Everything you know about Iran is wrong, or at least more complicated than you think. Take the bomb. The regime wants to be a nuclear power but could well be happy with a peaceful civilian program (which could make the challenge it poses more complex). What's the evidence? Well, over the last five years, senior Iranian officials at every level have repeatedly asserted that they do not intend to build nuclear weapons. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has quoted the regime's founding father, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who asserted that such weapons were "un-Islamic." The country's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a fatwa in 2004 describing the use of nuclear weapons as immoral. In a subsequent sermon, he declared that "developing, producing or stockpiling nuclear weapons is forbidden under Islam." Last year Khamenei reiterated all these points after meeting with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei. Now, of course, they could all be lying. But it seems odd for a regime that derives its legitimacy from its fidelity to Islam to declare constantly that these weapons are un-Islamic if it intends to develop them. It would be far shrewder to stop reminding people of Khomeini's statements and stop issuing new fatwas against nukes.
You know, for a member of the sophisticated class that keeps telling us that jihadis don't really understand Islam, so they can't be using "true" Islam as an excuse to kill us, Zakaria should exercise a little more humility in judging how Islamists can use Islam to justify nuking somebody in the name of Islam. Unless Zakaria is trying to argue that Islam is all on board supporting terrorism as Iran does in the region, from Afghanistan to Egypt, and most points in between, it would be prudent to accept that there is an Islam believed by the nuts with nuclear ambitions that sees no contradiction between Islam and killing lots of Infidels. [I fouled up this sentence originally, and corrected it.]
And unless Zakaria thinks that the experience of the Iran-Iraq War, which led Iran to start a nuclear program, has been forgotten.
And how do you explain the secret nature of much of Iran's work if they aren't seeking nuclear weapons when they could pursue peaceful nuclear energy openly under the IAEA?
I don't know about the "you" in "everything you know about Iran is wrong," but I'm positive it applies to Zakaria. Truly, I don't know what planet Zakaria lives on when it comes to anything related to radical Islam--whether Sunni or Shia. Heck, I don't know what planet he lives on when it comes to any issue touching on our defense.
Iran may not want the bomb? I'll go with Admiral Mullen on this issue:
President Barack Obama's top military adviser says Iran's objective is to obtain nuclear weapons — and that threatens the region.
Of course, I'll freely admit that Mullen lacks the nuance that Zakaria demonstrates so consistently. Gosh, and Newsweek is losing readers? Go figure.
UPDATE: Heh.
