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Politics : View from the Center and Left

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To: JohnM who wrote (17536)	5/3/2006 1:42:55 PM
From: thames_sider	Read Replies (2) of 542808

I'm uninterested in most of what Hitchens writes; as far as I can tell he's desperate to be proven right for abandoning his previous views and taking the stance he did over Iraq, and he does seem rather too full of undigested bile. However I was interested by these snippets from Cole's riposte; As for the matter at issue, Ahmadinejad is a non-entity. The Iranian "president" is mostly powerless. The commander of the armed forces is the Supreme Jurisprudent, Ali Khamenei. Worrying about Ahmadinejad's antics is like worrying that the US military will act on the orders of the secretary of the interior. Ahmadinejad cannot declare war on anyone, or mobilize a military. So it doesn't matter what speeches he gives. Moreover, Iran cannot fight Israel. It would be defeated in 72 hours, even if the US didn't come in, which it would (and rightly so if Israel were attacked). Iran is separated by several other countries from Israel. It has not attacked aggressively any other country militarily for over a century (can Americans say that of their own record?) It has only a weak, ineffective air force. So why worry about it? ... It is obvious that powerful political forces in Washington are fishing for a pretext to launch a war on Iran, and that they are just delighted to have Ahmadinejad as cartoon villain and pretext... I'm not sure about his conclusion but his comments about Iran's capability are accurate and those about their leadership interesting. It might also partially explain why what had seemed like a more moderate electorate might elect such a fanatic... full of sound and fury, signifying nothing?

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