Iran sending assassins to Turkey to hit Jewish, Israeli and Western targets

Graven,

Thanks for the Zakaria link. In the weeks following Sept 11 2001, Zakaria "informed" Americans that they should not bother looking to the Islamic doctrine or scriptures to understand what drove al Qaeda to attack the U.S. He has opposed counter-jihadists and Islam critics, and has, either neglected, dismissed, marginalized, or whitewashed Islam at every opportunity since then.

Perhaps it is worth reviewing, for new readers:

Iran's possible behavior when it has nukes can be anticipated based on its past history and current conduct, when and where it has the power to act. This includes the support of various Islamic militant and terrorist operations internationally, including but not limited to Hezbollah and Hamas, military support for Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan (against NATO forces), military support for various jihadist groups in Iraq (again against U.S. and coalition forces), and the implementation of brutal sharia including policies of killing of dissidents, those who commit "sedition" or "corruption on earth," "blasphemers," apostates, non-Muslim proselytizers, adulterers, homosexuals, etc. Iran to this day maintains an international death fatwa on Salman Rushdie (and his publishers, supporters, etc.) that, despite some vacillating about a decade ago, remains in effect. Iran also has a history of military confrontation with the U.S. in the Persian Gulf, has taken Americans hostage not just in 1979 but also recently, and so on.

All of this is besides Iran's own rhetoric, explicitly stated goals to conquer the west and establish Islamic rule over the whole world, threats about wiping Israel off the map, and so on.

It's often difficult to prove whether someone is lying or merely deluded or mistaken. In Zakaria's case, I find it hard to believe that he is really clueless enough to be deluded or mistaken about the dangers of Iran. The reality of Iran's behavior, contrasted with Zakaria's dangerously erroneous but influential "assurances," and his long-term pro-Islam attitudes contrasted with his hostile attitudes against Islamic critics, all point to him being on the side of Islam and against the West and America. It is only a question of how explicitly and consciously he is struggling in his propaganda jihad against the West so that Islam will prevail and sharia be established over the non-Muslims.

Sharpero,

Lewis is indeed better than most Islam scholars in recent decades, but I still find him to be on the Islam apologist side of the spectrum on too many issues (e.g., on the dhimma, on the Islamic doctrinal perspectives in relation to suicidal attacks, etc.). Lewis I suspect has had to adapt to the pro-Islam trends over the past few decades in his areas of study. Ironically, many pro-Islam propagandists consider Lewis to be an "Islamophobe."

''That's hard to imagine. In my experience, hashish leads to feeling mellow and getting the munchies.''

That's because you're a decent, civilised Westerner. Hashish relaxes normal controls, so muslims with murderous thoughts (redundancy !) would find it even easier to commit murder.

Guy

Actually, the word is Shia. If we're going to call the other group Sunnis, we should call this one Shia. If we're going to call this group Shiite, we should call the other one Sunnite, which would be the equivalent term here.

And yet you *still* hear Westerners nattering about how "reasonable" Iran actually is. Delusional madness...

I hear many talking about the Iranian people, as separate and apart from the mullahs. The talking heads tell us how pro-western the Iranian PEOPLE are. (With apologies to people like Amil Imani, I just don't buy it.)

How do we separate the two? By 'punishing' Iran, we 'punish' the people. That is the reason given for opposition to many punitive measures the West would take. What I would like to know is at what point the people of Iran are absolved of all responsibility for the actions of their government. The mullahs aren't atomic scientists. None of these advances could take place without a measure of acquiescence from the people of Iran.

PMK

One strange thing that I've noticed is that everybody who gets it right on the 'Arab Spring' movements - that they are blatant Islamic coup-de-etats dressed up as democratic movements - seems to miss exactly the same trend in Iran. Last year, when the 'Green Revolution' was on, just about everybody, including JW, was supporting it. Debbie Schlussel and Diana West were among the few who pointed out that these people were just supporting one Mullah faction against another, and only dumbos were buying into that rhetoric.

I agree w/ you - much as I like Ali Sina, Amil Imani and others, I too don't buy it. History is enough of an indicator that Iranians are not going to abandon Islam unless they are forced to. Twice in history, they've been converted - first from Zoroastrianism to Islam in the 7th Century, and then from Sunni Islam to Shia Islam in the 13th century. So unless they are militarily occupied and forced to convert to something else @ gunpoint - be it Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Buddhism or whatever, it's just not gonna happen.

The other thing I'm not getting - the US and Israel have been warning about Iran's nuke ambitions for years now, and how is the EU suddenly now concerned about this to actually freeze Iranian assets? I don't see anything that Iran has done differently recently. Only 2 reasons I can think of - the EU is trying to tighten the screws on Syria (again for wrong reasons) by hitting Iran, whose alliance w/ Syria they've just discovered. Other reason is that the EU always wanted to be thought of as being independent of the US & Israel, even if these 2 countries were making sense, so they waited as long as they did.

I'm just afraid that today, both Pakistan & Iran have Islamic nukes.

Kinana of Khaybar wrote:

Thanks for the Zakaria link. In the weeks following Sept 11 2001, Zakaria "informed" Americans that they should not bother looking to the Islamic doctrine or scriptures to understand what drove al Qaeda to attack the U.S...
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Thanks for the examples, Kinana. I can't believe how many decent Westerners choose to regard the sleazy Fareed Zakaria as a proper journalist. Ugh.

PMK wrote:

I hear many talking about the Iranian people, as separate and apart from the mullahs. The talking heads tell us how pro-western the Iranian PEOPLE are. (With apologies to people like Amil Imani, I just don't buy it.)

...What I would like to know is at what point the people of Iran are absolved of all responsibility for the actions of their government. The mullahs aren't atomic scientists. None of these advances could take place without a measure of acquiescence from the people of Iran.
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I absolutely agree, PMK. With all respect to decent people of Iranian heritage like apostate JW poster miriam rove, I just don't believe that a majority of the Iranian people not only hate the Mullahs, but are ready to abandon Islam en masse at any moment as he claims.

I believe they are in touch with a tiny minority of largely secular, well-educated middle class Iranians in Tehran, and extrapolate this to the sentiments of the vast majority of the Iranian public.

I have genuine sympathy for this small group, but I believe they are *far* outnumbered by Iranians who are all too supportive of the "Republic of Iran" and its mad schemes.

There were even a small minority of decent Germans who (quietly) opposed Hitler and the Nazis—but they were far outnumbered by their aggressive, violently antisemitic neighbors "Heil Hitlering" out in the streets.