Political insiders are wondering even now when Rick Santorum will pack up & head for Tehran to reinvent himself. After all, no one there remembers the 2006 Pennsylvania Senate results.Like Islamists in today's Egypt -- and some among America's Christian right -- Iran's revolutionaries found fertile ground on which to play the politics of pious populism, rather than concretely address the enormous challenges of building a diversified economy. The country's massive oil wealth made it appear all too easy. Khomeini famously dismissed economics as "for donkeys," and he responded to complaints of inflation by saying, "The revolution wasn't about the price of watermelons." Three decades later, the results are self-evident: In 1979, resource-rich Iran's GDP was almost double that of resource-poor Turkey. Today, it is roughly half.
The brutal reality is that Iranians had entrusted their national destiny to a man, Khomeini, who had spent far more time thinking about the religious penalties for fornicating with animals than how to run a modern economy.
Beyond the vile smut, an actual foreign policy point is made, & we are again struck by certain similarities. Are the mullahs also holding lists of known Communist infiltrators?
That Eve just ruined everything, didn't she?What they fail to consider is Khamenei's deep-seated conviction that U.S. designs to overthrow the Islamic Republic hinge not on military invasion but on cultural and political subversion intended to foment a "velvet" revolution from within. Consider this revealing address on Iranian state TV in 2005:More than Iran's enemies need artillery, guns, and so forth, they need to spread cultural values that lead to moral corruption. … I recently read in the news that a senior official in an important American political center said: "Instead of bombs, send them miniskirts." He is right. If they arouse sexual desires in any given country, if they spread unrestrained mixing of men and women, and if they lead youth to behavior to which they are naturally inclined by instincts, there will no longer be any need for artillery and guns against that nation.Khamenei's vast collection of writings and speeches makes clear that the weapons of mass destruction he fears most are cultural -- more Kim Kardashian and Lady Gaga than bunker busters and aircraft carriers. In other words, Tehran is threatened not only by what America does, but by what America is: a depraved, postmodern colonial power bent on achieving global cultural hegemony. America's "strategic policy," Khamenei has said, "is seeking female promiscuity."
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Three decades later, the results are self-evident: In 1979, resource-rich Iran's GDP was almost double that of resource-poor Turkey. Today, it is roughly half.
One can always depend on our war-loving Foreign Policy elites to skip past things like the U.S. economic sanctions on Iran.
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Int'l. Ed.:
See also: Cuba. Although no war (yet).
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