Iran: the Europeans are "idiots".

Two pieces of insider information have been inadvertently leaked from the depths of the fundamentalist pseudo-Islamic control center of Iran which highlight not only Iran's problems, but ours as well.

When a 27-4 UN IAEA vote threatened to send Iran to the Security Council, President Amedinejad was quoted as saying "We thank God our enemies are idiots." He went on to imply that there is nothing the outside world can do to stop Iran going nuclear because Iranians are simply too clever. Saddam thought so too. The sad truth is that now that Bill Buckley, the grand old man of the conservative movement, has said of our intervention in Iraq: "It didn't work", we are not going to perform a rebuilding in any unfriendly nation for decades to come. The miscalculation the Iranians may make is simply that because we won't rebuild a hostile nation, doesn't mean we won't just attack it and leave it unstable.

So who are the idiots to whom Amedinejad was referring? The Americans? Likely he was referring to all Westerners, however, in another leak, former Iranian nuclear negotiator Rowhani has given us more of an insight as to who the Iranians think are idiots and why. They believe the Europeans can be played against the Americans (who the Iranians regard as right, but impotent due to Iraq) for an indefinite period, until the Iranian nuclear capability is in place.

What is that capability? Most informed people seem to think that the goal is to have a "nuclear ready" capability. In other words, the ability to go nuclear rapidly, in response to any provocation, which the Iranians think will come from Israel. The Israelis, the only power over the past ten years who have been right, self-interested, and successful, agree with that assertion, and have increased the speed with which their unilateral withdrawals are taking place, and have sped up the building of their separation wall. Why? Can't a missile go over a 30 foot high wall? Of course, but what the Israelis are attempting to stop is Iranian sponsored terrorists (Hizbullah and Hamas) from mounting suicide attacks within Israel. The Israelis will put up with crude Hamas/Islamic Jihad projectiles over the wall, but anything more significant could easily be tagged as an Iranian attack.

In essence, an Israeli wall will make any Iranian attack obviously Iranian, rather than a proxy attack. This is advantageous to Israel because when the price of oil goes down (Hopefully as a result of a President McCain Manhattan Project on renewable power) Iran will be susceptible to outside sanctions, and unwilling to attack Israel when the sanctions that result will crush Iran.

what does all of this mean? Firstly, that the Europeans are naive by nature. Secondly, that Americans are so aggressive that nobody takes them seriously anymore. Thirdly, the Iranians, and Arab regimes, are taking short-term advantage (oil price, Hamas victory, Iraq quagmire) as an opportunity to ratchet themselves up a notch in world power.

Long term, unless Arabs and Persians make actual improvements to their economic structures, especially property law, government detachment from the private sector, and global integration this is ONLY a short-term advantage. America has learned its lesson in spreading democracy (even if the president hasn't), Europe is on the verge of learning its lesson on "soft power" as an exclusive remedy, and the Atlantic rift is closing (as evidenced by the Iranian situation itself).

Muslim power is rising, but it will only rise permanently in Indonesia, Malaysia, and portions of India. The use of this short-term advantage for short-term goals, will end in long term misery for the Arabs and Persians (with the notable exception of the UAE, Morocco, and to a lesser extent, Saudi Arabia who are all reforming their economies to join the modern world). The permanent rise is due to wise modernization, not deeper fundamentalism.