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April 11, 2006
Steyn: Facing Down Iran
Over at City Journal, Mark Steyn presents the case for decapitating the Iranian regime and destroying its nuclear program: Facing Down Iran
Most Westerners read the map of the world like a Broadway marquee: north is top of the bill-America, Britain, Europe, Russia-and the rest dribbles away into a mass of supporting players punctuated by occasional Star Guests: India, China, Australia. Everyone else gets rounded up into groups: "Africa," "Asia," "Latin America."But if you're one of the down-page crowd, the center of the world is wherever you happen to be. Take Iran: it doesn't fit into any of the groups. Indeed, it's a buffer zone between most of the important ones: to the west, it borders the Arab world; to the northwest, it borders NATO (and, if Turkey ever passes its endless audition, the European Union); to the north, the former Soviet Union and the Russian Federation's turbulent Caucasus; to the northeast, the Stans-the newly independent states of central Asia; to the east, the old British India, now bifurcated into a Muslim-Hindu nuclear standoff. And its southern shore sits on the central artery that feeds the global economy.
If you divide the world into geographical regions, then, Iran's neither here nor there. But if you divide it ideologically, the mullahs are ideally positioned at the center of the various provinces of Islam-the Arabs, the Turks, the Stans, and the south Asians. Who better to unite the Muslim world under one inspiring, courageous leadership? If there's going to be an Islamic superpower, Tehran would seem to be the obvious candidate.
That moment of ascendancy is now upon us. Or as the Daily Telegraph in London reported: "Iran's hardline spiritual leaders have issued an unprecedented new fatwa, or holy order, sanctioning the use of atomic weapons against its enemies." Hmm. I'm not a professional mullah, so I can't speak to the theological soundness of the argument, but it seems a religious school in the Holy City of Qom has ruled that "the use of nuclear weapons may not constitute a problem, according to sharia." Well, there's a surprise. How do you solve a problem? Like, sharia! It's the one-stop shop for justifying all your geopolitical objectives.[...]
Posted by Ruy Diaz at April 11, 2006 10:17 AM
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