Iran's Redefined Strategy
By George Friedman

The Iranians have broken the International Atomic Energy Agency seals on some of their nuclear facilities. They did this very deliberately and publicly to make certain that everyone knew that Tehran was proceeding with its nuclear program. Prior to this, and in parallel, the Iranians began to -- among other things -- systematically bait the Israelis, threatening to wipe them from the face of the earth.

The question, of course, is what exactly the Iranians are up to. They do not yet have nuclear weapons. The Israelis do. The Iranians have now hinted that (a) they plan to build nuclear weapons and have implied, as clearly as possible without saying it, that (b) they plan to use them against Israel. On the surface, these statements appear to be begging for a pre-emptive strike by Israel. There are many things one might hope for, but a surprise visit from the Israeli air force is not usually one of them. Nevertheless, that is exactly what the Iranians seem to be doing, so we need to sort this out.

There are four possibilities:

1. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, is insane and wants to be attacked because of a bad childhood.
2. The Iranians are engaged in a complex diplomatic maneuver, and this is part of it.
3. The Iranians think they can get nuclear weapons -- and a deterrent to Israel -- before the Israelis attack.
4. The Iranians, actually and rationally, would welcome an Israeli -- or for that matter, American -- air strike.

Let's begin with the insanity issue, just to get it out of the way. One of the ways to avoid thinking seriously about foreign policy is to dismiss as a nutcase anyone who does not behave as you yourself would. As such, he is unpredictable and, while scary, cannot be controlled. You are therefore relieved of the burden of doing anything about him. In foreign policy, it is sometimes useful to appear to be insane, as it is in poker: The less predictable you are, the more power you have -- and insanity is a great tool of unpredictability. Some leaders cultivate an aura of insanity.

However, people who climb to the leadership of nations containing many millions of people must be highly disciplined, with insight into others and the ability to plan carefully. Lunatics rarely have those characteristics. Certainly, there have been sociopaths -- like Hitler -- but at the same time, he was a very able, insightful, meticulous man. He might have been crazy, but dismissing him because he was crazy -- as many did -- was a massive mistake. Moreover, leaders do not rise alone. They are surrounded by other ambitious people. In the case of Ahmadinejad, he is answerable to others above him (in this case, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei), alongside him and below him. He did not get to where he is by being nuts -- and even if we think what he says is insane, it clearly doesn't strike the rest of his audience as insane. Thinking of him as insane is neither helpful nor clarifying.

The Three-Player Game

So what is happening?

First, the Iranians obviously are responding to the Americans. Tehran's position in Iraq is not what the Iranians had hoped it would be. U.S. maneuvers with the Sunnis in Iraq and the behavior of Iraqi Shiite leaders clearly have created a situation in which the outcome will not be the creation of an Iranian satellite state. At best, Iraq will be influenced by Iran or neutral. At worst, it will drift back into opposition to Iran -- which has been Iraq's traditional geopolitical position. This is not satisfactory. Iran's Iraq policy has not failed, but it is not the outcome Tehran dreamt of in 2003.

There is a much larger issue. The United States has managed its position in Iraq -- to the extent that it has been managed -- by manipulating the Sunni-Shiite fault line in the Muslim world. In the same way that Richard Nixon manipulated the Sino-Soviet split, the fundamental fault line in the Communist world, to keep the Soviets contained and off-balance late in the Vietnam War, so the Bush administration has used the primordial fault line in the Islamic world, the Sunni-Shiite split, to manipulate the situation in Iraq.

Washington did this on a broader scale as well. Having enticed Iran with new opportunities -- both for Iran as a nation and as the leading Shiite power in a post-Saddam world -- the administration turned to Sunni countries like Saudi Arabia and enticed them into accommodation with the United States by allowing them to consider the consequences of an ascended Iran under canopy of a relationship with the United States. Washington used that vision of Iran to gain leverage in Saudi Arabia. The United States has been moving back and forth between Sunnis and Shia since the invasion of Afghanistan, when it obtained Iranian support for operations in Afghanistan's Shiite regions. Each side was using the other. The United States, however, attained the strategic goal of any three-player game: It became the swing player between Sunnis and Shia.

This was not what the Iranians had hoped for.

Reclaiming the Banner

There is yet another dimension to this. In 1979, when the Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini deposed the Shah of Iran, Iran was the center of revolutionary Islamism. It both stood against the United States and positioned itself as the standard-bearer for radical Islamist youth. It was Iran, through its creation, Hezbollah, that pioneered suicide bombings. It championed the principle of revolutionary Islamism against both collaborationist states like Saudi Arabia and secular revolutionaries like Yasser Arafat. It positioned Shi'ism as the protector of the faith and the hope of the future.

In having to defend against Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the 1980s, and the resulting containment battle, Iran became ensnared in a range of necessary but compromising relationships. Recall, if you will, that the Iran-Contra affair revealed not only that the United States used Israel to send weapons to Iran, but also that Iran accepted weapons from Israel. Iran did what it had to in order to survive, but the complexity of its operations led to serious compromises. By the late 1990s, Iran had lost any pretense of revolutionary primacy in the Islamic world. It had been flanked by the Sunni Wahhabi movement, al Qaeda.

The Iranians always saw al Qaeda as an outgrowth of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and therefore, through Shiite and Iranian eyes, never trusted it. Iran certainly didn't want al Qaeda to usurp the position of primary challenger to the West. Under any circumstances, it did not want al Qaeda to flourish. It was caught in a challenge. First, it had to reduce al Qaeda's influence, or concede that the Sunnis had taken the banner from Khomeini's revolution. Second, Iran had to reclaim its place. Third, it had to do this without undermining its geopolitical interests.

Tehran spent the time from 2003 through 2005 maximizing what it could from the Iraq situation. It also quietly participated in the reduction of al Qaeda's network and global reach. In doing so, it appeared to much of the Islamic world as clever and capable, but not particularly principled. Tehran's clear willingness to collaborate on some level with the United States in Afghanistan, in Iraq and in the war on al Qaeda made it appear as collaborationist as it had accused the Kuwaitis or Saudis of being in the past. By the end of 2005, Iran had secured its western frontier as well as it could, had achieved what influence it could in Baghdad, had seen al Qaeda weakened. It was time for the next phase. It had to reclaim its position as the leader of the Islamic revolutionary movement for itself and for Shi'ism.

Thus, the selection of the new president was, in retrospect, carefully engineered. After President Mohammed Khatami's term, all moderates were excluded from the electoral process by decree, and the election came down to a struggle between former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani -- an heir to Khomeini's tradition, but also an heir to the tactical pragmatism of the 1980s and 1990s -- and Ahmadinejad, the clearest descendent of the Khomeini revolution that there was in Iran, and someone who in many ways had avoided the worst taints of compromise.

Ahmadinejad was set loose to reclaim Iran's position in the Muslim world. Since Iran had collaborated with Israel during the 1980s, and since Iranian money in Lebanon had mingled with Israeli money, the first thing he had to do was to reassert Iran's anti-Zionist credentials. He did that by threatening Israel's existence and denying the Holocaust. Whether he believed what he was saying is immaterial. Ahmadinejad used the Holocaust issue to do two things: First, he established himself as intellectually both anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish, taking the far flank among Islamic leaders; and second, he signaled a massive breach with Khatami's approach.

Khatami was focused on splitting the Western world by dividing the Americans from the Europeans. In carrying out this policy, he had to manipulate the Europeans. The Europeans were always open to the claim that the Americans were being rigid and were delighted to serve the role of sophisticated mediator. Khatami used the Europeans' vanity brilliantly, sucking them into endless discussions and turning the Iran situation into a problem the Europeans were having with the United States.

But Tehran paid a price for this in the Muslim world. In drawing close to the Europeans, the Iranians simply appeared to be up to their old game of unprincipled realpolitik with people -- Europeans -- who were no better than the Americans. The Europeans were simply Americans who were weaker. Ahmadinejad could not carry out his strategy of flanking the Wahhabis and still continue the minuet with Europe. So he ended Khatami's game with a bang, with a massive diatribe on the Holocaust and by arguing that if there had been one, the Europeans bore the blame. That froze Germany out of any further dealings with Tehran, and even the French had to back off. Iran's stock in the Islamic world started to rise.

The Nuclear Gambit

The second phase was for Iran to very publicly resume -- or very publicly claim to be resuming -- development of a nuclear weapon. This signaled three things:

1. Iran's policy of accommodation with the West was over.
2. Iran intended to get a nuclear weapon in order to become the only real challenge to Israel and, not incidentally, a regional power that Sunni states would have to deal with.
3. Iran was prepared to take risks that no other Muslim actor was prepared to take. Al Qaeda was a piker.

The fundamental fact is that Ahmadinejad knows that, except in the case of extreme luck, Iran will not be able to get nuclear weapons. First, building a nuclear device is not the same thing as building a nuclear weapon. A nuclear weapon must be sufficiently small, robust and reliable to deliver to a target. A nuclear device has to sit there and go boom. The key technologies here are not the ones that build a device but the ones that turn a device into a weapon -- and then there is the delivery system to worry about: range, reliability, payload, accuracy. Iran has a way to go.

A lot of countries don't want an Iranian bomb. Israel is one. The United States is another. Throw Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and most of the 'Stans into this, and there are not a lot of supporters for an Iranian bomb. However, there are only two countries that can do something about it. The Israelis don't want to get the grief, but they are the ones who cannot avoid action because they are the most vulnerable if Iran should develop a weapon. The United States doesn't want Israel to strike at Iran, as that would massively complicate the U.S. situation in the region, but it doesn't want to carry out the strike itself either.

This, by the way, is a good place to pause and explain to readers who will write in wondering why the United States will tolerate an Israeli nuclear force but not an Iranian one. The answer is simple. Israel will probably not blow up New York. That's why the United States doesn't mind Israel having nukes and does mind Iran having them. Is that fair? This is power politics, not sharing time in preschool. End of digression.

Intra-Islamic Diplomacy

If the Iranians are seen as getting too close to a weapon, either the United States or Israel will take them out, and there is an outside chance that the facilities could not be taken out with a high degree of assurance unless nukes are used. In the past, our view was that the Iranians would move carefully in using the nukes to gain leverage against the United States. That is no longer clear. Their focus now seems to be not on their traditional diplomacy, but on a more radical, intra-Islamic diplomacy. That means that they might welcome a (survivable) attack by Israel or the United States. It would burnish Iran's credentials as the true martyr and fighter of Islam.

Meanwhile, the Iranians appear to be reaching out to the Sunnis on a number of levels. Muqtada al-Sadr, the leader of a radical Shiite group in Iraq with ties to Iran, visited Saudi Arabia recently. There are contacts between radical Shia and Sunnis in Lebanon as well. The Iranians appear to be engaged in an attempt to create the kind of coalition in the Muslim world that al Qaeda failed to create. From Tehran's point of view, if they get a deliverable nuclear device, that's great -- but if they are attacked by Israel or the United States, that's not a bad outcome either.

In short, the diplomacy that Iran practiced from the beginning of the Iraq-Iran war until after the U.S. invasion of Iraq appears to be ended. Iran is making a play for ownership of revolutionary Islamism on behalf of itself and the Shia. Thus, Tehran will continue to make provocative moves, while hoping to avoid counterstrikes. On the other hand, if there are counterstrikes, the Iranians will probably be able to live with that as well.

Send questions or comments on this article to analysis@stratfor.com

This report may be distributed or republished with attribution to Strategic Forecasting, Inc. at www.stratfor.com

It took 2 tries to take down the World Trade Towers,
So don't tell me we're not

ON THE EVE OF DESTRUCTION

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The Open Trackback Alliance XI
For Monday
For your listening pleasure while you browse

Battle Hymn of the Republic

the world thinks they know all about Americans, I intend to present music each week in this post illustrating our extreme diversity, this one will celebrate our Unity for a change of pace






When I first started upon my journey through the blogverse I created a Statement of Purpose
Now upon reading it, one can realize that I did not hold to every detail of that original statement, but from it's basic premise, I have never swayed, in my belief that the Blogs are in fact the Committees of Correspondence of the Second American Revolution.

And that it is a Revolution of Information, no longer can we afford and allow elite gateways to control what we can see, hear and discuss.

One of the most important discoveries I make in those early days was the website of Samantha Burns, which included a unique informal community of bloggers, who not only linked to each other but actually browsed and read the blogs they linked to.

Later I was honored to be allowed to join another more formal blog community. At that time I decided that while I welcomed blogs that wanted to link to me, I was not that interested in simply joining blogrolls to add links. After that I made no more attempts to join any blog alliances. I have been kept busy supporting the linkages I have and at times I feel guilty that I cannot get around to all the websites on my blogroll as I could when it was smaller.

So why do I welcome this recent invitation to join the Open Trackback Alliance? Have I reconsidered my former decision?

No I am posting and joining this Alliance because it is RIGHT for me to do so.

Because it FULFILLS my original Statement of Purpose that the Blogs are indeed the 21st Century Committees of Correspondence, whose duty and honor it is to SHARE information, thoughts, ideas, news and to discuss the same. To diligently search for the truths that lie behind the distortions and half-truths of the Legacy Media.

What the blogs associated with the Samantha Burns site did informally, and without structure, this Alliance only aids and structures. There is in fact no conflict between what I do now, and what I decided to do sometime ago.

For I believe that those bloggers who find their way, here and in particular from the Blogs associated with Sam.

HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY.

Some of us are more Serious, some of us are more lighthearted and some post the common ordinary things that make one smile and recall that Life without the simple things to treasure is meaningless.

And it is important that all have a platform from which to speak.

As I understand this process you can link to this post and trackback to this post on ANY subject or post you think important. It is open. I will repeat this every Monday.

The Committees of Correspondence welcomes your intelligent comments. And also welcomes you to join the

OPEN TRACKBACK ALLIANCE

Blogs that Trackback to this Post:

On Monday
The New Slave Trade--Guard the Borders from third world county
End of the Spear, Start of an Era from Bloggin' Outloud
Adios Middle Class from Freedom Folks
Iran Pulling Money out of Europe from The Uncooperative Blogger

Y'al come back now, Y'heah? ;-)

A Special Link to The_City_Troll for News of Vital Importance

Tehran plans nuclear weapon test by March

PS I think the Troll is worth linking to, let's give him a hand up to Slithery Reptile

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Hostages for Hire?
Well it seems we have a new occupation provided by the Political Left.

Temp Hostages.

This is a really explosive bit of new, I wonder how much coverage it will get in the Major Media Outlets?

Were Kidnappers Osthoff's Business Partners?

A strange development in the Osthoff case...

Report says ransom money found on Osthoff

Part of the ransom money alleged to have been paid by the German government to win the freedom of Iraq hostage Susanne Osthoff last month was found on Osthoff after her release, the German magazine Focus said on Saturday.

Without citing its sources, Focus said officials at the German embassy in Baghdad had found several thousand U.S. dollars in the 43-year-old German archaeologist's clothes when she took a shower at the embassy shortly after being freed.

The serial numbers on the bills matched those used by the government to pay off Osthoff's kidnappers, the magazine said---

More on the Osthoff case from

John Rosenthal...

Osthoff herself caused a stir when she said in an interview at the end of December that she did not believe her kidnappers were criminals. "

Why am I not surprised by that statement?


One recalls the Japanese Kidnapping? I seem to remember that there was some information on their personal websites before they left, indicating that they would be taking part in some dramatic event that would "make a difference"??

ANTI-USA/PRO-ACTIVIST JAPANESE WEBSITE OF JAPAN 'HOSTAGE' FOUND/TRANSLATED (IRAQ)

On thing was certain the Japanese Public was not pleased with their manipulations.

Hostages Get Icy Welcome Home

The three hostages including a woman who went to Iraq to help street children in Baghdad had been shown on television being threatened by their knife-brandishing kidnappers but a hand written sign at the airport in Tokyo on their return, which read "You got what you deserve!" was a sign of worse to come. Another compatriot wrote on the website of one of the former hostages: "You are Japan's shame," and to add insult to injury, the Japanese Government billed the returnees $6,000 for the air fares. By this weekend, the former hostages were in hiding from an angry public.


Now let's see how the German Public Reaction plays out? ;-)

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The Erosion of Values in Society
I suppose at first glance, there will be some who expect a Sodom and Gomorrah polemic about our Society and Culture Today.

In a sense this will be true, but I will NOT speak of consensual activity, between adults, nor non-victimless crimes.

I DO have certain opinions on the concepts of "adult" and "consent".

I consider it a primary Duty of Adults to "Protect Children".

I consider it THE primary Duty of Society to "Protect Children".

Failure by either Society or any Individual to recognize and respond to this Primary Responsibility, is in my eyes a Crime against Nature on the one hand and a Abrogation of the Social Contract between the Individual and the State on the other.

In the current era it has be de rigeur to "redefine"
the concepts of "consent", "adult" and "children" to shirk these duties.

This must stop if we do not wish the Present Civilization of the West to descend into Oblivion.

In my last article I wrote on the Story of Dyan Purdu.

I find it totally obscene that California Law finds that the lack of saying "No" constitutes "consent".
(you will recall the reason given for Dylan not saying No was that she was unconscious at the time)

But passed that fundamental objection of justice I find something even more obscene.

That the Law expected a FOURTEEN YEAR OLD LITTLE GIRL to be able to give consent at ALL!

Adults are responsible for children, children are NOT responsible for such as this.

We have made it so, by the perverted erosion of our duty and the introduction of the disgusting concept of "Age of Consent"

A minor should not be able to give Consent period.

That was the way it used to be.

What is the rationale for now giving them consent on those matters which can be the most damaging to them??

Sex, Rape and Abortion??

I understand that the Supreme Court has just returned to a lower Federal Court a Law informing the parents of a minor of an impending abortion.

Say what?

A minor cannot even be given an aspirin in most jurisdictions, without parental consent but one assumes by the direction of the Law that now this most serious medical procedure, which could scar a young girl with guilt for the rest of her life can be given, and the parents need merely be informed?

The rationale for the Lower Federal Court striking down the New Law was the lack of consideration for Medical Emergencies.

OK I will stipulate in a medical emergency, when the life of the Child is at Risk, physicians need to be able to render such aid as they deem fit.

How many abortions fit this ?

The State has NO right to take away the Parents primary responsibility to protect their own Child.

But the State does such these days, the State has redefined and blurred the concept of adult and minor with the introduction of "Age of Consent" this is wrong.

This is in fact a Statement by the State that it no longer "chooses" to protect these children, but instead gives to them the responsibility.

In other areas the State has fallen even further into what can only be described as perversion.

In several recent case in New England, Judges have given sexual predators, a mere slap on the wrist, because, they do not believe in PUNISHMENT?

How about protecting the Children on our Streets from being raped and abused by degenerates?

No Folks this erosion of the most BASIC Values of our Society, must cease.

From this day forward, you must think of each election, as the Most Important Election in your Life and do what you can to ensure that those who would leave the most vulnerable of our Society, our Children, defenseless, do NOT assume the mantle of Political Power.

We have on the Supreme Court of the United States today, a Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who thinks that the Age of Consent should be lowered to 12.

We cannot afford any more like her deciding the Fate of the Nation.

From Michele Malkin comes yet another story of the Failure of Society to protect one of our children and indeed an attempt by the State to prematurely bury it's failure!

BLOGGING FOR HALEIGH

Here's the latest in Haleigh Poutre's fight for her life: The Massachusetts Department of Social Services, which last week won court-ordered authority to remove Haleigh's feeding tube, is now under fire for failing to detect and act on signs that Haleigh was abused:

Our very Civilization is under Attack these days. The Obvious threats are those who speak plainly in public that they wish to rain total destruction upon us. The less obvious ones are those who come to us with a smile and offer to lift from our shoulders the heavy burdens of responsibility and choice.
I do not believe the First has the Power to destroy us, I DO believe the Second can if we are not vigilant.

Linked to
OTA Weekender at The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns

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Not Saying No,
is NOT Saying
Yes!

If anyone finds the above statement confusing?

You are not unique, the Legislature of the State of California has not been able to figure out that Consent, requires Acquiescence and not just the inability of a 14 year old girl who is unconscious, to say No, to the advances of a rapist.

I suppose using the same logic, if you are asleep when a burglar enters your house no crime is committed?

As I understand it this young lady a few years older since the incident wants verbiage put into the Law to make the rape of an unconscious, women or girl illegal.

I am trying to understand the problem with this logic.

Of course this is NOT what the media, except for Fox calls News.

I put her name into a Goggle News Search and got this.

Yep except for a certain Media that tries to make the News Balanced by being all by it's lonesome, the only links I found about this story, was, you guessed it Blogs.

Here is one Big Bubba's Big Blog

Now Big Bubba and I see to be equally disgusted by the confusion of the California Legislators (why am I not surprised?)


Again, I am not sure, don't remember, the details, but it seems the girl, her family, and supporters believe that the boy did not receive deserved punishment. Why? Because the charge of rape could not be prosecuted because she did not say no. Never mind that she couldn't say no because she was drugged and passed out. She didn't say no so the boy received a hand slap.


Something is very WRONG with this picture.

Folks we HAVE to take back our Country and our Courts, things have gone too far!

PS I would say Big Bubba would fit right in with anyone who reads here regularly. Stop by his Blog and Say Howdy. ;-)

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Where my Readers Come From
Well it does look like I have spread to a few more countries since the last time I assembled this map in Dec? Eighty one different Nations now have come to this website and I thank everyone for the kind attention and the fact that my comments here where they do occur have been courteous and friendly natured.

On another note, it was nice being a Large Mammal for a while but I am now back to being a Marauding Marsupial.

Decembers Map

My First Map

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Follow The Money
I, like quite a few, I would wager, at times ponder the shift in political power over the last few decades.

Some maintain that the public has shifted to the Right, like Zell Miller,I am more of the mind that "I never left the Democratic Party; they left me."

One thing is certain that as the DNC shifted more and more Leftward, they became more and more dependent upon funds raised by massive Transnational Progressive NGOs.

It is moot now, which was cause and which was effect, it is so. To the extent it is broadly proclaimed, not by their detractors, but by the very NGOs themselves.

Liberal powerhouse MoveOn has a message for the "professional election losers" who run the Democratic Party: "We bought it, we own it, we’re going to take it back."

That is true in a manner, never before seen. It has been a golden age for fund raising for the Orgs on Left.

The reason is not too hard to understand. No Grand Inquisitor was ever able to raise a howling mob with cries of "HERETICS!".to the extent that the mere whisper of the word Bush, can rouse the Faithful to a frothing frenzy and -- mail in checks.

If anyone thinks I exaggerate? Consider the "Therapy Sessions" after the last few elections where traumatized Bluebloods gathered to shriek, foam and spew at the photo of the man they did not want to be President, and in doing so illustrated their manifest fitness to hold the Fate of the Nation in their hands.


Yes, it has been a golden age for fund raising on the Left. Their coffers overflow with donations and a tithe of that bounty goes to politicians they support.

But one wonders, what happens if the Democrats succeed in their efforts? What happens if the Evil Repugs are driven from the Seats of Power of the Nation?

Simple, the overflowing river of donations dries to a trickle. Where there is no threat, there is no desperation, there is instead a danger of complacency.

The politicians will still need campaign funds, might they not turn to and listen to more moderate sources?

PERISH the THOUGHT

So one is left with a question.

Is it wise for a Party to be so financially dependent on a source of funding,in whose best interest it would be for them to Fail?

I have a picture in my mind of the NGO Fund Raising Gnomes, gathered , plotting how best to maximize their donation efforts.

Smiling and thinking of the Golden Rule.

"He who has the Gold Makes the Rules."

And then explaining to the candidates how they want their money spent.


Telling themselves, "at the end of the Day, when the bitter reality faces our candidates, we can ALWAYS blame it on Karl Rove." ;-)


Bear in mind, for maximum effort the carrot must be placed just beyond the donkey's reach.

Linked to
If it's Tuesday, it must be Open Trackback Day at Those Bastards!
Funny Stuff at The Conservative Cat
Tuesday Open Trackbacks at Right Wing Nation

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The Cultural Matrix
of Zealots
For most, the term Zealot brings to mind Religious Extremism. The shabbily dressed sweating figure clasping a Bible and pounding on a podium, A Puritan all in Black burning witches or a Muslim Extremist cutting off a victims head to the Litany of "God is Great!".

Those are indeed examples and few of us have not heard someone pronounce pontifically that ALL the Death, Destruction, Mayhem and Discord through Centuries can be more laid at the feet of Religion than any other cause.

Those who are satisfied with surface impressions and shoddy logic, will be nodding in agreement at this point.

Of course to make the above case one must ignore all the GOOD that has been the result of Religious Practices. It is true that Religion has been used in the manner I described above. It cannot be otherwise.


Religion IS one of the most powerful motivating forces on the Face of the Earth. Power cannot be a source for Evil without being a source for Good in the same order of Magnitude.

This little fact is blithely ignored by those who rail against Religious Zealotry.

They also ignore the fact that Religion is not THE most powerful motivation force in human history.

Sex is. Sex in fact is probably responsible for MORE Death, Destruction, Mayhem and Discord than any other motivator in all the Ages.


I however am unwilling to give it up, to create a More
Perfect World. I find some positive aspects in it despite the intense suffering it has caused me in the past, as have we all, I would wager to say.

All of the above would be moot if the Zealots of both extremes were willing to disavow what they deem the Ultimate Evil themselves, and leave the rest of us to make our own decisions.

BUT the main characteristic of the Zealot, despite ANY surface differences caused by the direction of their fanaticism is---


The total rejection that individual choice is the right of every human being. Individual choice is an anathema to them.


There is no difference between a Christan, Muslim or Socialist Progressive Zealot, except for the Chance of Birth, which landed them in their particular group. They think, in the same manner they act in the same manner.

No clearer example could be given than that of the philosophical journey traveled by a man named Bruce Bawer, an openly gay American ( from David's Medienkritik)

"A few years back, after a prolonged immersion in American Protestant fundamentalism (I was writing a book), I moved from the U.S. to Western Europe, ready to bask in an open, secular, liberal culture. Instead I discovered that European social democracy, too, was a kind of fundamentalism, rigid and doctrinaire, yielding what Swedish writer Johan Norberg calls "one-idea states"?nations where an echo chamber of insular elites calls the shots, where monochrome media daily reiterate statist mantras and shut out contrarian views, and where teachers and professors systematically misrepresent the U.S. (millions of Europeans believe that free public schools, unemployment insurance, and pensions are unknown in America). The more I saw of the European elites' chronic distrust of the public, and the public's habitual deference to those elites, the fonder I grew of the nasty, ridiculous rough-and-tumble of American democracy, in which every voice is heard?even if, as a result, the U.S. gets capital punishment and Europe gets gay marriage.

How did Western Europe come to be ruled by monolithic ideologues?"

I encourage to read further the works of this man, he is by no means a member of the Religious Right Fascist Movement. ;-)

I have a good friend who worriea about what the Religious Right might be up to. I do not recall if he has as some described them as the American Taliban, but it is a source of concern for him.

Compared to the other sources of repression, of freedom of thought, belief and expression, I find the case totally exaggerated. Americans are to a great extent immersed in egalitarian ideals. That cannot be said of elsewhere in this world

President Bush has been mocked over and over again when he stated that our enemies hate us because we are Free.

The TRUTH is that there are other Talibans far more dangerous to the concept of Libery, Freedom and Individual Choice and they make no bones about publicly stating their desires.

There can be nothing plainer than the words of Abu Musab al-Zarqaw

"We have declared a bitter war against democracy and all those who seek to enact it----"Democracy is also based on the right to choose your religion," he said, and that is "against the rule of God"

Those sentiments are amply echoed by Transnational Progressives.

One example, the British columnist Will Hutton,


" The essence of Hutton?s argument is that ?all Western democracies subscribe to a broad family of ideas that are liberal or leftist? (note the sly conflation here of ?liberal? and ?leftist,? which in Europe, of course, are opposites), and that first among these ideas is ?a belief in the primacy of society? as opposed to the insidious ?American belief in the primacy of the individual.? Hutton traces the prioritization of society over the individual back to medieval feudalism, which he holds up?hilariously?as an ideal. The trouble, he explains, started when Puritan individualists ?who passionately believed that they could individually establish a direct relationship with God? emigrated to North America and invented ?an explosively new and radical ideology? that justified ?an individualist rather than a social view of property.? This led to the American Revolution, which Hutton compares unfavorably with its French counterpart of 1789, since the former put the individual first (bad) while the latter introduced a ?new social contract? (good).
Indeed on of the problems Mr Hutton sees with America is the very concept of Freedom of Expression and the Press.

?European governments and the EU,? because they?re ?aggressive in their regulation of broadcasting content? and ban, for example, ?racist expression.? He favors, in short, allowing government bureaucrats to decide what is and isn?t racist (or, for that matter, sexist or homophobic) and to punish transgressors.

"While American broadcasters,? he notes, ?plead the First Amendment?s commitment to absolute free speech, making public interest regulation almost impossible??the knaves!??Europe acts to ensure that television and radio conform to public interest criteria.? Public interest criteria:



As it turns out the best cure for European propaganda is for them to actually visit the US.

As a polar opposite to Mr Bawer

"Jean-Francois Revel?s L?obsession anti-americaine, which has now appeared in the U.S. as Anti-Americanism.16 Revel?s earliest opinions of America, he tells us, were formed by ?the European press, which means that my judgment was unfavorable?; yet those opinions changed when he actually visited America during the Vietnam War. Decades later, he notes wryly, the European media still employ the same misrepresentations as they did back then==


Western Civilization IS under attack in the 21st Century by Zealots. To call them terrorists is simplistic, terrorism is but one tactic.

The world is divided into two camps as Robert Heinlein once stated

Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surely curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort

I have stated this time and time again, and it bears repeaing, the only difference between the Muslim Taliban and the Transnational Progressive Taliban,is over WHO gets to Control Society, their goals and aims and idealized structure of Society is the same.

Linked to
Open Trackback Day at Pirates Man Your Women
Open Trackback Monday - OzzPoll at The Land of Ozz
Monday's Pun & Open Post at Bloggin' Outloud
Monday's Best Bets at Don Surber
A Day in Honor of a Great American from Peakah's Provocations...

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Posted by ky/kentuckydan at 5:26 AM CST
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Updated: Tuesday, 17 January 2006 3:49 AM CST