Entries tagged with “Iran” from Things You Don't Care About
So while reading an article on the ongoing situation in Iran today I made the mistake of disobeying the general advice "never read comments on the internet" and happened to read the following nugget of wisdom:
To be fair, I'm not really sure what the best approach is with Iran -- I'm not particularly thrilled about a country run by hardline theocrats with a blood feud against most of the West getting nuclear weapons, but I don't think convincing them that having nuclear weapons is the only way we'll actually talk to them is going to solve the problem either. I think I'd almost feel safer if the situation was reversed, considering the fact that Iran, at the very least, has more than one person who might be able to act as a firebreak for a nuclear conflict.
I do know, though, that simply ignoring Iran until they doing something that is a cry for attention won't work. Neither will meddling in their internal affairs or bombing the hell out of them. Iran is not a country of 65 million spoiled children, it's a country with thousands of years of history, with a great deal of regional influence, and with a comparatively well-educated populace. Telling them to sit in a corner until they are sorry is not an effective way to deal with them. Showing them the respect they deserve, to run their own affairs and participate on the world stage, making them connect to the rest of the world, is how you bring about change. This is what happened with the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, what is slowly happening with China, and what will happen elsewhere as the world becomes more and more interdependent.
This doesn't mean sitting idly by while they develop nuclear weapons, but it doesn't mean thinking the only solutions are ignoring them or beating the hell out of them either. Punishing the general populace for the actions of their (largely oligarchical) leaders or for simply wanting to be taken seriously is not a solution.
As an aside, Andrew Sullivan appears to be doing a decent job of collecting stuff coming out of Iran on his blog, if you're interested.
"Just another day of dealing with the nutcases who run Iran. You know, the ones Obama was so anxious to talk to. Now that the true totaliatarian nature of their government is obvious to all, I wonder if Obama still wants to talk to them..."Dear Todd, author of the above comment -- the fact that Iran is a a repressive and corrupt government is not something that anyone who has paid attention to world affairs is surprised by. On the other hand, Iran is far more open than many other totalitarian regimes we've engaged with in the past.
To be fair, I'm not really sure what the best approach is with Iran -- I'm not particularly thrilled about a country run by hardline theocrats with a blood feud against most of the West getting nuclear weapons, but I don't think convincing them that having nuclear weapons is the only way we'll actually talk to them is going to solve the problem either. I think I'd almost feel safer if the situation was reversed, considering the fact that Iran, at the very least, has more than one person who might be able to act as a firebreak for a nuclear conflict.
I do know, though, that simply ignoring Iran until they doing something that is a cry for attention won't work. Neither will meddling in their internal affairs or bombing the hell out of them. Iran is not a country of 65 million spoiled children, it's a country with thousands of years of history, with a great deal of regional influence, and with a comparatively well-educated populace. Telling them to sit in a corner until they are sorry is not an effective way to deal with them. Showing them the respect they deserve, to run their own affairs and participate on the world stage, making them connect to the rest of the world, is how you bring about change. This is what happened with the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, what is slowly happening with China, and what will happen elsewhere as the world becomes more and more interdependent.
This doesn't mean sitting idly by while they develop nuclear weapons, but it doesn't mean thinking the only solutions are ignoring them or beating the hell out of them either. Punishing the general populace for the actions of their (largely oligarchical) leaders or for simply wanting to be taken seriously is not a solution.
As an aside, Andrew Sullivan appears to be doing a decent job of collecting stuff coming out of Iran on his blog, if you're interested.
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