As the smoke cleared a smoldering shell of a mosque could still be seen intact. But that's all that was left in the formerly great city of Tehran, smoking shells of once-grand buildings. Burnt bodies and twisted hunks of melted steel and glass litter the streets. Millions are dead and it's only the beginning. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fled the capital just in time and launched a counterstrike on Israel within minutes of the destruction of Tehran. By the day's end all of the world's nuclear powers are choosing sides in the conflict to decide the fate of the most volatile region on the planet. Millions perish from the violence, but millions also perish due to the halting of the global energy trade and diversion of resources from aid and humanitarian causes to the war.
This may be a hypothetical situation, but it feels more and more realistic with each day of tension with Iran. President Ahmadinejad has not only claimed that the holocaust is a myth, but that Israel should be "wiped off the map" because it is a stain on the world. Iran was always a dangerous nation, long before Mahmoud was elected president, but he is a very dangerous man. He's charismatic, radical, very brilliant (was ranked in the top 125 in the national apptitude exam when entering college) and homicidal. Many people have compared him to Hitler, especially for his anti-Semitic views and unparralleled oratory skills. It has also been said that he participated heavily in the 1979-1981 Iran Hostage Crisis, assassinations of Kurdish politicians in Austria, support of or involvement in terrorist activities, and executions of political prisoners in the Evin prison in Tehran. Is this really a man that we should let run wild?
When we went to war with Iraq, I questioned why we weren't invading North Korea instead, or maybe even Iran. Iran is right next to Afghanistan, and it only made sense that we would try to topple and overturn the right-wing government there first since it obviously offered more of a threat than Iraq. If we really do believe in pre-emptive strikes, why not attack the leaders who have not only claimed to have the desire to launch nukes, but also have engaged in activities to obtain nuclear technology against the orders of the international community? The longer we've given them (NK and IRAN), the more prepared they've gotten for our eventual invasion. So not only has the war in Iraq been completely futile, it's also given North Korea and Iran more chances to really endanger the world and to prepare for an inevitable conflict.
The problem is that every time our government steps in, we make things even worse. Afghanistan got worse and the Taliban took over thanks to our destabilization of their government, same thing happened in Central America in the 1980s, as well as in Chile and even Iraq. If we let Iran go unchecked completely, that scenario I wrote about above will happen. But if we invade, we could face other problems. We're already overextended in Iraq and Afghanistan, and if we invaded Iran, we'd weaken our own defenses to the point where we'd be too vulnerable and in danger. This is a very scary time in the world, the technology of the weapons have far outpaced the philosophical development of most nations and we have people with 19th century views and 21st century weapons.
Maybe in 5 years we'll all have forgotten about Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and their threat to the world will have been neutralized. But unless we work to bring the masses of those countries to this century, it wont matter if we oust those men from power, because another dictator is waiting in the wings to take his place. Lenin became Stalin who became Malenkov who became Khruschev, etc. Can we really afford another century of a cold war? Only this cold war has violence and it wont end the same way...
This may be a hypothetical situation, but it feels more and more realistic with each day of tension with Iran. President Ahmadinejad has not only claimed that the holocaust is a myth, but that Israel should be "wiped off the map" because it is a stain on the world. Iran was always a dangerous nation, long before Mahmoud was elected president, but he is a very dangerous man. He's charismatic, radical, very brilliant (was ranked in the top 125 in the national apptitude exam when entering college) and homicidal. Many people have compared him to Hitler, especially for his anti-Semitic views and unparralleled oratory skills. It has also been said that he participated heavily in the 1979-1981 Iran Hostage Crisis, assassinations of Kurdish politicians in Austria, support of or involvement in terrorist activities, and executions of political prisoners in the Evin prison in Tehran. Is this really a man that we should let run wild?
When we went to war with Iraq, I questioned why we weren't invading North Korea instead, or maybe even Iran. Iran is right next to Afghanistan, and it only made sense that we would try to topple and overturn the right-wing government there first since it obviously offered more of a threat than Iraq. If we really do believe in pre-emptive strikes, why not attack the leaders who have not only claimed to have the desire to launch nukes, but also have engaged in activities to obtain nuclear technology against the orders of the international community? The longer we've given them (NK and IRAN), the more prepared they've gotten for our eventual invasion. So not only has the war in Iraq been completely futile, it's also given North Korea and Iran more chances to really endanger the world and to prepare for an inevitable conflict.
The problem is that every time our government steps in, we make things even worse. Afghanistan got worse and the Taliban took over thanks to our destabilization of their government, same thing happened in Central America in the 1980s, as well as in Chile and even Iraq. If we let Iran go unchecked completely, that scenario I wrote about above will happen. But if we invade, we could face other problems. We're already overextended in Iraq and Afghanistan, and if we invaded Iran, we'd weaken our own defenses to the point where we'd be too vulnerable and in danger. This is a very scary time in the world, the technology of the weapons have far outpaced the philosophical development of most nations and we have people with 19th century views and 21st century weapons.
Maybe in 5 years we'll all have forgotten about Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and their threat to the world will have been neutralized. But unless we work to bring the masses of those countries to this century, it wont matter if we oust those men from power, because another dictator is waiting in the wings to take his place. Lenin became Stalin who became Malenkov who became Khruschev, etc. Can we really afford another century of a cold war? Only this cold war has violence and it wont end the same way...
posted by Dan Pasternack at 2:01 PM
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