-By Warner Todd Huston
Too many today assume that Iran getting a nuclear arsenal might not be so bad. There are various reasons they posit for this position, from Iran being sovereign and, therefore, unstoppable — and so it is none of our business, anyway — to the idea of equating Iran with the U.S.S.R. of the Cold War resulting in an assumption that a basic stalemated safety will result from a policy of containment (and a return to MAD) which will work to prevent the fanatics in charge of Iran from using them.
In the former, the sovereign position is one that stands on its own and one must either take it at face value assuming that no nation has a right or a place to attempt to interfere in any other nation’s business, or one must accept that all governments have a right or a moral duty to attempt to interject their interests in other nation’s affairs when said nation becomes a danger to others after some fashion or another. It’s either stay out (the Utopian libertarian ideal) or realize that things are more complicated than that. After all, the world left Hitler on his own without interfering much during that perceived era of “peace in our times”, but a healthy dose of George W. Bush’s doctrine of intervention would have, in retrospect, been a good idea in response to Hitler.
In the later, pundits assume that Iran understands the concept of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) and that they would not be so stupid as to launch a nuke for fear of their own destruction in retaliation. This theory relies on a basic assumption that the Iranians are as “reasonable” as the Soviets were.
But, those who imagine that Iran is run by people who are “just like us” in that they are sensible people who just want to make a living and live their lives like “normal people” should be stunned by what now former Iranian leader, Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, a so-called moderate, said in a Qods day speech given in 2001.
The naive Western press consistently calls Rafsanjani an Iranian “moderate”, yet he is anything but. He is, however, smarter than his successor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and is far better able to control his extremist rhetoric when in front of the microphones of the Western media.
But, like most Muslim strongmen, what he says to his own people and in his own language is 180 degrees opposite the pabulum he shovels into the willing maws of the Western press. This practice was honed into an art form by Yassir Arafat who constantly fooled the western press into believing in his willingness to be “reasonable” with his interviews in English even as he never backed down one bit in his racist, terror advocating rhetoric at home when speaking in his own language and to his own press.
So, as Rafsanjani addressed the Qods Force, his speech should rightfully be treated as a more accurate and truthful report of the real policies of radical Islamists than anything he says to the western press. After all, what he says to his own results in policy and action whereas what he says to the west is but public relations spin.
The Qods Force (Qods is the Persian word for Jerusalem) is an elite unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps that operates outside of Iran and was created in 1979 by Ayatollah Kohmeini. The Qods Force’s chief job is the training of Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups that operate outside of Iran and the main goal of those operations center on the destruction of Israel and attacks against the west. In other words, the Qods Forces is the main organization used by Iran to export their state sponsored terrorism abroad.
In any case, there is a section in this speech where Rafsanjani addresses the possibility of nuclear war between Iran and Israel wherein Rafsanjani speculates how such a war wouldn’t be so bad for Islam. He does not just couch the discussion in one of Iranian usage of a nuclear weapon against Israel either, but expands the discussion to any Muslim force attacking Israel and how that attack would affect Islam.
“If one day, the Islamic world is also equipped with weapons like those that Israel possesses now,” Rafsanjani told his elite troops, “then the imperialists’ strategy will reach a standstill because the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything. However, it will only harm the Islamic world. It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality.”
In other words, if some Muslim nation or a Muslim force of some kind — whether rogue, or sanctioned by a state — were to detonate a nuclear weapon in the middle of Israel, that small state would be destroyed utterly. Should retaliatory strikes be launched against any of the Muslim nations surrounding Israel, however, it would only “harm” Islam but not destroy it.
Alarmingly, Rafsanjani is telling his elite troops that Islam itself could easily survive a few nuclear strikes, while Israel would be eliminated with but one. Rafsanjani, the so-called moderate, is advocating the destruction of Israel and calculating that Islam could survive with but a few million “martyrs”.
It should be noted that he is talking to an organization that could easily be the perpetrator off such an attack; the Qods Force. In essence, with a wink and a nod, Rafsanjani was urging the Qods Force to go ahead and take this murderous step to destroy Israel because, after all, it would destroy the Jews without destroying Islam in the process. If Rafsanjani were truly the moderate he is claimed to be he would not be making such a charged rhetorical speech to the very force that has the capabilities to launch such a disastrous attack. No moderate would be so reckless.
So, not very “moderate” that, eh?
It should also be pointed out another key difference between Cold War Russia and radical Islam is that the Soviets’ realm was earth bound. Ultimately, they wouldn’t take that fateful gamble of surviving a nuclear war, absorbing enough strikes to survive on the off chance it would destroy their main enemy, the USA. This earthly realm meant too much to them. On the other hand, radical Islam does not care a whit about this earthly realm. Their economies, their lands, the very lives of their people are meaningless to them because their focus is on religious or other worldly matters. It is a matter of faith that Israel must be destroyed, not mere policy.
This, then, is why people like Rafsanjani are far more willing to take the loss that would result from such warfare. A win for them isn’t one based in earthly factors. It is the favor of God they seek.
And now we can see why it is such a crime if the west allows Iran to continue down the road to nuclear arms without challenge. Certainly, it may result in an ultimate failure to stop Iran from getting a nuke. But, by ignoring the fact that Muslims feel it a perfectly reasonable policy to absorb a few nuclear strikes in order to kill the Jews, to ignore that Muslims imagine that a nuclear strike against them might not be so bad, is to miss one of the most salient aspects of the discussion over nuclear weapons in the Middle East.
This point must be pointed out and must take its place as a central point in the continuing discussion. The more westerners that begin to understand this the better it will be for a united stance against radical Islam.
Worse, it must be contemplated that if this man is considered a “moderate Muslim”, what do the hard-core Islamists think? How many martyrs do they feel would be worth the efforts if it led to the destruction Israel?
The west must wake up and realize that the Middle East is not run by reasonable people who just want to go about their lives “just like us”. It is run by people bent on genocide and who are willing to take millions of casualties in their own ranks to accomplish the goal of the outright murder of all Jews.
Do not be fooled by the obscene leaders of the “Religion of Peace”.
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Warner Todd Huston’s thoughtful commentary, sometimes irreverent often historically based, is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, townhall.com, men’snewsdaily.com and americandaily.com among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a guest on several radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston