Political Commentary, War Commentary

Ahmadinejad Is No Rube

14 Comments

He’s clearly got Barack Obama’s number:

Unlike the United States, Iran is run by adults. This is why the world fears Iran more than it fears the United States.

Has there been any rally to the side of the United States in this dispute?

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad knows this and so he mocked Obama: “Mr. Obama, you are a newcomer (to politics). Wait until your sweat dries and get some experience. Be careful not to read just any paper put in front of you or repeat any statement recommended. (American officials) bigger than you, more bullying than you, couldn’t do a damn thing, let alone you.”

I remember thirty years ago, when there was so much “liberal” concern that Ronald Reagan would lead the US into war. But just as in 1938, it’s feckless thinking and policies like these that are much more likely to, and one for which we’re not prepared.

[Update a few minutes later]

Thoughts of allies and enemies past:

Why does this matter, other than that it is stupid for a country to treat old friends like belligerents and old belligerents like friends?

In the case of Britain, history resonates. Over the last century it was Britain that, sometimes alone, defended liberal constitutional government, whether from Prussian militarism or the hydra of fascism, Nazism, and Japanese militarism. It was always a reliable partner in the Cold War, and aside from normal periodic spats was a loyal ally in most of America’s postwar fights. We forget sometimes the courageous record of the British in Korea, or their lonely alliance with us in Iraq. Note that this is all apart from the British role in general in the shaping of Western liberal political history, and in particular the protocols and values that underlie so much of the American experiment, from a common language to a rich heritage of literature and thought. For an American president to be woefully ignorant of all that, and why it should count, is nothing short of unbelievable.

Obama is equally clueless about why, for a half-century at least, both Republican and Democratic presidents have forged a second special relationship, this one with Israel. There certainly were not always strategic advantages in doing so, given the Arab world’s vast petroleum reserves, its huge size and population in comparison to tiny Israel, and the global fear, first, of rampant Soviet-inspired Palestinian terrorism, and, subsequently, its radical Islamic epigone.

But he’s throwing that all away. Let’s just hope that 2013 isn’t too late to resurrect the relationships.

14 thoughts on “Ahmadinejad Is No Rube”

  2. Well, to be fair to President Chicxulub, Ahmadamnutjob would call out his own shadow.

    (Some proggnut accusing me of racism for implying Obama is a shadow in 4… 3… 2…)

  4. I’m not going to disagree with that, but all the other leaders have to be laughing like little girls, because Obama’s zipper is down.

    Even IF the guy pointing it out, has NO fly, it’s still amusing.

  6. Yeah, and now we aren’t going to upgrade nukes that are 15 to 30 years old. I wonder how many would even go off not that I’d like to see that happen.

  7. Obama’s not ignorant. He’s actively hostile to the Brits for colonialism and to Israel because he has taken on the soft anti-Semitism of the American left.

  8. Every time humans try to broker peace with signed pieces of paper it paradoxically leads to war.

    The only paper that contributes to lasting and sustained peace is cold hard cash. When people have reasons to scratch each others backs they find mutually beneficial ways to maintaining the cash flow and the back scratches. Wars and such are highly expensive on their own merit and disruptive to normal business exchanges.

    I would put Obama’s isolationist anti-trade tendencies as yet another piece of tender on this volatile geopolitical atmosphere.

  9. GWB was keen to break with the British special relationship because the Labour party had had advisers helping Gore.

    Clinton was negative to John Major.

    Currently there’s a parliamentary cross-party group saying that the “special relationship” is nothing of the kind, and that’s a British view.

    IN other words, as usual, you’re posting nonsense that you like the sound of.

  12. Nice. Classy. You must be a hit at cocktail parties with that rapier wit.

    But no actual refutation of the status of the “special” relationship?

    We could look at the Israel relationship in the same light. Israel will huff and puff but while they’re fiscally dependant on the US and US military support it will really mean very little in the scheme of things.

    There was an interesting radio program I listened to yesterday where a number of secular Jews were complaining about the power that the hardline orthodox community had in government at the moment. That friction is under control while there’s an external threat but without it there’s a significant problem for the stability of the Israeli government.

  13. Oh and who actually gives a piece of flung excrement about what that nutter thinks about anything, Obama or otherwise. I’m pretty sure he was on record saying stuff about Bush Jnr too. Was that somehow valid? Or are his opinions only valid when you agree with them?

    Don’t worry, that last bit was rhetorical.

  14. Nice. Classy. You must be a hit at cocktail parties with that rapier wit.

    Awww…poor baby can’t take what he dishes.

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