There seems to be a consortium effort that is in the business of making news worthy subjects appear more so worthy than the news purports, case in point Iran: By any fair standard of writing one could question perhaps if some eschatological and anthropological definitions had not been staked; this responsibility -and again I claim a fair perspective- would be subject to not some unfavorable letter grade but rather an “incomplete” marker that should leave any healthy observer at an impasse, clearly the information cannot be trusted but reasonably I would wish to know if my lack of trust is due to incompetence or premeditated incompetence and I fear that in both respects the culprit may be general ignorance. Leaders and speakers can be placed on two sides of a pole, on one end we have George Bush Jr. who himself was intellectually above average but was convinced that his fellow Americans were idiots and so spoke (if you’ve noticed) slowly and emphasized his vowels as well as kept his sentences very short . Then there is Paul Wolfowitz who has much to say but speaks using concepts and words you would only describe as manifold by the standards George Bush measured his receivers. This observation however doesn’t delve into the origin of truth but rather I intend to explain everything between that and perception.
If you haven’t heard someone say this by now you’ll hear it eventually; that “we should bomb the Middle East”. For the sake of sarcasm one must ask “which bomb?” -A tie-in to the popular misconception about the Iraq WMD issue- and if you do follow my instruction don’t expect laughter; expect much worse; expect a real answer. The absence of humor doesn’t only explain why we get defensive about a subject like Iran: there are those who present an argument that sanctions, assassination and terrorism are what Iran suffers through and that we (The west) are giving fuel to the fire of hate. The flaw in this logic should give itself away - right away, right away, the speaker of this kind of argument has fallen into using fear to make peace, and why it’s flawed is that this side of the argument always fails to know the details on one of two fronts or perhaps on both fronts. A person this side could tell you perhaps the reasoning behind each Sanction but could not tell you about the local political struggle between otherwise peaceful nations (Turkey comes to mind) and Iran. This side could possibly tell you about the assassination or forced exile of certain Iranians but could not offer any expertise on the political power structure revision in Lebanon as it is related to Iran or even the Turkish cosign on further perverting the ambition of the Palestinians to not just have a state but to also take the Jewish state “Drive them back into the ocean.” This is the side that suffers from one issue, that their ability to hold attention is gauged by their interest in a topic and their interest in a topic is wagered heavily by their passion of that topic. Here we find the absence of good humor is filled with the presence of passion, a detail that deserves remembering. But in much of the case around Iran and a Nuclear weapon – the issue at large isn’t about Iran, it’s about the countries around Iran and this is something that a person with this kind of understanding will always euphemize.
And here we have those that are certain Iran poses an immediate threat to America and/or American interest, here you will find not only has humor long been exiled but also wit has been democratically and astonishingly without any objection lobotomized. This is the side of excess as the United States still has enough economic muscle to turn most of Iran into a natural glass resource without the use of nuclear weapons. So what we have here is really fear, this time its reactionary fear and again the fear is a result of bad logic and the reason for such bad logic is the absence of information. The question this side should ponder on is why don’t we help them make a nuclear power plant? Wouldn’t the best option have been to ask Iran to sever ties with Hezbollah, CAIR and by extension Hamas and in return we make them some power plants at a discount? The problem is that offer was put on the table by President Bush Jr. and it was shot down, but to what end? This is the concern, it’s that the government of Iran domestically resembles all the pretenses short the sadism of Saddam’s regime. That in order to keep up appearances the Ayatollah and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad must see the British and Americans as suspicious and the champions whom which the Persian people should see as an insult to their three thousand year history. The power plant is but one step to show that Iran isn’t backwards compared to the west and a nuclear bomb would hold the same value domestically for the short term. Then comes the time to put to the test what being a nuclear power means on the foreign scene and that is what much of this text is about. There’s no need to assume more or worse of the case, does Iran deserve our caution? Yes, do they deserve to have their nuclear scientists assassinated? Yes, do they deserve sanctions? Yes, should we have dealings with who they exile and other internal power struggles? No.
Now that the four of these backgrounds are made bare you can mix any two of them by keeping one as the background and the other as a medium and leave the other two points as opposing views on the issue. The mistake I think by the media isn’t in just that they either euphemize a point I feel should be explained more or are ignorant of another point. It’s that they believe their readership is incompetent; such a position is supported through incompetent soft science. In an almost -and I dare say with full awareness of the irony here- self gratifying manner a writer does not grasp his own incompetence when writing to those without understanding of what is wrote. And while I can’t say all people are not due more criticism, I can say that all writers should be criticized for their beliefs and writing and moreover be held accountable for taking any kind of elitist tone.
So are readers’ sheep?
