The Chronicles of a Potential Tragedy: Ahmadinajad, the Iranian People, Nukes and the West in a Dance from Hell
With the sanctions on Iran approaching one step closer as Russia calls for Iran to comply - a move that reflects Russia's fear of Iran's nuclear power and its inability to face American damaging of relations as threatened by US president Bush – it is time to examine what is the star player of this show, Iran and its leader Ahmadinejad, is thinking.
A few months ago Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that five years ago, during former Spanish Prime Minister Asnar's visit to Iran, Iran's spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Haminai told the prime minister that Iran's first order of business was to torch Israel. Unfortunately for him, some of the things currently being torched in Iran are pictures of Iran's new hard-line president Mahmoud Ahamdinajad and a few of the Ayatollahs. That piece of news more than anything else explains Iran's nuclear stand and attests to the short future the administration will be facing if it does not change its ways regarding nuclear weapons and the west.
In the recent sword brandishing between Iran and the west concerning nuclear power, many ask how Ahamdinajad expects to convince the world that his intentions are peaceful while at the same time calling for the destruction of Israel. Some International Relations experts I have spoken to have even gone as far as calling him insane and a diplomatic ignorant, yet that is not the case. What Ahmadinajad is doing is trying to fight protests against him and the administration like the one described above by diverting attention to a different issue.
A scholar that recently visited Iran and talked on CNN, gave quite a different view of the Iranian people than that most who do not know what is going on in the Islamic republic would expect. He noted that people do not go all day long chanting anti-Israel and Anti-American slogans etc. Instead, he commented, people are continuing with their everyday life, concerned about bringing food to the table just like the rest of us. Many of them are so desperate that they do not care one bit for their administration's snubbing of the west at their welfare's expense. And that is what prompts the aforementioned demonstrations. But the question remains: if the people are so disgruntled with the Ayatollahs' rule and the disconnection from the west and prosperity, how is it that Ahmadinajad, the hard-line former revolutionary guards' member, won? And how does it explain Ahmadinajad's head collision approach on the nuclear problem? Indeed important questions.
When Ahmadinajad won the elections, he was no stranger to the poverty plaguing the Iranian people; nor did he forget his revolutionary background. Combining these two ideologies allowed him to come up with the winning campaign, killing two birds in one shot: he would fight the poverty through social reforms and blame the deterioration on former President Hatami's westward reproach, considered blasphemous by many such as the new president. Indeed for a short while President Ahmadinajad managed to sweep the people off their feet; but sooner than he expected, the people started to demand results from the old-new approach of radical Islam. In come Israel and nuclear weapons to the rescue.
Israel and the Palestinians in the occupied territories have always been like manna from heaven to authoritarian Arab regimes. They allowed the dictators to divert attention from their corrupt regimes and blame Israel for the people's poverty; Ahmadinajad did not plan to miss out on this free ride. Unable to pursue the reforms he promised during the election, he turned the people's attention to Israel's supposed nuclear weapons and to Iran's lack of as cause for the people's plight, connecting the two through the lack of nuclear energy in Iran. Indeed very "sensible" in a country rich with crude oil but almost no oil refineries to produce the more profitable finished product. But in comes the west with a compromise that threatened to put a stop to Ahamadinajd's free ride: why not have Russia enrich Uranium for Iran and give it the nuclear energy its economy so "needs"? Something had to be done before the people realized this was not the way, and calling for Israel's destruction was it. By doing that President Ahmadinajad once again scored two points in one shot: he managed to get the west to look like humiliating Iran and be seen as a hero in the Muslim world. While this worked wonderfully in the Arab world, it brings us back to the anti administration demonstrations; because unfortunately for Ahmadinajad his target audience, the people, are not fooled.
So what is going to happen now in this sad story, involving nuclear weapons, the west, the Ayatollahs administration, the Iranian people, Israel and countless other actors? Well as usual only time will tell. But as time progresses more and more signs are surfacing showing that the people waiting the most for the Iranian regime to change direction, are the suffering people of Iran. We can only hope that this tidal wave will increase and reach maturity before Iran's and the west's conflict over nuclear weapons reaches the point of no return, bringing a very sad ending to this potential tragedy.
Tags:
Midlde East, Iran, Ayatollahs, WMD, Russia, US, Arab World, Muslim World, Israel, Palestinians.
A few months ago Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that five years ago, during former Spanish Prime Minister Asnar's visit to Iran, Iran's spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Haminai told the prime minister that Iran's first order of business was to torch Israel. Unfortunately for him, some of the things currently being torched in Iran are pictures of Iran's new hard-line president Mahmoud Ahamdinajad and a few of the Ayatollahs. That piece of news more than anything else explains Iran's nuclear stand and attests to the short future the administration will be facing if it does not change its ways regarding nuclear weapons and the west.
In the recent sword brandishing between Iran and the west concerning nuclear power, many ask how Ahamdinajad expects to convince the world that his intentions are peaceful while at the same time calling for the destruction of Israel. Some International Relations experts I have spoken to have even gone as far as calling him insane and a diplomatic ignorant, yet that is not the case. What Ahmadinajad is doing is trying to fight protests against him and the administration like the one described above by diverting attention to a different issue.
A scholar that recently visited Iran and talked on CNN, gave quite a different view of the Iranian people than that most who do not know what is going on in the Islamic republic would expect. He noted that people do not go all day long chanting anti-Israel and Anti-American slogans etc. Instead, he commented, people are continuing with their everyday life, concerned about bringing food to the table just like the rest of us. Many of them are so desperate that they do not care one bit for their administration's snubbing of the west at their welfare's expense. And that is what prompts the aforementioned demonstrations. But the question remains: if the people are so disgruntled with the Ayatollahs' rule and the disconnection from the west and prosperity, how is it that Ahmadinajad, the hard-line former revolutionary guards' member, won? And how does it explain Ahmadinajad's head collision approach on the nuclear problem? Indeed important questions.
When Ahmadinajad won the elections, he was no stranger to the poverty plaguing the Iranian people; nor did he forget his revolutionary background. Combining these two ideologies allowed him to come up with the winning campaign, killing two birds in one shot: he would fight the poverty through social reforms and blame the deterioration on former President Hatami's westward reproach, considered blasphemous by many such as the new president. Indeed for a short while President Ahmadinajad managed to sweep the people off their feet; but sooner than he expected, the people started to demand results from the old-new approach of radical Islam. In come Israel and nuclear weapons to the rescue.
Israel and the Palestinians in the occupied territories have always been like manna from heaven to authoritarian Arab regimes. They allowed the dictators to divert attention from their corrupt regimes and blame Israel for the people's poverty; Ahmadinajad did not plan to miss out on this free ride. Unable to pursue the reforms he promised during the election, he turned the people's attention to Israel's supposed nuclear weapons and to Iran's lack of as cause for the people's plight, connecting the two through the lack of nuclear energy in Iran. Indeed very "sensible" in a country rich with crude oil but almost no oil refineries to produce the more profitable finished product. But in comes the west with a compromise that threatened to put a stop to Ahamadinajd's free ride: why not have Russia enrich Uranium for Iran and give it the nuclear energy its economy so "needs"? Something had to be done before the people realized this was not the way, and calling for Israel's destruction was it. By doing that President Ahmadinajad once again scored two points in one shot: he managed to get the west to look like humiliating Iran and be seen as a hero in the Muslim world. While this worked wonderfully in the Arab world, it brings us back to the anti administration demonstrations; because unfortunately for Ahmadinajad his target audience, the people, are not fooled.
So what is going to happen now in this sad story, involving nuclear weapons, the west, the Ayatollahs administration, the Iranian people, Israel and countless other actors? Well as usual only time will tell. But as time progresses more and more signs are surfacing showing that the people waiting the most for the Iranian regime to change direction, are the suffering people of Iran. We can only hope that this tidal wave will increase and reach maturity before Iran's and the west's conflict over nuclear weapons reaches the point of no return, bringing a very sad ending to this potential tragedy.
Tags:
Midlde East, Iran, Ayatollahs, WMD, Russia, US, Arab World, Muslim World, Israel, Palestinians.
posted by The Middle East News Addict at 11:51 AM
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