Wednesday 24th of April 2024
Home » Blogs » Richard Tonkin's blog

The Face Of The Antichrist?

 It is unfortunate that the battlelines between the dominant fundamentalists of two religions are being drawn.  As far as logic and common-sense go, the Iranian leadership is lightyears ahead of the Bush Administration of America.

The Iranian point of view is that the U.S. is interfering with the rights of a sovereign state, while America believes that it has the right to eliminate a situation out of which a "threat" might arise.While the US and Australia are threatening sanctions, Iran is capable of serious damage to American energy supplies, and  will do so in retaliation to a military act against it. 

Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Ayatollah Khamenei (Photo from BBC)

 

The reaction in Texas to  Ayatolla Khamie's statements this weekend will not be a happy one.  I hope nobody's stupid enough to, say, drop a fake Iranian missile into Isreali territory.  A "retaliative" strike by Israel, as advocated by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney a year ago, would certainly cause a shift in the many of the public's perception of the initatiors of a war with Iran.

Given the U.S. tendency to similar forms of  idealogical cowardice,  such as Bush's idea of faking an Iraqi attack on an American spy-plane, I wouldn't put it past the bastards to try such a stunt.

The Ayatollah is making very sure that the world knows the consequences of America's attitude to Iran, and the Arab world's "hearts and minds" are much more closely aligned to Tehran than Washington.

Ladies and gentleman, I think we're finally about to have The War/


Ballyhoos

From Juan Cole's Khamenei: No Nuclear Weapon Program, No First Strike:

The US media presented only a snippet from the speech of Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei of Iran on Sunday, in which he threatened to damage oil supplies to the West if the US militarily attacked Iran. He did say that, but he also announced that Iran had no intention of striking first, had not attacked and would not attack another country, and that it has no nuclear weapons program and does not want a nuclear bomb. I didn't hear any of those statements reported on television. ...

This part of the speech would be relevant to our politicians:

(Khamene'i) "Science cannot be begged from others. Science should be inspired from within. A nation should use its talent to become truly knowledgeable. At the same time, it would only be through national unity and nationwide peace that faith, justice and science could flourish. At the absence of peace and calm, the country cannot benefit from science or faith, and it will not be possible to establish justice for the people. ...

El Bushaiolo completely nutso

From Al Jazeera

Cooler heads must prevail

By Sandy Shanks
Sunday 04 June 2006, 15:23 Makka Time, 12:23 GMT

The rhetoric over Iran is insane. Moreover, as an American, it sickens my heart when diplomats and leaders from other nations sound more reasonable, tending towards peace, than US diplomats and its leadership, who sound more like war hawks.

That is a curious position for the US, a nation that professes that it is at the forefront of encouraging democracy, freedom, and peace. During the Bush administration, is that all a farce?

For example, Seymour Hersh, who interviewed a former defence official who still advises the Bush administration, wrote: "There is a growing concern among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush's ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change."

This contrasts sharply with the comments made by Yury Fedotov, the Russian ambassador in London, who explained that Russia opposed the UN Chapter VII reference because it is reminiscent of past resolutions on Iraq and Yugoslavia that led to US military action, which had not been authorised by the Security Council.

China is also opposed to the US assertion that Iran be subjected Chapter VII invocations with respect to its uranium enrichment. Causing angst to American viewers is that Russia and China are not exactly the pillars of democracy and freedom, and Presidents Putin and Hu will not be confused with human rights activists.

Our friends, the French, had this to say via the comments of Dominique de Villepin, the French prime minister: "My conviction is that military action is certainly no solution."

Last month, Jack Straw, who was Britain's foreign secretary, branded the idea of a nuclear strike on Iran as "completely nuts".

He said military action against Iran was "inconceivable", and warned his cabinet colleagues that it would be illegal for Britain to support US military action against Iran. No good deed goes unpunished. Shortly after this candid epithet, following an angry call from the White House, Straw was fired.

read more at Al Jazeera...

Flight from Gitmo

A link from SPENGLER : Military destiny and madness in Iran led, via Wallenstein's 30 Years War, to the website of a US-based Australian educator, David Hart. A site that features Goya and Picasso has to be good!

Hart's bio says he built the Online Library of Liberty, a subset of the Liberty Forum. The "provenance" of this organisation is obscure, however. I hope I haven't linked to the Rosicrucians, Raelians or Scientologists!

His blog is Reflections on a Tortured World.

Hart's 'Jacques Callot - the "miseries" of the Thirty Years War' is pretty good.

.. 

Spengler concludes:

... That is why I do not expect a deal with Iran, despite the best intentions of the diplomats, and their terrible knowledge of what lies ahead should the West use force against Iran's nuclear capabilities. What the West euphemistically calls a "war on terror" is, in fact, a religious war. It must be fought like the Thirty Years' War. What the West requires, sadly, is not Condoleezza Rice, but a Cardinal Richelieu.