Iranian Nuke: How bad?

Dina Esfandiary at IISS says: Very bad.

Most importantly, it would make the Islamic Republic a great deal bolder in its foreign policy. Iran’s regional aspirations of hegemony would no longer be a matter of trying to appear like a bully, it would be one. And rather than threatening the region with a nuclear weapon, the weapon would give them the confidence to activate their proxies to cause trouble. Americans stirring up trouble in the region? Well, let’s send Hezbollah to nab a few in Lebanon to teach them a lesson. Or better yet, perhaps we can push Hamas to ratchet up their attacks on Israel, send them a few extra rockets and mortars. Memories of the eighties anyone?

Admittedly, this might be more difficult given the changes in the region in the past few months. But it is far from implausible.

An Iranian bomb would be bad for the region. In June, speaking to senior NATO officials, Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal said that an Iranian bomb would “compel Saudi Arabia … to pursue policies which could lead to untold and possibly dramatic consequences”, something he reiterated at the IISS GSR conference in September. The same is probably true of other states in the region – some have made it clear that an Iranian nuclear device would be an incentive for them to start their own programmes. Although turning to nuclear power does not necessarily mean getting the bomb, national fuel cycles pose a considerable proliferation threat, and increase the likelihood of a regional nuclear cascade.

Finally, an Iranian bomb would deliver a significant blow to the international non-proliferation and disarmament agenda. Iran signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968 and ratified it two years later. Its programme has since been subject to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verification. If the regime decides to get the bomb it will have abandoned the NPT. ...

Read the whole article at the link. And bookmark the IISS homepage for up-to-the minute, thoughtful commentary.

Two Executions

Eric Olsen at GayPatriot has some thoughts on the Troy Davis execution. His piece is exceptionally lucid and worth reading in full. Don't miss the comments.

Whether he was the one that actually pulled the trigger and shot Police Officer (and former Army Ranger) Mark MacPhail in the face and heart, Troy Davis was definitely in the gaggle of hoodlums that was attacking a homeless man whose cries for help were what Officer MacPhail was responding to when he met his untimely fate. The fact that 22 years of appeals were denied –including one last night that the highest court in the land rejected –leads me to believe that the evidence in its entirety is pretty conclusive…

That being said, I am not a fan of the death penalty when there is no DNA evidence.

And Troy Davis declaring he did not kill Officer McPhail with his dying breath didn’t help me feel better about an execution at the end of a circumstantial evidence case. I just keep telling myself regardless of whether he pulled the trigger…he was kicking the daylights out of a defenseless homeless man. ...

Read the whole thing at the link, and don't miss the comments.

Meanwhile, 'White supremacist gang member Lawrence Russell Brewer was executed Wednesday evening for the infamous dragging death slaying of James Byrd Jr., a black man from East Texas.' Two accomplices, John William King and Shawn Barry, were also convicted.

Bell Tolls for "Don't Ask"

CNN: 'A minute into the new day, 12:01 a.m., the old "don't ask, don't tell" rule that has been in force since the Clinton administration is gone. In its place is a policy designed to be blind to sexual orientation and that the Pentagon brass insists will maintain the military in fighting trim and have no negative impact on "military readiness, military effectiveness, unit cohesion and recruiting and retention."'

BBC: '"Repeal Day" parties have been organised across the country to mark the victory for gay rights.'

TOI: 'During the long, arduous campaign to repeal "don't ask, don't tell", activists and advocacy groups tended to downplay issues related to post-repeal benefits for civilian partners. "It's not something we've been pushing very hard for yet, but it's obviously going to be the next front in the ongoing battle for equality," said Alex Nicholson, executive director of Servicemembers United.'

Servicemembers United:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Servicemembers United, the nation’s largest organization of gay and lesbian troops and veterans, celebrated the historic end of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell law today with the release of the following statement from its founder and Executive Director, Alexander Nicholson, who was himself honorably discharged early from the U.S. Army because of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell:

“On March 15, 1778 the first American servicemember was drummed out of the military for being gay. Since then, tens of thousands more have had their careers ruined and their lives turned upside down by a succession of anti-gay polices and regulations, culminating in the codification of an anti-gay statute in 1993 with the passage of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell law. In all, 14,346 men and women were discharged pursuant Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. But thanks to the persistent hard work of unwavering advocates, especially those who have been directly impacted by this issue, and some courageous politicians over the past six years, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is now history. As a result, those who continue to serve can sleep easier tonight knowing that they can no longer be arbitrarily fired because of their sexual orientation. Justice has prevailed and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is dead. God bless America.” ...

Nick, aka Colorado Patriot, at GayPatriot:

While I appreciate your gladness on my behalf, please do take a moment today and keep in mind that there were some of us who were serving under DADT without regard for it.

While I am grateful that the era of homosexuality being the military’s business has ended, I am grateful more so for those who, like me, joined the military knowing the score and choosing this rewarding life anyway.

While I welcome those young men and women into the ranks of our military who heretofore had waited the policy out, I am much more proud of those who didn’t require their own terms be met in order to answer the call to serve in the first place. ...

Enlightenment and Its Discontents

In thus projecting a doctrine of human dignity, Rassvyet [published 1907-1934] did not only confront the Czarist regime and Russian society. It threw down the gauntlet to the Jewish liberals, socialists and assimilationists whose conventional policy was one of apology and self justification, accepting by implication the notion that if the Jews were not ultra-virtuous, not ultra-talented, and not ultra-blessed with ultra-civilized ancestors, they would not be entitled to the ordinary rights enjoyed or striven for by their non-Jewish fellow citizens. They thus openly accepted the double standard which was (and has remained) one of the hallmarks of anti-semitism throughout the world.

Standing alone among the organs of Jewish opinion, the Rassvyet editors applied their extraordinary intellectual resources to warn the Jewish community against the illusion that the "emancipation", which all demanded, would solve the essential Jewish problem. Emancipation had come to progressive Western Europe and what had been achieved? Virulent German anti-semitism, "scientific" Austrian anti-semitism were as alive as ever. Most dramatically of all, its monstrous face had appeared in France precisely in the age of vaunted liberalism: Dreyfus languishing on Devil's Island was a very recent memory. The idea that precisely in Russia, Russia of the pogroms, an emancipatory sun would melt the hearts of the endemic Jew-haters was a snare and an illusion: those who preached it were leading their people to the edge of despair.

- Shmuel Katz. Lone Wolf: A biography of Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky.

When the winds of Emancipation began to blow through Europe, Jews were presented with a choice. They could become equal citizens but only by keeping their Jewish identity restricted to private life. Many Jews, understandably eager to break free of generations of persecution, embraced the offer. Judaism was reformed to meet the demands of this civic invisibility, with the German Reform movement leading the way. By instituting a number of significant changes, from translating the Hebrew liturgy into German to celebrating the Jewish Sabbath on Sunday rather than Saturday to abolishing traditional dietary restrictions, Reform leaders hoped to help the Jews become full partners in German life, to be what one Enlightenment thinker would later call "a Jew at home and a man on the street." Significantly, the German Reform movement did not see Jews as a separate nation but rather considered themselves to be "Germans of Mosaic persuasion."

But the Enlightenment strategy of fading out of view was deeply and tragically unsuccessful. Enlightenment and emancipation promised to treat Jews as equal citizens provided they remained invisible as Jews. But what started with eliminating Jewishness from the public square culminated in an attempt to eliminate Jews altogether. The country where Reform was born would also be the country that would condemn the Jews to extermination.

Europe's democratic ideals would leave no room for Jewish identity. On this point, there was little that separated the philosophical ends and ideologies associated with the Right or the Left. Each had a dream of sameness and unity, whether it entailed a fascistic single identity or imagined the dissolution of all identity.

- Natan Sharansky. Defending identity.

In Europe, and not just there, a new kind of politics did seem to be stirring, which sometimes called itself left-wing and sometimes right-wing -- a demagogic politics, irrational, authoritarian, and insanely murderous, a politics of mass mobilization for unachievable ends. Mussolini had embraced the word "totalitarian" to describe his own movement; and "totalitarian" in its stuttery sharp syllables seemed to fit the new kind of politics in each of its versions, right-wing and left-wing alike. The implications did seem fairly obvious. During the whole of the nineteenth century and the first years of the twentieth, a great many enlightened and progressive thinkers had supposed that a main danger, perhaps the principal danger, to modern civilization came from a single political tendency, which was the extreme right, and mostly from a single country, which was Germany, the sworn foe of the French Revolution. But that sort of outlook seemed hopelessly antique by 1950. In the new era, no one doubted that political movements on the extreme right could still make you worry. No one felt much confidence in Germany and its political traditions.

But the midcentury writers saw all too plainly that a danger to civilization had meanwhile cropped up in Russia and among the hard-bitten Stalinists, and among other people, too. The writers worried about the many mush-headed liberals and fellow travelers all over the world who, without being Stalinists themselves, managed to admire the Stalinist enterprise. ...

- Paul Berman. Terror and liberalism.

Cross-posted at DiL - TypePad.

Middle East at Critical Mass

Turkey's Erdogan says his country is "ready for anything" as Turkey sends three military ships to the eastern Mediterranean to "defend against Israeli vessels". Debka reports that "If Turkish warships encounter an Israeli military ship outside Israel's 12-mile territorial waters, they will advance up to 100 meters from the ship and disable its weapon system."

Meanwhile, Russia says welcome as Iran goes nuclear.

And according to this enigmatic report, an unnamed IDF naval officer violated the territorial waters of an unnamed foreign country, and got a week in an Israeli brig.

Remarks. Via Meadia says that the Middle East is "on the boil", and Belmont Club concurs. Mead:

With the end of the Cold War, history began to return to a “normal” velocity. Countries got frisky; France has fallen in and out with both the United States and Germany several times since 1989. The rise of China and India transforms the international scene in a way that was common before 1945 but rare during the Cold War.

Fernandez oberves: "It bears recalling that the Cold war saw both the 1967 and 1973 Wars. So normal velocity does not necessarily augur good news."

Indeed. Michael Totten's latest report from Cairo explains that

The army and the Islamists have a strange relationship with each other that neither explains or is honest about. The state has viciously repressed the Brotherhood at times while at other times using it as either a sword or a shield against liberals.

Traditionally, Egypt's army and its Islamists have been antagonistic to one another. But what happens if they join forces?

No doubt Washington and Jerusalem prefer to do business with the military instead of the Brotherhood even if the regime was founded in a spirit of Arab Nationalism and Egyptian supremacy. But what if the U.S. and Israel will soon have to contend with both?

Sarah Palin

I haven't posted much about Sarah Palin. The main reasons are fairly simple: She doesn't hold national office (or any office at present), and she's not even a candidate for office at the moment. And - notwithstanding Sarah Palin's constant presence in the media - I try to stay focused on people and events that are newsworthy in themselves.

That said, I'll share a few of my own thoughts on the former Governor of Alaska. First: I am not sure that I would vote for her if she were to run for President, but I am sure that I do not believe she is the fool or the fanatic that the press has portrayed her to be.

I do not understand what it is about Sarah Palin that sends the Left and the media into frothing, apoplectic fits of rage - but I have to admit that I like it.

In the kind of liberalism I believe in, there's room for people we agree with but don't admire, and people we admire but don't agree with; and there's even room for people we agree with part of the time and disagree with part of the time. I don't know where the fanaticism of today's so-called "liberals" comes from, but I want no part of it.

So if I say that I think Sarah Palin is a decent, intelligent, competent, hard-working person, who's been treated miserably by the media, and with whom I agree about many things and probably disagree about many others - that is not an endorsement of "Sarah Palin for President". But it is a recognition that there's something about Palin that matters.

Where's the kaboom?

The Times Square bomb was a dud. The Portland bomb wasn't even a bomb. Now a bomber in Stockholm managed to kill himself and injure two people, but claimed no innocent lives.

So, the Western world seems to be staying ahead of the game so far. (Iraqis haven't been so lucky.)

Debka asserts that the "same hand" is behind the Times Square dud and the Stockholm fizzle:

The Swedish investigation into the country's first suicide bombing Saturday, Dec. 11, quickly found that the bomb car which exploded during a shopping rush in the heart of Stockholm was part of a well-planned, sophisticated terror operation, prepared several months in advance to inflict a large number of casualties. The Swedish media reported that Iraqi-born Taimour al-Abdaly was loaded down with three sets of bombs, one of which was a dozen miniature pipe bombs strung together as a belt.

Still, the suicide bomber was the only fatality. Two others were slightly injured.

Al-Abdaly's operation was therefore a near-failure, recalling Faisal Shahzad's failed bombing attack in Times Square, New York of May 1, although its planners, al Qaeda, are reported by debkafile's terror experts to have learned from that miss.

The Islamist terror group has turned to multilateralism in the planning, setting up and execution of operations methods to baffle national counter-terror intelligence agencies in the West, our Islamist terror experts report.

The Stockholm strike was accordingly broken down into segments, each taking place in a different country - Pakistan, Iraq, Sweden, Jordan and the UK. American and European cities may find themselves confronted in future with more attacks on those lines. ...

Full article at the link.

The Times Square bombing was claimed by the Pakistani Taliban:

Qari Hussain Mehsud, the top bomb maker for the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, said he takes "fully responsibility for the recent attack in the USA." Qari Hussain made the claim on an audiotape accompanied by images that was released on a YouTube website that calls itself the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan News Channel.

The tape has yet to be verified, but US intelligence officials contacted by The Long War Journal believe it is legitimate. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan News Channel on YouTube was created on April 30. Officials believe it was created to announce the Times Square attack, and Qari Hussain's statement was pre-recorded. ...

(Long War Journal, 2010 May 2.)

Now from LWJ, here's more on the Stockholm bombing:

A car loaded with gas canisters detonated in a busy section of downtown Stockholm today, followed by another explosion 10 minutes later caused by a suicide bomber.

After the explosions, the bomber was found dead lying about 300 yards away from the car bomb, reportedly wearing a suicide vest and a backpack full of nails and surrounded by the remains of pipe bombs. The bombs apparently were inexpertly crafted and failed to detonate to full capacity. Two people were wounded in the bombings, which took place in a street filled with Christmas shoppers.

LWJ's Lisa Lundquist continues with more details:

The Shumukh al-Islam jihadist forum confirmed the identity of the suicide bomber as Taimour Abdulwahab in a statement released today on their website.

"It is our brother, mujahid Taimour Abdulwahab, who carried out the martyrdom operation in Stockholm," said the website Shumukh al-Islam.

Swedish police confirmed that the owner of the car used in the bombing has been identified as Taimour Abdulwahab, born Dec. 12, 1981; today would be his 29th birthday, according to Swedish journalist Per Gudmundson. The car was purchased as late as November of this year. ...

Read the rest at the link.

According to The Telegraph,

Taimur Abdulwahab al-Abdaly showed little interest in religion as he was growing up in Sweden, channelling his energies into sport and partying.

But after he began attending Bedfordshire University in Luton “everything changed” as he became a strict Muslim with increasingly extremist views, even naming his baby son Osama in honour of the al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden.

But the BBC report (with video) states that he was challenged by leaders of the mosque he attended in

Luton when he started spouting off about wanting to recruit terrorists.
He lived in Britain for almost a decade and was known at his mosque in Luton for preaching about terrorism and trying to recruit extremists.

When he was challenged by the mosque's leaders he stormed out.

Questions are now being asked why the police were not alerted to Al Abdally's views ...

Go to the link for the article and video.

"Life is sacred, but books and beliefs are not."

Jerry West of the Salem News (Oregon) talks sense on the Koran burning affair:

Well, Terry Jones backed off on the Koran burning. So what? Why should any rational person care if someone burns a Koran, or a Bible, the Sears catalogue or a Donald Duck comic book? That would depend on the nature of the burning.

Book burnings by governments or others with the intent to deprive society of their content would be a direct attack on the right of free expression and the open exchange of ideas.

Two important elements of an enlightened democracy.

On the other hand, private individuals burning books to make a point, so what? Doing that is also part of one's right of free expression. ...

Jerry West touches an all the important points, and his piece is well worth reading in full.

Koran Burning: Freedom Rears Its Ugly Head

Hell has officially been turned into a very large hockey rink. I am now "to the right" of Robert Spencer, Brigitte Gabriel, and even Pamela Geller in rushing to the defense of a book-burning fundamentalist preacher. Or rather, a would-be book-burner, as it seems the Reverend Terry Jones was talked out of the act by the President and General Petraeus. While I have no particular admiration for Jones and his little stunt, I am beginning to see this episode more in the light of the Mohammed cartoons. The West bravely stuck to its guns on that round, but what's going on here? It looks as if, in the five years since then, we have moved backward.

Also the Nazi book-burning metaphor needs to be checked. You have every right to burn a book if you own the book. It's burning other people's books that's the problem. On comparing the putative Koran-burning in Florida with other book-burnings, I find more differences than similarities. Take a look, for instance, at the history of Talmud burnings - among which, for example, we find:

On Sept. 9, 1553, the Jewish New Year, a huge pyre was set up in the Campo de' Fiori in Rome of Hebrew books that had been seized from Jewish homes.

I don't think Pastor Jones' burning of the Koran falls even remotely in this category. I would put it more in the league of the burnings of "Harry Potter" that made a blip in the news a few years back.

(Admittedly comparing the Koran to Harry Potter is disrespectful, and I apologize to all Harry Potter fans.)

Really, did anyone think that the fallout from 9/11 would not include, inter alia, this? That in a nation of 300 million people, mostly non-Muslims, there would not be, somewhere, someone who would see fit to take a match to the writings of the Prophet Mohammed? If the architects of our post-9/11 strategy could not see this coming, I think we are entitled to use phrases like "failure of imagination".

Book burning gives all of us a queasy feeling but in these times we had damn well better develop a strong stomach.

***

Now the President has stepped in to condemn the contemplated burning, saying it endangers the lives of our troops in Afghanistan. General Petraeus gets involved too: "It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort in Afghanistan," the General said in a statement.

Really? Burning a book does that? I thought the danger came from terrorists. And for that matter, I thought our troops were over there to BE a danger to the terrorists. If they are only there to be hostages to one fanatic with a match, then bring them home now.

When I was in the service we used to be fond of slogans like "I'm fighting for your right to spit on that flag." Now no more. Our Commander-In-Chief and our most renowned general have made it their business to beg American citizens to behave properly, lest they cause trouble for the soldiers who are supposed to be defending the rights of Americans. They have now given ominous warnings about the proposed Koran burning becoming a recruiting tool for al-Qaeda.

And so it will, if Obama has his way: With Reverend Terry Jones duly chastened, the islamists of al-Qaeda will see their first tangible success in the American homeland in - well, nine years, but who's counting? They will see that, with patience and persistence, they have been able to retake the ground they had seeimingly lost with the Mohammed cartoons. They'll be able to point with pride to the fact that their holy warriors in Afghanistan have intimidated President Obama and General Petraeus into taking up their cause for them, and telling an American citizen: "Yes, technically you have the right to do that - but we really wish you wouldn't." It's small, but it's a first step. And the argument that "if you do that, the enemy will make things harder for the American troops" has limitless possibilities.

It is very, very hard for me to see this as a victory for our side.

***

And what happened to the President who waxed so eloquent about the Imam's "constitutional right" to build a mosque near Ground Zero?

The Belmont Club comes closest to expressing my thoughts on this.

Comparing Jones to Imam Rauf reduces President Obama’s defense of the Ground Zero mosque to absurdity. How could an administration which ordered Bibles sent to Afghanistan burned and endorsed the right of the Ground Zero mosque builders to proceed with their construction turn 180 degrees on the matter of Koran burning without spinning like a top? They were hoist by their own petard.

I hadn't known the bit about the Army burning Bibles. But it is a fine mess indeed for the President.

***

Is the Koran-burning a provocation?

In 2006, gay-rights organizations planned a gay pride parade in Jerusalem. The event was highly controversial, and my sympathies were divided. At first I opposed the event, arguing that it would be a "provocative gesture". But after further reflection I realized that people are responsible for their own actions: one must agree to be provoked.

And that's what I'm saying now. Terrorists, fascists, and extremists are responsible for their own actions. If we are serious about our defense of freedom, we must not allow ourselves to be blackmailed.

***

But it turns out it wasn't that easy.

I almost feel sorry for General Petraeus today. He's just spent the past few days running around and "putting out fires" - literally in this case - and succeeded in getting the Gainesville Koran-burning canceled. But just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, freedom rears its ugly head and some guy - we still don't know who - comes out of nowhere and starts burning pages from a Koran. Not in Gainesville, Florida, but at Ground Zero, New York City.

As one observer noted, there's almost an anti-climactic quality about the video. Some random, nameless guy - we'll call him Joe the Lighter - holds up a Koran, tears a few pages out and burns them, gets shouted at by angry New Yorkers, and is uneventfully escorted away by police. And that's it.

The contrast between the Reverend Terry Jones affair and Joe the Lighter could not be more striking. No signs, no press releases, no fanfare. He just does what he does. And after the event, he walks away without a single word.

Whatever will happen in Afghanistan or elsewhere in the Islamic world, will happen. I'm sorry if people get hurt. But as Americans and as free human beings, we are under no obligation to conform to any President's or General's idea of how we ought to act.


UPDATE:
Joe the Lighter is Derek Fenton an employee - now, former employee - of New Jersey Transit.

What's gotten into Russia?

Jerusalem Post:

Israel and Russia made history on Monday, signing for the first time a military agreement that will increase cooperation on combating terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear weapons, but also could lead to the sale of Israeli weaponry to the Russian military.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak and his Russian counterpart, Anatoly Serdyukov, signed the agreement during a ceremony in Moscow. Later in the day, Barak met with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin at his private residence in Sochi. ...

Arutz Sheva adds that 'The wide ranging agreement is the fruit of a long period of discussions.'

JPost again:

Russian Foreign Minsiter Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday called for clarity on all issues pertaining to the Iranian nuclear program.

"Clarity in all remaining issues of the Iranian nuclear program is not only necessary, but would also primarily serve the interests of Iran itself," Lavrov said.

A7: 'In a statement, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that "he IAEA must continue its work,” and that “Iran must answer the demands of the IAEA." Lavrov was in Paris meeting with his French counterpart Bernard Kouchner on Iran, among other issues.'

IMRA quoting AFP:

The defense ministers of Russia and Israel on Monday (6 Sept.) signed an agreement on military cooperation, hailing the unity between Moscow and the Jewish state. Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov and visiting Israeli counterpart Ehud Barak did not give details on the nature of the deal, which came after disputes over Russian arms contracts in the Middle East.

"I am sure the agreement we are signing today will give a new boost to our
bilateral relations," said Serdyukov, quoted by Russian news agencies.
"Our views on many challenges of today are close or identical," he said.
"Primarily this concerns issues of terrorism and non-proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction."

Go to the link for more details. Interesting stuff.

Department of Bugs and Features

FCC complains court ruling would make it "impossible" to enforce indecency regulations.

Israel Attacks Iran's Bushehr Nuclear Reactor

... with words.

In a statement issued after the Islamic Republic celebrated the launch of its reactor in Bushehr, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yossi Levy said: "It is totally unacceptable that a country that so blatantly violates resolutions of the (United Nations) Security Council, decisions of the International Atomic Energy Agency and its commitments under the NPT (non-proliferation treaty) should enjoy the fruits of using nuclear energy."

Whoa. "Totally unacceptable." Why, that's just one step short of a strongly-worded letter from the United Nations.

It wouldn't surprise me if Debka has gotten this one right: 'debkafile reveals that both the Kremlin and the State Department have joined in concealing the secret deal whereby Russia votes for UN Security Council sanctions against Iran in return for US silent acquiescent to Moscow's activation of the Bushehr reactor.'