40% or more of Republicans to this day believe it was Saddam who was behind 9/11. That just is not true. It was Bin Laden. Saddam and Bin Laden did not like each other. Bin Laden always fantasized about toppling Saddam and erecting an Islamist regime in Iraq, like everywhere else. That is not any way to get along with a dictator.
But Bush-Cheney peddled the lie hard and that is how the war on Iraq was launched.
Ahmadinejad might not be a nice guy, but he also had nothing to do with 9/11. Like they say, just the facts, mam.
The CIA toppled a democratic regime in Iran and put in place a monarchy. That started the bad blood between the two peoples. The US backed Saddam to the hilt during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, just like it backed Bin Laden during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
I am for democracy, and Ahmadinejad, although an elected leader, is only partly elected. There is this supreme council of hard core mullahs in Iran. Only those candidates approved by those mullahs get to run for president. But that still makes Ahmadinejad one step ahead of the Saudi king, Mubarak and Gaddafi.
And I don't see the nuclear crisis in black and white. If all the poor countries of the world were to want to grow at 10% a year as they should, there is no option but to harness nuclear energy to the hilt. And so there is a need to have a strong international body that will apply uniformly across the globe standards that all nuclear power plants including those in the US and France and Russia and China and elsewhere would have to meet if they can be allowed to operate, and that in a framework of a total nuclear disarmament, a goal that gets complicated by not all states being democracies. Perhaps the conversion to democracy will have to happen first. But there is no postponing the energy part.
The Energy Solution: Nuclear Energy It is tough for women in Iran like in all the other Muslim countries. And Ahmadinejad will have to take some responsibility.
But this is not about analyzing the Iranian president or his country.
The state of Iran had nothing to do with 9/11. And that is reason enough to not bar this guy from going to visit the World Trade Center. He wants to go pay homage.
He might be responding to Obama's call that he will, as president, hold direct talks with the president of Iran. Reagan talked to Gorbachev, Kennedy talked to Khrushchev, Obama will talk to Ahmadinejad.
Ahmadinejad responded by wanting to visit the World Trade Center. He wanted to send a message out directly to the American people that he feels their pain, that he is on their side, even though it has been impossible for him to talk to the leadership that just does not believe in dialogue and diplomacy.
This guy should be allowed to talk to the American people and reach out to the American people if he wants to.
Iran is a state with a standing army. America is a state with the most powerful standing army in the world. Ahmadinejad is many things but not stupid. The state of Iran would not get involved with something like 9/11. They did not for a fact. And that fact has to be stated.
There are those who imagine that in the long run Iran and America are going to be two democracies who get along with each other just fine. The two peoples get along just fine. I am one of them. As to how long a wait that will be is anyone's guess right now, but I believe that time span can be shortened through strong, but engaged leadership, an informed leadership that does not peddle the prejudice that it was Saddam and perhaps Ahmadinejad who were behind 9/11. To knowingly fudge the truth on 9/11 is a disrespect to those who died that day.
Like Rice said once, Iran is not Iraq. Well, Ahmadinejad is not Bin Laden.
Just like in America, there is a political spectrum in the Arab world. Bin Laden and the Islamists are the extreme right. They are the Arab KKK. Then there is the right wing. That would be the unelected leaders like the Saudi king, Mubarak, Gaddafi and the all and sundry monarchs. Then there are the semi-elected right wingers like this Iranian guy. You move further to the middle and you meet reformers. Sadly these variants of the right occupy a large chunk of the spectrum leaving little room for democrats and reformers.
To not be able to see the richness of the spectrum is to tie your hands behind your back in the political solutions department. To be able to see the richness gives you the ability to drive wedges between the various segments.
American right wingers also try to demonize China to the hilt. China says it is just a poor country trying to feed its people. Iran is also a poor country. Ultimately they need to get along with America. Deep down that is what they want. So small measures of trust building are a good thing.
The Arab masses were not behind 9/11.
In the mean time Ahmadinejad gets to watch this video of mine that has received more views than any other of the 600 plus videos I have uploaded at
Google Video.
No comments:
Post a Comment