{"id":7973,"date":"2009-06-14T21:07:58","date_gmt":"2009-06-15T04:07:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=7973"},"modified":"2009-06-14T21:07:58","modified_gmt":"2009-06-15T04:07:58","slug":"iran-amok","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=7973","title":{"rendered":"Iran Amok"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"iran.jpg\"<\/a>The ongoing political unrest in Iran appears unlikely to resolve itself soon; unfortunately, the Ahmadinejad Administration and its backers appear to be ramping up the violence, which makes fighting back a difficult decision for the people on the ground. It’s all well and good for a guy sitting in cozy suburban apartment to say that people should be taking to the streets against armed forces, but it’s quite a different thing to do when it’s really your life (or your daughter’s, or your son’s) on the line. I do not envy the difficult decision the people of Iran face — accede to a blatant coup d’\u00e9tat <\/em>and accept leadership that one knows is not legitimate or just, or fight and maybe die trying to overturn a rigged election. It’s an awful situation, and any decent person watching can only hope for the best for the people of Iran.<\/p>\n

But not everyone is down. Vile excuse for a human being Max Boot is downright chipper about the events unfolding in Iran. Boot, a disgusting waste of carbon, is happy, because the sham election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad means that it’s just possible he’ll get the happy little war<\/a> he’s been hoping for:<\/p>\n

Ahmadinejad is about the worst spokesman possible to make Iran\u2019s case to the West\u2013a president who denies the Holocaust, calls for Israel\u2019s eradication, claims there are no homosexuals in Iran, and generally comes off like a denizen of an alternative universe. Even the Obama administration will be hard put to enter into serious negotiations with Ahmadinejad, especially when his scant credibility has been undermined by these utterly fraudulent elections and the resulting street protests.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean that Obama won\u2019t try\u2013but he will have a lot less patience with Ahmadinejad than he would have had with Mousavi. And that in turn means there is a greater probability that eventually Obama may do something serious to stop the Iranian nuclear program\u2013whether by embargoing Iranian refined-petroleum imports or by tacitly giving the go-ahead to Israel to attack its nuclear installations.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hooray! Yes, while this sham election is an affront to human rights and the basic dignity of the Iranian people, the good news is that now, maybe we’ll let the Israelis bomb a Muslim nation! What could possibly go wrong, other than the death of Iranian civilians and the possible sparking of a pan-Middle East war? Yes, Max Boot, you truly are one of the most disgusting, bloodthirsty subhumans ever to crawl out from a pile of manure. What would our nation do without you?<\/p>\n

It’s hard to say where we go from here. For the next few days, we’ll have to watch and wait; America can’t really jump in on either side here, and the best we can do is mumble about “inconsistencies” and try to signal that no, we don’t think this was a just outcome — but we daren’t come down too hard, lest we allow the Ahmadinejad Administration to use “international interference” as a club against its enemies. Should Ahmadinejad remain in power, this does make it more difficult for America and Europe to negotiate with Iran to stop a nuclear program — but unfortunately, from a realpolitik<\/em> standpoint, we can’t refuse to negotiate with the people in charge of the country, even if we think they’re scum who stole the election. Other countries still talked to George W. Bush, after all, and more seriously, we continue to maintain diplomatic ties with countries that have pretend democracies, like Russia, not to mention nations like Saudi Arabia and China, places for which Iranian levels of human rights would be a huge step forward. And not the level of human rights Iranians had, say, last week, but the level they have now, today, with the brutal repression and everything.<\/p>\n

Hopefully, it won’t come to that. Hopefully, Iran will make a painful step forward here. Ultimately, nobody is well-served by war with Iran, and the best possible outcome is for Iran to gradually transition to a democratic state. That’s what the people of Iran seem to want, and what decent people outside of Iran should support.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The ongoing political unrest in Iran appears unlikely to resolve itself soon; unfortunately, the Ahmadinejad Administration and its backers appear to be ramping up the violence, which makes fighting back a difficult decision for the people on the ground. It’s … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservative-zaniness-right-wingers-etc","category-iran"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7973\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}