I think this is the part where Obama's supposed to declaim "Hekmati alive, or Ahmadinejad dead!"
The steady ramping-up of bellicosity on the part of the Iranians lately has got me thinking that the mullahs running the show over there are feeling that their grip on power is getting tenuous, that the Persian-on-the-street is getting fed up with the status quo and might be thinking about regime change. After all, if you're thinking that you might be about to get toppled from the throne, there's nothing like the looming threat of an outside power and a foreign war to convince the average citizen to rally behind the flag and support the government. People are reluctant to change horses mid-stream.
Right, Barry?
RELATED UPDATE: Oh, look! U.S. expels Venezuelan consul general from Miami, perhaps in relation to accusations that, along with Iranian diplomats, she was trying to enlist Mexican hackers to sneak into sensitive .gov and .mil networks. We will certainly need a strong hand at the helm in the troubling times ahead. Look for plenty of reminders between now and November of how Barry rappelled into that Abbottabad compound with a knife in his teeth and took down Public Enemy Number One.
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Their grip is tenuous. But the fallback plan has been the same since late 1978 - engage the Americans.
ReplyDeleteBeen having a back and forth with OldNFO over this. I believe it's Official Obama Foreign Policy to just force the Middle East into Chaos, and let them Eat One Another, while America stands aside. Chaos means there's no "Great Leader" to unite Islam, so no Global Jihad to retake Cordoba. But the Last Big Thorn in the side is Iran, and the Persians have this LOOOONG history of thinking they own the World, and the West has a LOOOONG history of proving them wrong.
ReplyDeleteBut this time around, it seems all the European Usual Suspects are jumping on the Bandwagon, and it's beginning to feel like it's 2002 with Bush's "Free Iraq" Policy and Build Up.
Unfortunately, while Sparta had Leonidas and the 300, we have Barry and......
When one decides to back some Rats into a Corner, one better remember that the Rats will Bite.
Gonna be a rough summer, I think.
your first link is borked for me.
ReplyDeleteTam;
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that you mentioned the dynamic coming from the average Persian-on-the-street. From what I've been able to acertain from my Persian expat extended family, the average POTS is fed up with the current regime's way of doing things and would like to see them toppled, but are scared of two things:
1.) Trying to do it without help from the outside. They gave it a hot in 2009 and the world sat on their thumbs and watched as the mullahs gunned them down from buildings surrounding the protest grounds.
2.) What will replace them. The devil you know is far more comfortable than the unknown.
As for the way Obama needs to be handling this, I don't have the full story so I can't reliably say that I know what I'd do, but i can say that i am generally against foreign coutnries executing American citizens unless due process has been fulfiled and the guy really did commit a capital crime in that country.
Tough talk is probably all that we need to get this taken care of. We have a few divisions that just recently got freed up right next door. We needed a place to park them, anyway.
Corrected first link is here
ReplyDelete*coming to you today from Israel*
So, he isn't an actual spy?
ReplyDeleteLanius,
ReplyDeleteI don't know, and neither do you.
Mexican hackers?
ReplyDeleteWhy do I have an image in my head of a couple of guys hovering over the eerie green glow of a TRS-80 arguing over whether, or not, their new hydraulics are going to knock the spinners off of their tape drive.