Zeal For Truth

Readers: please understand that I am using deliberately sarcastic and overdone language in a specific attempt to add some humour. I’ve been writing such serious stuff in the past two months that I thought it might be nice to have a little fun. Please read this piece with a sense of humour and humility. It is not my intent to be too offensive. 

Remember in the presidential debates when everyone was screaming about how Iran was this huge threat to the world and we need to keep “all the options on the table?” Remember the axis of evil? Remember this article from two years ago explaining how leaving Iran alone might actually lead to a popular revolution and do our dirty work for us? …erm… sorry about that last one - it only got 4 diggs.

But nevertheless, I’m feeling another bout of “I told you so” coming on. Before we began really screwing with the middle east in 2003, Iran was about to go significantly more towards the pro-western side of the Islamic Republic spectrum. By now, we probably could have been travelling there on vacation - maybe even having some foreign exchange students waking us up at 5am doing yoga or whatever it is they do on our living room carpet?

But one of the unintended consequences of having a nut like George W. Bush at the helm is that people in the middle east are going to be scared. And people who are scared vote like, well, they freaking vote like people who are scared.

Remember what happened in our country when we got scared? We federalised airport security. We passed the PATRIOT act. We supported two undeclared wars. We re-elected GW for chrikey’s sake.

Iran of course got scared and elected their own nut:

And this guy was the Iranian equivalent of GW in a lot of ways - aggressive language and posturing and so on. And while I don’t speak Persian, I’m sure he’s probably said a few dumb things and had a few awkward moments.

Nevertheless, the people in Iran are about to kick this guy out. Moreover, it could result in more than that - perhaps some radical reforms in their system of government. All of this in spite of a bunch of old white men making juvenile threats to Iran (have I ever mentioned how much of demagogue Mike Huckabee is? And yes, for anyone who wants to accuse me of “changing” definitions or using them inappropriately, I mean the freaking dictionary definition of demagogue - “a person, esp. an orator or political leader, who gains power and popularity by arousing the emotions, passions, and prejudices of the people.”).

Anyway, fortunately Huckabee isn’t in federal office and US threats against Iran have been a little bit less overt in the past few months. This has led to problems for Islamic fundamentalists in Iran who have been able to maintain power, in part, because they can play on people’s fears of an aggressive US, thus, diverting pressure away from reform.

If we want the people of Iran to have the most success in reform, and also want to foster long-term stability - perhaps even future trade and diplomacy with Iran (but I ain’t hosting any exchange students - especially this guy) than our federal government should not do any of the following:

• Issue official condemnations or supportive resolutions for one group or the other
• Send in CIA boys to assassinate someone
• Drop leaflets or other propaganda
• Perform air strikes or other overt military action
• Fight a proxy war
• Try to win the “hearts and minds” of Iranians
• Encourage or support Israel doing any of the above

For once in the last century, maybe the US can mind its own business. Perhaps our politicians will realise that the world doesn’t need Team America to play good cop / bad cop in every internal conflict and reform effort under the sun.

Let’s leave Iran alone for a little bit and let freedom and liberty do their thing.