Positive Developments for Iran

Summary: A couple of very positive developments occurred with relation to Iran in the last few days. No…’The Letter’ to President Bush wasn’t one of them. American reaction to it was, however. This, plus sarcasm wins the day, and a dissident escapes the evil clutches—all on this edition of Serving Iraq and Iran. I hope you’ll join us.

It was interesting to note how little original material Mahmoud Ahmadinejad presented in ‘The Letter’ to President Bush the other day. It was largely a rehash of everything the lunatic liberal fringe has been saying for a long time—over and over again with the Hitlerian attitude that if you say something enough times people will think it is true. Effectively, American liberals wrote Ahmadinejad’s letter for him.

Did it just make you angry that he could actually write such tripe? It did me at first, but then I started thinking about it, and calmed down a little bit. And then I read what President Bush’s reaction was, and I was very impressed that America is in good hands because the Bush administration is not prone to overreaction as I sometimes am. And then I was able to step back and laugh at how childish ‘The Letter’ actually was.

Bush’s response to ‘The Letter” was very professional. He simply brought up the point that Iran did not answer the question already on the table: Are you going to stop trying to develop nuclear weapons?

Actually, President Bush didn’t need to respond to “The Letter”. Iranians have done a much better job. Roozonline.com did a wonderful satire of President Ahmadinejad shortly before “The Letter” appeared. Among other things, here is some of what the satire had to say:

One might think that the Guardian Council made you president just to produce nuclear energy.

If you had a notepad and wrote these things down, the government would have something to do now, and you wouldn't be such a pest about yellowcake and nuclear energy.

You said that with a minor effort... Iran can become a superpower... Did you mean a superpower like China or America?... or like Kuwait and Afghanistan?

I hope that you manage to make Iran a superpower before it is completely destroyed.

(Click here to read a full analysis of the roozonline satire.)

In another interesting development, Iranian dissident Amir Abbas Fakhravar recently escaped Iran and visited with Richard Perle in an undisclosed location. Mr. Fakhravar has been oppressed, imprisoned, and tortured by the Iranian regime since 2002 when he wrote a book critical of Iran, called This Place is Not a Ditch. He recently warned America not to take ‘The Letter’ seriously as it is a stalling tactic similar to what North Korea does when it needs more time to work on its nefarious plans. He states that millions of Iranians want “freedom at any cost” and are grateful to members of the United States Congress (mostly republicans) for their concern and willingness to help. (Click here to read the full text of the New York Sun article.)

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made (or was instructed to make) this pre-emptive political strike of sorts simply because he realizes that Iran is not in the driver’s seat. The Iranian government realizes that it has no moral authority in the world (let alone in its own country), reminded of this over and over again by that fact that its populace is lacking in nearly every liberty and many of the general comforts of life. It realizes that it could be toppled like a house of cards if the circumstances were right. The circumstances—for the overthrow of a diabolical government and its replacement by a free democratic republic—are aligning themselves more closely each day.

Ahmadinejad sent ‘The Silly Letter’ out of fear. And he should be afraid.