Bubble, Bubble, Mullahs Got Trouble
If I had ever taken a psychology course in college (and I don't mean "Dirty 230"), I'd probably understand what I instinctively know: that there is an ominous correlation between the turmoil the Islamic Caliphate of Iran is wreaking abroad and the turmoil it is unleashing at home.
Here, here, here, and here you can see videos and still pics of a rampaging crackdown by the mullahgarchy against...well, pretty much everything and everyone that internally threatens them, on the most ludicrous of premises - "non-Islamic dress," soccer shirts on men, low-cut veils, listening to music, phony drug charges, "socializing in public," looking at the theocratic police crosseyed, you name it. Initial punishments include all manner of beatings and clubbings and bludgeonings (but definitely not torture! Right, Senator McCain?), to humiliations like being forced to suck on lota handles (basically the Iranian equivalent of bathroom tissue).
There's nothing new about such crackdowns. But the context in which they're taking place is. In this case, the novel situation of an oil-exporting nation having to ration gasoline to its own citizenry:
Lack of refining capacity, eh? Finally Uncle Sam and the mullahs have something in common.
Makes the "morals" crackdown look like pre-emptive crowd control against the likely public reaction to the gas rationing, doesn't it? It would also speak to the point of the bite that true, legitimately tough economic sanctions could take out of the mullahs', um, lotas.
Remember, however, the historical parallel with FDR's oil embargo against Imperial Japan. Those sanctions were legitimately tough and really were bringing the Japanese to their knees. But rather than allowing themselves to be economically strangled, the militarist regime of Hideki Tojo opted to gamble on a frontal attack against the United States at Pearl Harbor and a quick seizure of their territorial objectives before we could stop them.
Given the growing pressure on the mullahgarchy, economically and in terms of keeping the lid on the restive and captive Iranian population, it becomes easy to see why they are trying to stamp out even the hint of the possibility of insurrection before it can come close to thinking about getting started, and why they're in an all-out rush to acquire nuclear weapons. It's not so much to keep themselves in power indefinitely, though that is doubtless a significant factor; it is, rather, to keep themselves in power long enough to unleash the nuclear Armageddon that will, they believe, bring back Adolph Ahmadinejad's "twelfth imam" or the Shia Muslim messiah that will supposedly wipe up the formica of the planet with the infidels' (i.e. our) dead bodies.
It may be that the Bush Administration views sanctions as the means of forcing the mullahs into open war against the United States before they're ready, which would justify the devastating response that would, at the very least, eradicate their nuclear program, and preferably, topple them from power outright, AND which would never, in the current domestic political circumstances, even be contemplated.
It may indeed be the best strategy available. But given how dangerously late we are in the "stop Iranian nukes" game, the chances of blundering into a nuclear Pearl Harbor grow exponentially. Whether that would, as in 1941 (or even 2001), unify the American people behind finishing the war as we should have four years ago, or whether we would conform to Islamist stereotype and run away in utter, shrieking terror, is anybody's guess.
It's rather like drawing the dormitory bed you yourself short-sheeted. When you're reduced to a bad choice and a worse choice, you make the best choice you can and hope and pray for the best. Otherwise we'll be left sucking on things a lot worse than lotas.
Here, here, here, and here you can see videos and still pics of a rampaging crackdown by the mullahgarchy against...well, pretty much everything and everyone that internally threatens them, on the most ludicrous of premises - "non-Islamic dress," soccer shirts on men, low-cut veils, listening to music, phony drug charges, "socializing in public," looking at the theocratic police crosseyed, you name it. Initial punishments include all manner of beatings and clubbings and bludgeonings (but definitely not torture! Right, Senator McCain?), to humiliations like being forced to suck on lota handles (basically the Iranian equivalent of bathroom tissue).
There's nothing new about such crackdowns. But the context in which they're taking place is. In this case, the novel situation of an oil-exporting nation having to ration gasoline to its own citizenry:
At least one petrol station has been set on fire in the Iranian capital, Tehran, after the government announced fuel rationing for private motorists. Iranians were given only two hours' notice of the move that limits private drivers to a hundred litres of fuel a month.
Despite its huge energy reserves Iran lacks refining capacity, forcing it to import about 40% of its petrol.
Tehran is trying to rein in fuel consumption over fears of possible UN sanctions over its nuclear programme.
Iran fears the West could sanction its petrol imports and cripple its economy.
Lack of refining capacity, eh? Finally Uncle Sam and the mullahs have something in common.
Makes the "morals" crackdown look like pre-emptive crowd control against the likely public reaction to the gas rationing, doesn't it? It would also speak to the point of the bite that true, legitimately tough economic sanctions could take out of the mullahs', um, lotas.
Remember, however, the historical parallel with FDR's oil embargo against Imperial Japan. Those sanctions were legitimately tough and really were bringing the Japanese to their knees. But rather than allowing themselves to be economically strangled, the militarist regime of Hideki Tojo opted to gamble on a frontal attack against the United States at Pearl Harbor and a quick seizure of their territorial objectives before we could stop them.
Given the growing pressure on the mullahgarchy, economically and in terms of keeping the lid on the restive and captive Iranian population, it becomes easy to see why they are trying to stamp out even the hint of the possibility of insurrection before it can come close to thinking about getting started, and why they're in an all-out rush to acquire nuclear weapons. It's not so much to keep themselves in power indefinitely, though that is doubtless a significant factor; it is, rather, to keep themselves in power long enough to unleash the nuclear Armageddon that will, they believe, bring back Adolph Ahmadinejad's "twelfth imam" or the Shia Muslim messiah that will supposedly wipe up the formica of the planet with the infidels' (i.e. our) dead bodies.
It may be that the Bush Administration views sanctions as the means of forcing the mullahs into open war against the United States before they're ready, which would justify the devastating response that would, at the very least, eradicate their nuclear program, and preferably, topple them from power outright, AND which would never, in the current domestic political circumstances, even be contemplated.
It may indeed be the best strategy available. But given how dangerously late we are in the "stop Iranian nukes" game, the chances of blundering into a nuclear Pearl Harbor grow exponentially. Whether that would, as in 1941 (or even 2001), unify the American people behind finishing the war as we should have four years ago, or whether we would conform to Islamist stereotype and run away in utter, shrieking terror, is anybody's guess.
It's rather like drawing the dormitory bed you yourself short-sheeted. When you're reduced to a bad choice and a worse choice, you make the best choice you can and hope and pray for the best. Otherwise we'll be left sucking on things a lot worse than lotas.
posted by JASmius at 7:47 PM
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