All Things Beautiful: The 'Deadly Charm' Offensive

The 'Deadly Charm' Offensive

Ed Morrissey hits the nail on the head when summing up the Der Spiegel interview with Thug-In-Chief Ahmadinejad (don't miss reading the extraordinary back-and-forth exchange on the issue of Holocaust denial between the interviewer and Ahmadinejad - it would be funny if it wasn't so serious in every respect):

He [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] means to prepare the world for some kind of action against them [the Jews], and this attempt at a charm offensive in Germany was no accident.

'Charm offensive' means of course our Thug-In-Chief's effort to strengthen anti-Semitic neo-Nazi groups in Germany. "I believe that the German people today are also prisoners of the Holocaust." These kind of statements are bound to fall on some fertile ground, especially amongst some particularly economically challenged communities. But I am happy to say, that overall the impact is both politically and socially largely insignificant. The German people know their history and have undergone a thorough catharsis vis-a-vis their collective guilt towards international Jewry.

However, much more significant is the mindset revealed by our Thug-In-Chief. Two possibilities exist. One, he is a Thug - no question about that - and is truly ignorant about historical facts; utterly unschooled, a regular illiterate really. Problem is, he is academically highly accomplished, always the best in his academic and scientific pursuits as well as his executive positions; not to forget his extensive 'accomplishments' as a journalist; writing various political, social, cultural and economic articles; serving as managing director of Hamshahri newspaper, launching various affiliated periodicals and on and on and on. Not the kind of person who doesn't know any better...

Second possibility: Both our Thug-In-Chief and his protégée are setting the stage for a simple but cunning political checkmate for Israel along the lines which I explained two months ago:

His [Mohammad-Ali Angel-of-Death Ramin] logic is as simple as it is evil: Should his committee determine that indeed 6 million Jews had been killed by the Nazis, then another committee must be assembled and determine a just punishment for Germany, which, oh quelle surprise, must include the transfer of German territory so as to establish a Jewish State.

Should it however establish, that Holocaust was a 'Myth', Ramin would have successfully vilified the Jews and exonerated the Nazis. He would then hope to re-open the debate questioning the legality of the State of Israel and bring him one step closer to return Israel's territories to Arab rule. Destruction of Israel is only the last resort option. Much preferred is to usurp Israel 'peacefully', and hand control over to Arab leaders. I wonder what he'd call the new nation...

Much more likely.

Then of course there is a third option altogether excluding our Thug-In-Chief.

For months, the US news media, the attention of pundits and elected officials have been riveted on the provocative rhetoric of ultra-conservative Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad. President George W Bush in particular has invoked Ahmadinejad's alleged drive for nuclear weapons and desire to destroy Israel to justify US isolation and pressure on the regime.

But the almost exclusive focus on Ahmadinejad has been misplaced, because all the evidence indicates that it is Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, not Ahmadinejad, who is directing Iranian foreign policy. Despite Ahmadinejad's clever exploitation of the nuclear issue to strengthen his domestic political position, he is playing second fiddle on this issue.

Ahmadinejad "doesn't have much to do with the nuclear issue", David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, the most experienced US non-governmental expert on Iran's nuclear program, told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty immediately after the Iranian president's election. Albright observed that the policy on Iran's nuclear program is run by the Supreme National Security Council "directly under the Supreme Leader" (Khamenei).

At a briefing in Washington last week, Hadi Semati, a professor at Tehran University who is now a visiting fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, said Ahmadinejad "is third in command" after Khamenei and the Supreme National Security Council. Khamenei and the council, he said, "are not going to let the president decide anything on the nuclear issue". [...]

By shifting the focus from Ahmadinejad's provocative speeches and rambling letter to Bush to the thinking of Khamenei and his senior advisers, one can see the outlines of a consistent and coherent strategy toward the nuclear issue, the region and relations with the United States. These men may hold a theocratic perspective on Iranian politics and social life, but they base their national-security strategy on an assessment of international power relations and their own bargaining leverage.

As if... Just remember the fateful words of Franz von Papen: "Within two months we will have pushed Hitler so far in the corner that he'll squeak". Umh, well that did not work well, did it?

Khamenei and the Supreme National Security Council are keenly aware that Iran must exist in a region in which US military might is far superior to their own. But they have long viewed negotiations with the United States as the key to Iran's security, as well as its re-emergence as a regional power.

That is the official stance Iranian spin doctors have worked long and hard for western scholars, career diplomats and political paper-pushers to swallow; and according to this report, some continue to do so hook line and sinker. Their true convictions are much closer aligned with the views trumpeted unabashedly by our Thug-In-Chief; their gripe with him is not about what he says, but that he says it, thereby blowing their carefully woven veil of deeply ingrained theocratic extremism. The only thing they are keenly aware of is the fact, that obtaining the bomb alone will permanently and irrevocably shift the power balance to their advantage. And the last thing they want is to be disturbed on their way to getting there. And as far as Ahmadinejad's critics are concerned, he has just done that; he has upset their calm and cozy cat and mouse game. It is absolute nonsense to suggest, that the Mullahs "view negotiations with the Great Satan as the key to Iran's security". To them that would be equal to being a dog chained to a short leash or condemned to being a slave to the Infidel. Academic poppycock, nothing more.

They have long pondered the question of when to negotiate with Washington. When then president Mohammad Khatemi proposed in an interview with CNN in January 1998 to engage the US in a dialogue, Khamenei responded several days later by denouncing the idea of talks or of relations with the United States.

But historian Shaul Bakhash of George Mason University recalls that one of the arguments Khamenei cited in the speech against engaging the United States was that Iran should not negotiate until it was in a stronger position. Since that January 1998 speech, much has happened to change Khamenei's perspective.

Yes, much has happened; their cover has been blown prematurely. Stronger position meant having the bomb and then talk turkey... Read the rest until the inevitable conclusion: Bush evil, everyone else reasonable. Yeah right:

The evidence suggests that the realists who rule in Tehran are offering Washington a transition to a new, more stable Middle East in which Iran's role is more prominent but also more consciously devoted to bringing about change without violence [yeah, dream on, dream on]. Up to now, however, the Bush administration has not been willing to accept any such limitation on its power.

Oy vey...

Why not go for the jugular:

Bush damns the "axis of evil." But who has the "axis of evil" attacked? Iran has attacked no one. North Korea has attacked no country for more than a half century. Iraq attacked Kuwait a decade and a half ago, apparently after securing permission from the U.S. ambassador.

Isn't the real axis of evil Bush-Blair-Olmert? Bush and Blair have attacked two countries, slaughtering their citizens. Olmert is urging them on to attack a third country – Iran.

Where does the danger to the world reside? In Iran, a small, religious country where the family is intact and the government is constrained by religious authority and ancient traditions, or in the U.S. where propaganda rules and the powerful executive branch has removed itself from accountability by breaking the constitutional restraints on its power?

Why is the U.S. superpower orchestrating fear of puny Iran?

The U.S. government has spent the past half century interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, overthrowing or assassinating their chosen leaders and imposing its puppets on foreign peoples. To what country has Iran done this, or Iraq, or North Korea?[...]

Gentle reader, do you believe that the Bush Regime will not shoot you down in the streets if you have a rebellion?

This hurts, this really hurts...Ahem.

More @ Real Clear Politics, Hugh Hewitt, Roger Simon, Andrew Sullivan, The American Thinker, Decision 08, A Chequer Board, The Political Pit Bull, Liberty and Justice, Daimnation!, Gina Cobb, Blue Crab Boulevard, Sundries Shack, Fullosseous Flap, Carol Platt Liebau, Bull Moose, Southern Appeal

Comments

I think that image of the fanged skull in ice is the cover of one of the novels by Brian Lumley, the Necromancer series, isn't it? Those are some very imaginative vampire-scifi-espionage-horror stories that I enjoyed several years ago. Nine parts to it.

Posted by: brian | Thursday, June 08, 2006 at 11:21 AM