Sunday, February 03, 2008

If Iran Were America

Linking to a really good essay.

Here is an excerpt:

1980–1988: The America-Mexico War

The Iranians have previously maneuvered one of their long-time Mexican intelligence assets, whom we'll call "José Husseino," into the position of dictator of Mexico. Now they provide their pet dictator with arms, aid and intelligence, and launch Mexico into an invasion of the United States.

Ideally, this policy will topple the revolutionary Christianist government in Washington. Failing that, the Iranian leadership hopes Mexico will seize the oil-rich province of Texas, denying revenue to the new Washington government, while keeping Texas oil within the Iranian "sphere of influence."

The Canada/Israel analogy misses some important elements, but that is my only criticism of the essay. The essay itself is astonishingly well written for something by a Westerner.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is off-topic, but I was very late returning to the discussion at Helena Cobban's place, and by the time I did, comments were closed. I just wanted to respond to the following:

I took Jonathon Edelstein's initial questioning of the value of a ceasefire by Hamas if Hamas does not recognize Israel as a Jewish state as an expression of sympathy for the Israel/Rice/Bush position that negotations on other issues such as a cease fire and ending the siege should follow a recognition of Israel as a pre-requisite.

I see that you subsequently rethought this, but for the record, I was not intending to express sympathy for that position. Nor do I have sympathy for it. I believe that negotiations, whether for a cease-fire or otherwise, should have no prerequisites. I was, instead, responding to the implicit equation of "recognizing Israel" with "collaboration" and arguing that, if it is true that no Palestinian group that recognizes Israel can ever gain internal legitimacy, then a cease-fire in itself will not be enough to solve the long-term conflict.