It never fails. Whenever the warhawks in the US want to gin up support for yet another war against (preferably) yet another Muslim country, we hear the old familiar song: that country’s leader is another Hitler, any US leader who favors diplomacy is another Neville Chamberlain, and any talks between the two is another Munich.
This has been a little hard to do with the recent talks with Iran, though that has not stopped them from trying. It has been hard to paint the current president of Iran as Hitler. Iran has not invaded any neighboring country. Furthermore, president Obama has been a vigorous proponent of using US military force all over the globe. The last resort has been the Munich analogy, suggesting that the limited agreement negotiated between Iran and the P5+1 nations is just the prelude before Iran invades Poland.
But these efforts are not gaining much traction with the US public. A recent poll finds that by a two-to-one margin, Americans approve of the recent talks and deal.
Even if the Iran deal fails, 49 percent want the United States to then increase sanctions and 31 percent think it should launch further diplomacy. But only 20 percent want U.S. military force to be used against Iran.
The survey’s results suggest that a U.S. public weary of war could help bolster Obama’s push to keep Congress from approving new sanctions that would complicate the next round of negotiations for a final agreement with Iran.
“This absolutely speaks to war fatigue, where the American appetite for intervention – anywhere – is extremely low,” Ipsos pollster Julia Clark said. “It could provide some support with Congress for the arguments being made by the administration.”
There are just so many times that one can invoke the absurd comparison to World War II before people tune you out as just another Chicken Little riding your pet hobby horse. The fact that only 20% of Americans want the use of military force even if progress stalls must be disheartening to those who dearly want to bomb Teheran, so we can expect their rhetoric to get even more heated in order to get people to listen to them.
Iranian president Rouhani as the Antichrist maybe?
Iran has not invaded any neighboring country.
A perfect example of something that is technically true but is irrelevant. Iran has invaded Syria and Lebanon, principally via its terrorist tool Hizbollah. Since Syria and Lebanon are not neighbors, Singham’s statement is technically true.
Iranian president Rouhani as the Antichrist maybe?
It makes no difference what Rouhani believes. He is a figurehead. It’s the Ayatollah Khamenei who calls the tune. Never confuse the monkey with the organ grinder.
The Tea Party right is so narrow-sighted they see only one arm of US diplomacy, the military. All other forms of diplomacy which don’t involve killing people, preferably brown non-Christians, don’t exist for these conservatives.
Never confuse the monkey with the organ grinder.
I got it! I got it: you’re the monkey! Am I right?
I just came across the W.H. Auden poem September 1, 1939, with the lines:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
I suspect that’s why everyone is so scared of Iran. Everyone knows that evil was done to them, and are afraid that they’re ready to do evil in return.
While Hizbollah quite close to Iran, I don’t understand how funding it is an “invasion” of Lebanon, especially in lieu of the fact that its founding was largely a response to the [i]actual[/i] invasion of Lebanon by Israel.
The Pennsylvania poopyhead is about as humorous as AIDS.
Which is still more humorous than you.
Obamacare is an Iranian plot!
There is no way Hizbollah “invaded” Lebanon. It’s a popular domestic political organization that represents a large portion of the population. That’s like saying Hamas “invaded” Gaza. Both groups definitely have problems, but they are not foreign invaders. Iran’s support of Hizbollah makes perfect sense from their perspective and it’s an absurd stretch to call that an invasion.
By supporting the terrorist organization Hizbollah, Iran has invaded Lebanon by interfering in their internal affairs. Hizbollah is a wholly owned subsidiary of Iran.
You have basically no idea how governments, societies, or people function if you believe the Iranian President to be a figurehead. He’s not the top dog, no, but he is not without influence.
That is absolute bullshit. Hizbollah in Lebanon is a popular political organization there, and represents a significant portion of their population. They certainly receive support from Iran, but they are not a “wholly owned subsidiary”. Only someone who knows nothing about the political organization and history of Lebanon would ever say such a phenomenally stupid thing.
Re DrVanNostrand
When the Ayatollah Khamenei tells Hizbollah head Nasrallah to jump, the latter only asks how high.
@ ^ brucegee1962 :
Was evil done to Iran? Really?
I’m not so convinced of that.
Yeah, there was Shah supported by the West who wasn’t that bad really by leaders of the region standards and far better than what came after him -- according to my Iranian friends who y’know were actually there at the time and know what they are talking about.
There was the war with Iraq which was Saddam Hussein’s choice and act of aggression.
Plus there were sanctions imposed on Iran because of its rulers desire to spread its “revolutionary” ideology of extremist Shiite islam and also to stop them form developing The Bomb.
Ready to?!?
What do you call sponsoring terrorism around the globe?
What do you call supporting, funding and arming groups like the PLO, Hamas and Hezbollah?
What do you call the Holocaust and homosexual existence denial and the brutal oppression of the Iranian people who rebelled against their Islamist ideology and wanted to topple the Ayatollah’s rule a few years ago?
I think the Iranian theocratic dictatorship is already doing plenty of evil and evil by its own nature.
I think that quote is being used here the wrong way around and it is Iran that fears having evil repaid to it after done plenty of evil things itself.
Wikipedia’s page on Hezbollah :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah
Notes that :
As well as :
So yes, Hezbollah is an Iranian based and run Jihadist group driven by the same extremeist Shiite idelogy of the Iranian Ayatollahs.
Wikipedia is of course just a starting point but that’s a pretty reasonable summary and description there.
Given this saying that Iran has invaded Lebanon with using Hezbollah as its proxy makes good sense and seems fair and accurate to me.
@2up2down2furious :
False. As you can see from the wikipedia page whilst Israel being in Lebanon may have been a rhetorical device and a convenient covering scapegoat, Hezbollah was clearly really founded by Iran to promote, indeed compel, the people of the region and wider world to adopt Iran’s extremist Islamist ideology.
Hezbollah -- like Hamas -- also, lets note -doesn’t merely want Israel to just withdraw from any particular territories captured in conflicts aimed at wiping the Jewish state off the map. Hezbollah and Hamas will not be satisfied with anything less than the total destruction of Israel and its people and won’t give up fighting till that’s accomplished -or they’ are destroyed themselves.
Given this reality, I think it was a huge error of omission in the Iran deal that Iran wasn’t compelled to renounce and permanently end its terrorism and specifically cease supporting, arming and funding Hezbollah and Hamas. Ideally, Iran should have been made to help end these groups forever as a minimum condition for even the slightest easing of sanctions.
We actually have proof of Rouhani as the Antichrist from Hellenized versions of his last name:
Ρουλανει = 100 + 70 + 400 + 30 + 1 + 50 + 5 + 10 = 666
Ρουαλει = 100 + 70 + 400 + 1 + 30 + 5 + 10 = 616
Then again, people just don’t listen…