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Subject: The trouble with Iran
The trouble with Iran is that it is at war with the West. Its first act of war was its invasion of the US Embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979, and its holding the US diplomatic corps hostage there until January 20, 1981. Perhaps this was a way for Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran's new post-revolutionary Supreme Leader to consolidate his popularity and power in Iran. But technically, an embassy is the sovereign territory of the guest country, in this case the United States. And invading and occupying that territory is technically an act of war.
The second act of war was Khomeini's fatwa of February 4, 1989, proclaiming death for Salman Rushdie for his fantasy-novel The Satanic Verses. This order, given by a head of state to murder Rushdie, a law-abiding citizen of Great Britain, who was merely exercising his right of free speech, was an act of war against the United Kingdom. Indeed, in that it was intended to cow the rest of the world into submitting to Iran's standards of what one may and may not say about Islamic concepts and persons, it was an act of war against the world in general and the West in particular.
So Iran has been at war with the US and the world for 26 and 17 years, respectively. Iran's enrichment of uranium to "reactor-grade," is just another step in an old and escalating conflict. No doubt a future step will be Iran's enriching "laboratory quantities" of "weapons-grade" uranium, whether they announce it publicly or not. And then, someday, Iran will have a clandestine stockpile of nuclear weapons, one of which it may test, as a point of honor.
Because this conflict is about honor, which in honor-shame societies is intimately bound up with power. And in Islamist Fundamentalist thinking, honor-shame is raised to the level of religion. It is made out to be identical with the practice of Islam itself.
Which brings us to the question of this thread. What ought we to do about Iran?
The second act of war was Khomeini's fatwa of February 4, 1989, proclaiming death for Salman Rushdie for his fantasy-novel The Satanic Verses. This order, given by a head of state to murder Rushdie, a law-abiding citizen of Great Britain, who was merely exercising his right of free speech, was an act of war against the United Kingdom. Indeed, in that it was intended to cow the rest of the world into submitting to Iran's standards of what one may and may not say about Islamic concepts and persons, it was an act of war against the world in general and the West in particular.
So Iran has been at war with the US and the world for 26 and 17 years, respectively. Iran's enrichment of uranium to "reactor-grade," is just another step in an old and escalating conflict. No doubt a future step will be Iran's enriching "laboratory quantities" of "weapons-grade" uranium, whether they announce it publicly or not. And then, someday, Iran will have a clandestine stockpile of nuclear weapons, one of which it may test, as a point of honor.
Because this conflict is about honor, which in honor-shame societies is intimately bound up with power. And in Islamist Fundamentalist thinking, honor-shame is raised to the level of religion. It is made out to be identical with the practice of Islam itself.
Which brings us to the question of this thread. What ought we to do about Iran?
Because there is more to Religion than pleasing your Imaginary Friend.