Analysis of Iran

Perhaps the title of this post should have been plural: "Analyses of Iran." I've got one analysis, by Amir Taheri in Sunday's London Telegraph, and another one, by Mark Steyn in Sunday's Chicago Sun-Times. But analyzing Iran always boils down to one point: They mean what they say.

Taheri (emphasis added):

In Ahmadinejad's analysis, the rising Islamic "superpower" has decisive advantages over the infidel. Islam has four times as many young men of fighting age as the West, with its ageing populations. Hundreds of millions of Muslim "ghazis" (holy raiders) are keen to become martyrs while the infidel youths, loving life and fearing death, hate to fight. Islam also has four-fifths of the world's oil reserves, and so controls the lifeblood of the infidel. More importantly, the US, the only infidel power still capable of fighting, is hated by most other nations.

According to this analysis, spelled out in commentaries by Ahmadinejad's strategic guru, Hassan Abassi, known as the "Dr Kissinger of Islam", President George W Bush is an aberration, an exception to a rule under which all American presidents since Truman, when faced with serious setbacks abroad, have "run away". Iran's current strategy, therefore, is to wait Bush out. And that, by "divine coincidence", corresponds to the time Iran needs to develop its nuclear arsenal, thus matching the only advantage that the infidel enjoys.

Steyn (emphasis added):

Happy Easter. Happy Passover. But, if you're like the president of Iran and believe in the coming of the "Twelfth Imam," your happy holiday may be just around the corner, too. President Ahmadinejad, who is said to consider himself the designated deputy of the "hidden Imam," held a press conference this week -- against a backdrop of doves fluttering round an atom and accompanied by dancers in orange decontamination suits doing choreographed uranium-brandishing. It looked like that Bollywood finale of ''The 40-Year-Old Virgin,'' where they all pranced around to "This Is The Dawning Of The Age Of Aquarius." As it happens, although he dresses like Steve Carell's 40-year-old virgin, the Iranian president is, in fact, a 40-year-old nuclear virgin, and he was holding a press conference to announce he was ready to blow. "Iran," he said, "has joined the group of countries which have nuclear technology" -- i.e., this is the dawning of the age of a scary us. "Our enemies cannot do a damned thing," he crowed, as an appreciative audience chanted "Death to America!"

Taheri:

On Monday, he was as candid as ever: "To those who are angry with us, we have one thing to say: be angry until you die of anger!"

His adviser, Hassan Abassi, is rather more eloquent. "The Americans are impatient," he says, "at the first sight of a setback, they run away. We, however, know how to be patient. We have been weaving carpets for thousands of years."

Steyn (emphasis added):

Bill Clinton, the Sultan of Swing, gave an interesting speech last week, apropos foreign policy: "Anytime somebody said in my presidency, 'If you don't do this, people will think you're weak,' I always asked the same question for eight years: 'Can we kill 'em tomorrow?' If we can kill 'em tomorrow, then we're not weak, and we might be wise enough to try to find an alternative way."

The trouble was tomorrow never came -- from the first World Trade Center attack to Khobar Towers to the African Embassy bombings to the USS Cole. Manana is not a policy. The Iranians are merely the latest to understand that.

Ahmadinejad has one thing on his side: Time. He will use the nations that hate America to his advantage, letting the question of his nuclear program wend its way through the UN--that labyrinth of slow-motion processes and reports, of votes and vetoes.

The problem we have in dealing with Iran is bigger than the UN. The problem is that we're civilized countries. The problem really is that Natural Selection has been working against us for the past century.

Each war that we've fought, starting with...which? I'll go back to World War I. Britain had a generation of young men--the ones who understood the need to fight against tyranny and agression--decimated. So many of these men died without passing their genes and their understanding of the world to the next generation. And America faced the same thing on a smaller scale.

World War II did the same for both countries. And Korea and Vietnam did it some more for us. Each generation has fewer willing to stand up to the men who would annihiliate whole populations. Each generation has more and more wussies who would let either their fear or their pampered lives keep them from taking action when it can still be effective. Each generation has more people like Bill Clinton, who are content to wait until "tomorrow" to act, while they try for an "alternative way."

The Iranians understand that, and they'll be ready to act just as soon as they see that we're not.