Caught in the Grinder

Sometimes we the little people are at a loss when it comes to the machinations of international relations.  We sit back and scratch our heads over the nuances of diplomacy.  We wonder who is "signaling" what with vague phrasing and clues and seemingly innocuous language that is full of portent.  Sometimes, most of the time, the tedium of the diplomatic wrangle just gets to us and we just want to shout, "JUST SAY WHAT YOU MEAN!" but, when someone does, all heck breaks loose.

Right now of course, Iran is really making us, America, mad.  Supposedly.  In response, the government, via speeches by the Secretary of State and remarks from our president, we are to understand that Iran's government is irresponsible, is a state sponsor of terrorism, is well on its way to developing nuclear weapons, is repressive and brutal to its people, and so on, and so on.  So, what are we doing about it?  

We are talking (see above) and we are turning Iranians who are coming to the US for alumni reunions back at their port of entry.  We are cutting  government  funding  for Iranian opposition groups.  We are broadcasting American news and messages of support a grand total of three hours a week.  In short, as has been the case for all of the Bush presidency, there has been no policy about Iran, no focus.  This is utterly astounding considering how important Iran's presence and influence in the region where 90% of our international focus is.  On Fox News Sunday, Newt Gingrich outlined what we should be doing:

WALLACE: Well, wait. Wait, wait. How do you confront how dangerous Iran is?

GINGRICH: Well, you have a -- there's a reporter at Fox who is Iranian who can tell you chapter and verse about how many people there are in Iran who don't like the current regime, how many opportunities there are to begin to undermine it, how many things we could be doing if we were broadcasting into Iran more than three hours a week. I mean, the fact is we have not had a Ronald Reagan-style effort to use every element short of the military to -- both diplomatic, economic, political information, to change these regimes.

And I think we also have to win the argument in Europe. Three quick examples. Ahmadinejad, every time he calls for the elimination or the destruction of Israel, is violating U.N. Charter chapter two. There ought to be a motion to censure him.

The cost of the Lebanese war should be borne by Syria and Iran because if they weren't financing and supplying Hezbollah, there would be no problem there.

The third example is the Iranians' certain involvement in Iraq, which we don't, frankly, take head on for a variety of reasons, but which is a real problem.

And I think that the United States has to -- because I believe this is, in the long run, life and death because of the threat of nuclear weapons, the United States has to redouble and rethink what we are doing, because this isn't good enough.

But the answer is to make sure we win, not to find a clever way to surrender and pull out.

Um..,yes.   Newt is also calling for Iran and Syria to bear the cost of the current war in Lebanon.  Even if you think, "Fat chance," it's still important to  keep hammering the point for the sake of justice.  They are supporting and encouraging Hezbollah, the aggressor: why shouldn't they bear the cost?  Contrast what Speaker Gingrich says to what a Bush administration policy maker told David Brooks:

"The odds are there will be sanctions against Iran by the end of the year, though how strong I don't know. We're trying to build a successful government in Iraq. We have to get out from under the blow to our authority caused by the torture and detainee issues. And we have to get aggressive on the Palestinian problem. That's essential to strengthen moderate [Muslim] regimes.

We're not going to be spending as much blood or treasure as over the past few years. We have to make up for it with diplomacy backed by a hint of steel."

What exactly does "Get aggressive on the Palestinian problem" mean?  If the past several years are any indication, it means some diplomacy with no hint of anything.  Apparently, supplies of testosterone are on the wane in the Bush White House.  Worse still is the glossing with a hint of defeatism that reveals not only a demoralized, vision-less leadership, but a short-timer attitude.  This passage virtually screams, "In two more years, we are outta here."

I'm looking at this and getting a bit depressed.  But I can always turn to NPR for the real news and insight.   Apparently, the State Department decided to flex a little muscle and refuse entry to a group of Iranian visitors.  I found this story mildly interesting for a couple of reasons.  First, it is fairly typical for any country to show its displeasure with another country by limiting immigration and tourism.  There is the inconsistency within the story.  The reporter says that Sharif University reunion counted 80 members who were turned back, the immigration attorney said 120.  The immigration attorney is of course calling all of this shameful because these fellows had all received security clearances months ago, that they could have been told in Europe that they would be denied entry to the US, etc.  Yeah, shameful.  It didn't say in the story, but I think all of the detainees were alive and kicking when they left.  Talk to the Canadians about what Iran does to foreigners it doesn't like.  While I think that ascribing any method or actual competence to the State Department is foolish, it is completely plausible that they thought the better of letting so many scientists from Iran into the US at one time.  I mean, it might actually give us a chance to get information  from them, instead of alienating some well educated but putatively ordinary citizens.  I mean, if anyone in our government would actually be interested. 

I can't decide which is the bigger waste of time, this story or the State Department's paltry efforts.This we will lump in with the vast arsenal of Schlappschwanz "signals" that we are unhappy with Hitler Ahmadinejad.

 

Potty Mouth

We at Quid are always very interested in what people say, what words they use, and who's doing the talking.  A couple of my loyal readers are in the language biz, and they always seem to appreciate it when I delve into that stuff, notably in a piece about inclusive language Psalms and news out of Britain about the schools not using the word "fail" because it's too loaded and connotes...uh....failure. 

Recently, George Bush said the "s" word with his mouth full of  what looked to be cream puff.

Aside: Mr. Bush weighs more than he did last year, despite the novel technique of jettisoning redundant calories at other heads of state in a sort of gustatory premature ejaculation: clearly a deferred success weight loss program. End aside.

I would like to redirect everyone's attention to what he actually said.  Below is the transcript of the entire conversation, which reveals Bush's executive approach.  In a few lines, he covers a lot of ground.  He doesn't get into details because lunch on the last day of the G8 summit isn't the time or the place.  It's part polite banter, it's part action items and it establishes who is talking to whom, and finally, it's a note of frustration with respect to the UN not doing it's job.  He doesn't dwell on it: after sixty years of criminal non-performance, I'm sure that if the UN actually did something constructive and helpful for world peace, the expletive in question would be an amazed, "Damn!"  I have scanned a number of news reports and opinion pieces, left and right, commenting on this incident.  Michelle Malkin simply says that sometimes an expletive is justified.  While that may be true, in this context, it's beside the point.  On the left side of the dial, Liberals are shocked shocked that Bush said a naughty word, that his view of the world is so shallow that he can boil down this incredibly complex situation to a phrase that includes the word [poopy.]  But do they disagree with the substance of what he said?  Yes, for a number of reasons but we'll just look at the top two.  First, to have the temerity to hold anyone accountable for doing the right thing is anathema to the Left.  In one short phrase Bush blamed Syria for supporting the belligerent, and the UN for not exercising its power and influence to stop them.  But you say, doesn't the Left want peace?  No, especially not now.  If the UN/Kofi really did step in and tell "Bashad" to stop this shit, they would be simultaneously doing the principled thing, doing their job and supporting George Bush, the trifecta of Leftist Cardinal Sins.  This last, supporting George Bush, is what the American Left and all of the world's corrupt bureaucrats, tyrrants, despots, dictators and duly elected socialist governments, do not want to do under any circumstances.  If arming terrorists hurts George Bush (and America) great; if innocents die, if Hezbollah commits war crimes, if Iran goes ballistic, and this hurts George Bush (and America), excellent.  If, as an added bonus, the Jews are exterminated, so much the better.

Apart from all of this, does anyone besides me think that it's rich to a hypocritical fare-thee-well that Democrats and the Leftist are upset about how it looks for the President to use the word "shit"?  I've read transcripts of John "Effing" Kerry's campaign events and planning and it's all f*ck all the time and frankly, the entire left half of the country practically had a collective climax when he said "f*ck" in an interview with Rolling Stone.  Reading liberal blogs is like wading through a sewer.  And please, someone speak up and tell me who on the Left was troubled by the revelation that Yasser Arafat was cooling his heals in the Rose Garden while Bill Clinton was exploiting a woman in the Oval Office (I don't care if she did consent to become a human humidor.)   Oh, I'm sorry, it's not the same thing at all: his mouth wasn't full. 

Here's the transcript, from Adam Boulton's Weblog (SkyNews):

Bush: Yo Blair How are you doing?
Blair: I'm just...
Bush: You're leaving?
Blair: No, no, no not yet. On this trade thingy...[inaudible]
Bush: yeah I told that to the man
Blair: Are you planning to say that here or not?
Bush: If you want me to
Blair: Well, it's just that if the discussion arises...
Bush: I just want some movement.
Blair: Yeah
Bush: Yesterday we didn't see much movement
Blair: No, no, it may be that it's not, it maybe that it's impossible
Bush: I am prepared to say it
Blair: But it's just I think what we need to be an opposition
Bush: Who is introducing the trade
Blair: Angela
Bush: Tell her to call 'em
Blair: Yes
Bush: Tell her to put him on them on the spot.Thanks for the sweaters it's awfully thoughtful of you
Blair: It's a pleasure
Bush: I know you picked it out yourself
Blair: Oh, absoultely, in fact I knitted it myself
BUSH: "Right . . . What about Kofi? That seems odd. I don't like the sequence of it. His attitude is basically ceasefire and everything else happens."

BLAIR: "I think the thing that is really difficult is you can't stop this unless you get this international presence agreed." . . .
Bush: Yeah
Blair: I don't know what you guys have talked about but as I say I am perfectly happy to try and see what the lie of the land is but you need that done quickly because otherwise it will spiral
Bush: I think Condi is going to go pretty soon
Blair: But that's that's that's all that matters. But if you, you see it will take some time to get that together
Bush: Yeah, yeah
Blair: But at least it gives people...
Bush: It's a process, I agree. I told her your offer to...
Blair: Well...it's only if I mean... you know. If she's got a..., or if she needs the ground prepared as it were... Because obviously if she goes out, she's got to succeed, if it were, whereas I can go out and just talk
Bush: You see, the ... thing is what they need to do is to get Syria, to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over
Blair: [inaudible]
Bush: [inaudible]
Blair: Syria
Bush: Why?
Blair: Because I think this is all part of the same thing
Bush: Yeah.
Blair: What does he think? He thinks if Lebanon turns out fine, if we get a solution in Israel and Palestine, Iraq goes in the right way...
Bush: Yeah, yeah, he is sweet
Blair: He is honey. And that's what the whole thing is about. It's the same with Iraq
Bush: I felt like telling Kofi to call, to get on the phone to Bashad [Bashir Assad] and make something happen
Blair: Yeah
Bush: [inaudible]
Blair:
Bush: We are not blaming the Lebanese government
Blair: Is this...? (at this point Blair taps the microphone in front of him and the sound is cut.)

Unfortunately, I was right.

A year ago I was blogging my little heart out about what creep Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was (here, and here, e.g.).  It wasn't like I had an inside track or anything: there is a ton of info in English and Pharsee.  The best all around site, of course, is RegimeChangeIran.  Fellow blogger Will Franklin even blogged the election from the expat polling place in Houston, before he was rudely hustled off by the Iranian version of the Stasi.  Michael Ledeen and all of the really knowledgeable observers of Iran pronounced the election a put up job.  The big hint was when the results were reviewed by the Grand Muftis or whatever, who then issued a contradictory result, to wit: "Ahmadinejad, whom you voters and the rest of the world had never heard of before two weeks ago, except the Austrians who want him for murder, the short one with a penchant for beating women, WINS!!"  Right, I was blogging my little heart out while the NYT did a series of the most nauseating puff pieces about Mahmoud and  the election.  Well, they did say one mean thing about him.  They called him a "conservative."  Of course, he would be the only conservative they didn't also call a woman beater, a murderer, and gay because that would mean that they would have to come close to the truth: no, no. no,no, no, no, no, no, can't have that.

Did any of this well-intentioned, timely and accurate blogging reap any benefits?  Well, yes.  About a year before very highly paid broadcast professionals were able to do it, I could pronounce his name.  And just the other night I was able to amaze my friends with this bit of braggadocio:  I can touch type that  bastard's name.  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  See? 

A Little More Facial Hair...

...but the same loveable charm. I don't think Maryann and Ginger in hijabs would have garnered the same ratings, though.

Davos

That's the tieThis has been a week of admitting how little I know, or really, how long I happily played in ignorance about many, many things. One of the less important things that I was unaware of until last year was the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Then it sort of took center stage in the news because of the Eason Jordan flap. This year Davos made the news again because John Kerry decided that calling for the Senate, the US Senate, you know, the one in Washington, D.C. in North America, to filibuster the Alito confirmation from the picturesque slopes of Davos, Switzerland, in Europe, you know, on the other side of that really big ocean, was a good idea. Don Stewart, who is spokesman for our senator on the Judiciary committee, had this to say about that:

"God bless John Kerry. He just cinched this whole nomination. With Senator Kerry, it is Christmas every day."

That about sums up my thoughts, too, except that JFK flew back to the Senate to make his plea in time to get on the Friday evening news and his valet or his aide de camp or whoever is in charge of these things, neglected to tell him that his Davos tie, which is perfectly respectable for still photos, does really strange things on video. Suffice it to say that my migrainous child dubbed it "The Seizure Tie." It jumped and vibrated and blinked and was guaranteed to either hypnotize or send you into a grand mal on the spot or put you to sleep. No, sorry, that last was for radio listeners only. "Cutting off ears, cutting off limbs, cutting off hair, cutting off oxygen, zzzzzzzzzz...."

But really, this is not the big news of this year's Davos. The big news is that the Forum's official magazine, Global Agenda, published and article entitled, "Boycott Israel, " by Mazin Qumsiyeh, a US citizen of Palestinian descent who writes in support of Palestinian causes. His main qualification for writing on such matters appears to be that he is a disaffected Palestinian and a genetcist who used to teach at Yale. Klaus Schwab had all of the magazines pulled as soon as someone questioned the article and issued a full, unconditional, take responsibility apology. All well and good, but considering that the magazine hit the stands on the same day as the Hamas electoral victory, making the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a hot topic anyway, this was an awful gaffe.

As usual, however, there is more. Bear with us.

That's the beard (Abutier of Hamas)In the days following the Palestinian election, we were told that Hamas had hired an image consultant/publicist to help spruce up its image going into the election. for $180,000 this consultant gave some fabulous advice: play down the bloody bits of your platform, play up the warm, fuzzy bits, and dye the stupid looking beard back to a color found in nature. That's fine, one supposes, except that Hamas did none of those things and still took the election handily. However, sometimes the best propaganda just falls in your lap. This morning two pro-Palestinian films, two pro-terrorist films received Oscar nominations, Munich by Steven Spielberg and Paradise Now by Hany Abu-Assad. These two films are especially effective at promoting terrorism because they are subtle in their message. There's no glorification, really, but in the first there is a grand moral equivalence, that is, everything the terrorists did or have or are, the Israelis do and have and are. Palestinians kill innocents; Israelis kill innocents. Arab murderers have families, Mossad agents have families. You are supposed to leave the theater understanding that they are just two sides of the same coin. In Paradise Now, we are to be moved by the desperation of the bombers, their doubts, and so on, while we're given subtle cues about their basic decency: one aborts his mission when he sees a child board the target bus. They aren't coked out of their brains, they don't participate in any "suicide parties" and we don't see the Palestinian Prize Patrol visiting the mother's house with her check written on an Iranian bank account.

Yes, I think we can say that it's been a good week for the Palestinians. They are out of the closet, politically speaking, and and still managing to snow the usual crew of left-wing Pollyannas, Jimmy Carter in the forefront of the "Governing will make them responsible global citizens" brigade, with Bill Clinton [in for the filibustering John Kerry as a last minute replacement] bringing up the rear. Will someone give these two a map of the Middle East and point out this great big country called Iran?

And speaking of which, this is the Davos post and I would like to remind every one what Bill Clinton said last year at Davos. In light of all that has happened and what is now the most imminent threat to world peace and stability, this is what Billy Boy said:

“Iran today is, in a sense, the only country where progressive ideas enjoy a vast constituency. It is there that the ideas that I subscribe to are defended by a majority.”

It gets better:

“Iran is the only country in the world that has now had six elections since the first election of President Khatami (in 1997). (It is) the only one with elections, including the United States, including Israel, including you name it, where the liberals, or the progressives, have won two-thirds to 70 percent of the vote in six elections: Two for president; two for the Parliament, the Majlis; two for the mayoralties. In every single election, the guys I identify with got two-thirds to 70 percent of the vote. There is no other country in the world I can say that about, certainly not my own.”

"The guys I identify with"!

I can't make this stuff up.

Iran: A Clash of Civilizations

From Amir Tahiri, by way of RegimeChangeIran:

Two mullahs, both former presidents, are leading the campaign against Ahamdinejad. One, Hashemi Rafsanjani, has not yet recovered from the shock of losing to Ahmadinejad whom he had once dismissed as “lightweight” and “an upstart”. The other Muhammad Khatami is sore because Ahmadinejad cut the budget of the so-called “dialogue of civilizations” that the former president had created to hoodwink the Western powers and the Arabs into believing that the regime was burying its Khomeinist ideology for good. ...

The concepts and ideas that Rafsanjani and Khatami treated as mere metaphors are being redefined as literal truths under Ahmadinejad.

One key concept is that of the Hidden Imam, the awaited Mahdi of the Twelver Shi’ites. To Rafsanjani and Khatami this is no more than an escathalogical idea with little immediate relevance to the actual life of society. Ahmadinejad, however, has restored the concept of the Hidden Imam as the central truth of Iran’s political, cultural, economic and social life. He has written and signed a pact with the Hidden Imam and has asked all officials to do so, a move that, taken to its logical conclusion, dispenses with the need for any mullahs including the“Supreme Guide”. Thus the government of the Islamic Republic becomes answerable to the Hidden Imam and not to the “Supreme Guide” or the Iranian electorate.

This reinterpretation of Twelver Shi’ism excludes not only any form of rule by the mullahs but also any form of electoral democracy. In this way Ahmadinejad hopes to outflank the two principal political forces that have been fighting for power in Iran since the middle of the 19th century. His message is: neither mullahrchy, nor democracy

Read the rest at RegimeChangeIran.   There are also some stomach-churning links to cartoons, aimed at children, that glorify suicide bombing.  It goes wihout saying that they are off-the-charts anti-Semitic.

Ahmadinejad won the Iranian "election" through chicanery and back stage fixes.  Not that it was even a democratic process anyway.  That his presidency is stirring any notice in the American media is a testament to his extreme rhetoric, which needs to be taken seriously.  Our media is completely wrapped up in Senatorial grandstanding, the latest (American) disaster, the Supreme Court nominee ("...and now for the fight you've all been waiting for") and Joe Wilson's narcissistic vortex.  Fox news, however, did cover the report by British General J.B. Dutton about the increasingly sophisticated IED's that are killing our soldiers in Iraq and how these originate in Iran.  Iran has denied  having anything to do with these, and and Dutton demurred, saying that they couldn't tell whether the smuggling activities were state sponsored or illegal. 

Right.

But now, even Time Magazine has cottened on to Ahmadinejad's worldview:

Memo to World: Iran's new President is a radical, after all. When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won an upset victory in June, his foreign-policy views were a mystery. A 48-year-old civil engineer who had become Tehran's populist mayor in 2003, he focused on domestic rather than international issues. But last week, Ahmadinejad stunned diplomats with the sort of outburst expected from a terrorist, not a President. At a conference in Tehran called "The World Without Zionism," Ahmadinejad told 4,000 students that "Israel must be wiped off the map." Afterwards, he joined 30,000 Iranians in an anti-Israel march through Tehran.

One wishes that the Time correspondents would bother to read some small part of the information about Ahmadinejad available before he got elected.  Between Michael Ledeen, hardly an obscure figure, and RegimeChangeIran, Amir Tahiri and many others, Ahmadinejad's true nature was apparent.  Heck, they could have read this blog and gotten a clue here and  here, among other places.

World Without America

We got a heads up from DoctorZin at RegimeChangeIran about the Iranian World Without Zionism conference,whose keynote speaker was the President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  I heard on Special Report with Brit Hume that Mr. Ahmadinejad has already been repudiated widely in and outside of Iran for his inflammatory remarks (bumpersticker: wipe Israel off the face of the map) but RegimeChange has startling graphics that expose the totality of the message that hasn't been reported at all.

This was projected as the super size backdrop to Mr. Ahmadinejad and was the official poster for the event.  Yes, the message is pretty clear: Israel, the little ball with the Star of David on it is dropping off the face of the earth, the hourglass presumably symbolizing that time is drawing near.  But what is already at the bottom of the hourglass?

 

I

I think we get it.  Did Mr. Ahmadinejad just declare war on the United States?  Read the whole story at RegimeChangeIran. 

Mr. Congeniality

If you are interested in finding out more about the New York Times' favorite conservative, you can read about his career as Khomeini's (and Khamenei's) muscle at home and abroad in today's Washington Times editorial:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's resume highlights:

• leader of an organization called (...) the OSU, which helped orchestrate the seizure of the embassy.
• helped purge dissident students and university lecturers, many of whom were arrested and subsequently executed.
• he worked in the Iran Revolutionary Guards, where he developed a reputation as a brutal torturer and interrogator. [Aside: presumably not by dressing scantily and desecrating toilets]
  
• became a senior officer in the Special Brigade of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, which carried out attacks outside Iran's borders, including murders of dissidents.
• he organized Ansar-e-Hezbollah, an Islamist vigilante group best known for beating up students and other dissidents inside Iran.

What people are saying about the New President-elect:

• "Khomeini at a younger age, with more zeal than the old lunatic had,"  -Aryo Pirouznia
• "As the people's servant, it is my honor to be a part of this endless ocean and I am also honored that our dearest people have their trust in me," --Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
• "Tell people he is young, he is 48, and he can insert new blood into the system," --Maisam Neili, head of the political committee for Mr. Ahmadinejad's campaign
• "...he wants to cut the hands of those who are stealing the national wealth -- guy in Tehran
• "Ahmadinejad is like a tsunami," --a close aide to the mayor
• "Ahmadinejad struck me as being too patently crazy for the mullahs" --Dan Darling, Winds of Change