how even all our postings contain insidious (and no so insidious) uses of language to frame arguments in our favor - how many times has "if your not with us, you with them" appeared in these hallowed virtual halls? And clanrickarde's "A good ****** whuppin always serves to adjust the thought process of any bully including potential bullies in training" pretty well outlines one perspective - though it raises the question of "who's the bully" considering that as I far as I am aware, the only "good whuppins" going on at the moment are in Afghanistan and Iraq, by folks from the most technologically advanced nation using superior firepower, against third-world peasants with conscript armies, most of whom never wanted to fight in the first place.
And the "potential bullies" is a linguistic blank check to carry out pre-emptive actions against anyone who can be considered a "bully." So WHO decides who is a bully and who isn't? Who has the call? Me? Dwight? Bob down the street? The POTUS?
And while I'm rolling; in what sense is Iran a "bully?" I mean, apart from the fight with the Iraquis some 20 years ago, and the internal squabble of their revolution in the late 70's, how many other countries has Iran bullied?
Contrast, too, the current attitude toward Iran with that of North Korea - yes, he of the bad haircut and the nuclear weapons. Why, for the love of Pete, are folks all in a snit about Iran when Kim Jong Il is actually saying "hey dudes, I have nukes" and no-one seems to want to listen? Now there's a scarier regime than Iran.
One last thought experiment: If foreign troops were in Canada and Mexico, if foreign gunships were off the east coast, and if foreing troops were setting up camps inside our borders, just how differently from Iranians would we behave? Do you think we'd be invoking our 2nd amendment right to form "militia" and meet them full on? Would we have counter-insurgency plans in effect? Would we be sinking their boats full of tea in Boston harbour?
You bet!
Siggy
