Lost_lady
07-08-06, 12:19
ANALYSIS: Whatever happens, Iran wins
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/746601.html
In the West, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad is called a lot of names, many of them unprintable.
But the time may have come to call him the one name he has truly earned in dealing with the West - genius.
In the little over a year in which he has served as president of Iran, he has engineered a position for the Islamic Republic that is unique in the Middle East, and, indeed, in the world:
Whatever happens, Iran wins.
Take Iraq. The worse things get for the United States in Iraq, the more broadly genuine Ahmadinejad's smile gets.
George Bush, having invaded, reshuffled, and in many ways neutered Iraq, Iran's old hated rival in the region, has done for Tehran what Tehran couldn't do for itself in the disastrous Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.
Even better for Ahmadinejad , the worse things get in Iraq and Lebanon, the higher that oil prices climb, and every few cents at the pump is ultimately going to spell billions more for the Iranian treasury.
The crowning development for Ahmadinejad is the circumstance that Washington's incalculable investment of troops, materiel, and policy in Iraq, and the myriad ways in which the war has gone catastrophically, may mean that the West cannot hope to orchestrate a future military offensive against Iran, even if the nuclear threat from Tehran clearly warrants it.
Stated differently, the War on Terror has granted Iran immunity. Ahmadinejad has a Get Out of Jail Free card, and he got it from Saddam Hussein.
Then there is this: Ahmadinejad understands as does no one else, the regional value of outrage.
Every obscene statement on the Holocaust, every matter-of-fact suggestion that Israel will be eradicated, every assertion of the Natural Right to Nuclear Capability, every jab at the Great Satan in Washington, only cements his status as the megastar of restive, miserable, messianic Muslims the world over.
In addition, Ahmadinejad and Iran's more violent client allies all profit greatly from the Everything is Victory element of the jihadist revolution, which tends to assess military developments according to the following criteria:
1. If I kill you, I win.
2. If you kill me, I am a martyr. I win big.
3. There are no innocents in the land of my enemy. If I kill infants, the elderly, pregnant women, even on purpose, I win.
4. When my enemy kills innocent civilians in error, even his own allies condemn him for brutality. I win.
The variations of the Iran Wins No Matter What principle are endless. But the best may have come this week, when French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy paid a visit to war-shattered Beirut.
France, once the colonial patron of the Paris of the Mideast, retains a special feeling about Lebanon. What many hadn't realized, however, was France's special feeling about Iran.
It is clear, Douste-Blazy told a news conference in Beirut, "that we could never accept a destabilization of Lebanon, which could lead to a destabilization of the region,"
And therefore, the French foreign minister continued:
"In the region there is of course a country such as Iran - a great
country, a great people and a great civilization, which is respected and which plays a stabilizing role in the region."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/746601.html
In the West, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad is called a lot of names, many of them unprintable.
But the time may have come to call him the one name he has truly earned in dealing with the West - genius.
In the little over a year in which he has served as president of Iran, he has engineered a position for the Islamic Republic that is unique in the Middle East, and, indeed, in the world:
Whatever happens, Iran wins.
Take Iraq. The worse things get for the United States in Iraq, the more broadly genuine Ahmadinejad's smile gets.
George Bush, having invaded, reshuffled, and in many ways neutered Iraq, Iran's old hated rival in the region, has done for Tehran what Tehran couldn't do for itself in the disastrous Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.
Even better for Ahmadinejad , the worse things get in Iraq and Lebanon, the higher that oil prices climb, and every few cents at the pump is ultimately going to spell billions more for the Iranian treasury.
The crowning development for Ahmadinejad is the circumstance that Washington's incalculable investment of troops, materiel, and policy in Iraq, and the myriad ways in which the war has gone catastrophically, may mean that the West cannot hope to orchestrate a future military offensive against Iran, even if the nuclear threat from Tehran clearly warrants it.
Stated differently, the War on Terror has granted Iran immunity. Ahmadinejad has a Get Out of Jail Free card, and he got it from Saddam Hussein.
Then there is this: Ahmadinejad understands as does no one else, the regional value of outrage.
Every obscene statement on the Holocaust, every matter-of-fact suggestion that Israel will be eradicated, every assertion of the Natural Right to Nuclear Capability, every jab at the Great Satan in Washington, only cements his status as the megastar of restive, miserable, messianic Muslims the world over.
In addition, Ahmadinejad and Iran's more violent client allies all profit greatly from the Everything is Victory element of the jihadist revolution, which tends to assess military developments according to the following criteria:
1. If I kill you, I win.
2. If you kill me, I am a martyr. I win big.
3. There are no innocents in the land of my enemy. If I kill infants, the elderly, pregnant women, even on purpose, I win.
4. When my enemy kills innocent civilians in error, even his own allies condemn him for brutality. I win.
The variations of the Iran Wins No Matter What principle are endless. But the best may have come this week, when French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy paid a visit to war-shattered Beirut.
France, once the colonial patron of the Paris of the Mideast, retains a special feeling about Lebanon. What many hadn't realized, however, was France's special feeling about Iran.
It is clear, Douste-Blazy told a news conference in Beirut, "that we could never accept a destabilization of Lebanon, which could lead to a destabilization of the region,"
And therefore, the French foreign minister continued:
"In the region there is of course a country such as Iran - a great
country, a great people and a great civilization, which is respected and which plays a stabilizing role in the region."