Iran Question

Back during the eight years from 1997-2005 when Iran had a relatively moderate, non-frothing-at-the-mouth President, the neocons constantly assured us that he was just a figurehead and had no real power. Now that the Iranians have elected a mouth-frother as President. the neocons are telling us that the new President has absolute life-or-death power and will no doubt plunge the world into nuclear war on his whim.

For example, here's Niall Ferguson's "future history" article in the Telegraph: " The origins of the Great War of 2007:"

A seminal moment was the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's intemperate attack on Israel in December 2005, when he called the Holocaust a 'myth'. The state of Israel was a 'disgraceful blot', he had previously declared, to be wiped 'off the map'. Prior to 2007, the Islamists had seen no alternative but to wage war against their enemies by means of terrorism. From the Gaza to Manhattan, the hero of 2001 was the suicide bomber. Yet Ahmadinejad, a veteran of the Iran-Iraq War, craved a more serious weapon than strapped-on explosives...

The devastating nuclear exchange of August 2007 represented not only the failure of diplomacy, it marked the end of the oil age. Some even said it marked the twilight of the West. Certainly, that was one way of interpreting the subsequent spread of the conflict as Iraq's Shi'ite population overran the remaining American bases in their country and the Chinese threatened to intervene on the side of Teheran.

Yet the historian is bound to ask whether or not the true significance of the 2007-2011 war was to vindicate the Bush administration's original principle of pre-emption. For, if that principle had been adhered to in 2006, Iran's nuclear bid might have been thwarted at minimal cost. And the Great Gulf War might never have happened.

So, which is it with the Iranian presidency: powerless figurehead or absolute autocrat?

By the way, you'll note that Ferguson can't bring himself to explain who starts this "devastating nuclear exchange of August 2007" even though it's his own scenario! Presumably, the only conceivable storyline he could come up with that sounded at all believable is is that Israel nukes Iran, then Iran takes its one or two working bombs and somehow slips them through Israel's defenses to nuke Tel Aviv, after which Israel takes its 100 or more remaining nukes and flattens most of Iran. Although this has a certain grim plausibility -- after all, Israel fired first in four of its five wars (although it had various kinds of justification) -- he won't admit in print that that's what he's talking about.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer