Facing Down Iran by Mark Steyn
Nail, meet head:
"Twenty-seven years ago, because Islam didn’t fit into the old cold war template, analysts mostly discounted it. We looked at the map like that Broadway marquee: West and East, the old double act. As with most of the down-page turf, Iran’s significance lay in which half of the act she’d sign on with. To the Left, the shah was a high-profile example of an unsavory U.S. client propped up on traditional he-may-be-a-sonofabitch-but-he’s-our-sonofabitch grounds: in those heady days SAVAK, his secret police, were a household name among Western progressives, and insofar as they took the stern-faced man in the turban seriously, they assured themselves he was a kind of novelty front for the urbane Paris émigré socialists who accompanied him back to Tehran. To the realpolitik Right, the issue was Soviet containment: the shah may be our sonofabitch, but he’d outlived his usefulness, and a weak Iran could prove too tempting an invitation to Moscow to fulfill the oldest of czarist dreams—a warm-water port, not to mention control of the Straits of Hormuz. Very few of us considered the strategic implications of an Islamist victory on its own terms—the notion that Iran was checking the neither-of-the-above box and that that box would prove a far greater threat to the Freeish World than Communism."
There is a grand truth here that is overlooked. The blame for the state of the Middle East broadly and Iran, specifically, has to do with our support for The Shah. Scowcroft and his Realpolitik crowd insisted that all that mattered was keeping the oil flowing and the Soviets out. Nothing else mattered. Had they the foresight to try and implement reforms and democracy then, things may have been very different. Iran's strategic imporance can hardly be overstated. It is Muslim but not Arabic. It is has a very young population. Most of whom want the Mullahs out and Microsoft in. Three years ago there was nearly a revolution. Student unrest was a daily occurance and the regime grabbed a few agitators, tried them, imprisoned them and brought in Palestinian muscle to beat the crowds when they gathered. They sent a message to the ringleaders that if this continued, they'd get a taste of Tianamen Square. That broke the students will and they went back to school and have been simmering quietly since.
We would be wise to whip up that frenzy again and see if we can't topple the regime w/o getting our fingerprints all over everything. I don't think the CIA has the stomach for it and it will likely come to something far more serious. I'm amazed that Israel hasn't been making more noise and I surmise they've been sending Condi urgent messages since Sharon was felled by a stroke.
Anyone else nervous?
Nail, meet head:
"Twenty-seven years ago, because Islam didn’t fit into the old cold war template, analysts mostly discounted it. We looked at the map like that Broadway marquee: West and East, the old double act. As with most of the down-page turf, Iran’s significance lay in which half of the act she’d sign on with. To the Left, the shah was a high-profile example of an unsavory U.S. client propped up on traditional he-may-be-a-sonofabitch-but-he’s-our-sonofabitch grounds: in those heady days SAVAK, his secret police, were a household name among Western progressives, and insofar as they took the stern-faced man in the turban seriously, they assured themselves he was a kind of novelty front for the urbane Paris émigré socialists who accompanied him back to Tehran. To the realpolitik Right, the issue was Soviet containment: the shah may be our sonofabitch, but he’d outlived his usefulness, and a weak Iran could prove too tempting an invitation to Moscow to fulfill the oldest of czarist dreams—a warm-water port, not to mention control of the Straits of Hormuz. Very few of us considered the strategic implications of an Islamist victory on its own terms—the notion that Iran was checking the neither-of-the-above box and that that box would prove a far greater threat to the Freeish World than Communism."
There is a grand truth here that is overlooked. The blame for the state of the Middle East broadly and Iran, specifically, has to do with our support for The Shah. Scowcroft and his Realpolitik crowd insisted that all that mattered was keeping the oil flowing and the Soviets out. Nothing else mattered. Had they the foresight to try and implement reforms and democracy then, things may have been very different. Iran's strategic imporance can hardly be overstated. It is Muslim but not Arabic. It is has a very young population. Most of whom want the Mullahs out and Microsoft in. Three years ago there was nearly a revolution. Student unrest was a daily occurance and the regime grabbed a few agitators, tried them, imprisoned them and brought in Palestinian muscle to beat the crowds when they gathered. They sent a message to the ringleaders that if this continued, they'd get a taste of Tianamen Square. That broke the students will and they went back to school and have been simmering quietly since.
We would be wise to whip up that frenzy again and see if we can't topple the regime w/o getting our fingerprints all over everything. I don't think the CIA has the stomach for it and it will likely come to something far more serious. I'm amazed that Israel hasn't been making more noise and I surmise they've been sending Condi urgent messages since Sharon was felled by a stroke.
Anyone else nervous?
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