World “leaders” – the politicians at the helms of nations – had high expectations for Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, would usher in a new enlightenment in Iran.
In their pipe dreams – for they can be nothing else – the thought Rouhani would be less antagonistic to the world than his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Iran’s president has less power and influence on Iranian politics than the queen has on England’s parliament. At least the English queen is generally popular with her subjects (excluding, of course, the Muslims in her realm).
Iran’s president has less power than even the pompous president of Israel who, like a small child, should be seen and not heard.
Rouhani, like Ahmadinejad before him, is nothing more than a puppet for the Grand Ayatollah du jour, today that’s Ali Khamenei.
Khamenei is the sole power in Iran, much as the haredi zealots’ demagogic “rabbis” are the sole power within their sects.
If an Iranian president values his life and position, he has no option but to mouth the ayatollah’s thoughts.
Until Iran reclaims its independence from the imams and ayatollahs, the vitriolic attacks on all non-believers of the grand ayatollah’s Shiite religion – that’s Sunni Muslims, Christian infidels, liberals, the Great and the Little Satans, and “the West” – will continue and, lacking any push back from those non-Shiites, most assuredly will worsen.
The Chinese were right when, decades ago, they called America a “paper tiger.” America as a power is a past tense. We still have a stick – albeit not as big as in TR’s day, perhaps a “twig” is more accurate to describe America’s military today – but we lack anyone to carry it. America is tired of the no-win wars, wars we’ve been losing since Korea’s “police action.”
Korea did not threaten the U.S. in 1950.
Vietnam did not threaten the U.S. in 1954.
Iraq did not threaten the U.S. in Bush 1's war nor in Bush 2’s war.
Afghanistan and Pakistan did not threaten the U.S. (although they provide safe haven for Muslims that DO threaten the U.S.).
Now, 2013, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un DOES threaten the U.S. with nuclear missiles.
Now, 2013, Iran’s Khamenei DOES threaten the U.S. with nuclear missiles.
We fail to fight when there is a fight to be fought, but we enter into wars that are not of our making or our concern.
Syria, for example, is NOT a U.S. concern; it is an Arab League concern. Does the Arab League do anything? In a word, NO. Does the UN do anything beside turn tail and run? No.
Russia is supplying weapons to Bashar al-Assad’s regime, knowing the material will get into Hezbollah’s hands to be used against Lebanon and Israel – and perhaps against Arab Leaguers Saudia and the Gulf states. Still, America must avoid playing “Monkey See, Monkey Do” to to Russia’s arms dealers. If the Saudis want to buy second string weaponry from the U.S., well and good, but no one in Syria – on either side – has the money to Buy American.
What America never learned – not in China, not in Vietnam, not in the Shah’s Iran, not anywhere in the Middle East, and not even in next-door Cuba – is that it cannot annoint a ruler of a country. It cannot buy friends with peaceful or military aid.
The world knows the best America can do is bluff; it can rattle its nuclear sword, but the world knows America is just talk; hot air.
North Korea and Iran threaten the U.S. on a daily basis.
North Korea and Iran have, or are developing, the weaponry to act on their threats.
FDR and his buddies KNEW the Japanese were about to attack American interests and did nothing. Obungler seems bent on doing the same, but this time the attacks could very well be nuclear, killing many times more people than died in Japan’s attacks.
America fights when it should not and fails to attack-to-win when it should.
But it’s OK, because America is sure that Rouhani is going to change the ayatolla’s vision to wipe out the Great Stan and the Little Satan, and a few other infidel states as well.
Are the politicians blind or stupid . . . or both?
