Why Revolutionary Sunni Islamism is the World’s Greatest Strategic Threat and None of it is Moderate
No, it sure isn’t the age of Aquarius or of Multicultural, Politically Correct love-ins. It’s the age of revolutionary Islamism, especially Sunni Islamism. And you better learn to understand what this is all about real fast.
(Shia Islamism, important mainly because of Iran and especially due to its nuclear ambitions, is number two on the threat list. But that’s not our topic today.)
Focusing on the Sunni revolutionary Islamist tidal wave, the foundation of knowledge is that there are three types and they are all bad, very bad. A lot of people are going to be misinforming you about this and getting others—never themselves, of course—killed.
Sometimes people ask me why I use the phrase “revolutionary” Sunni Islamism. The reason is to remind everyone that this is a revolutionary movement like those of the past that seek to use a variety of strategies and tactics–of which violence might only be one–to seize, hold, and use state power to transform societies.
Some ask why I use the word “Islamism” and the reason is because this is a specific, conscious set of organized political movements. However theology is related to this issue the problem is political, not theological. If you saw as I did over decades how the radicals had to sell the idea that “jihad” today meant picking up guns, cutting off people’s heads, overthrowing governments, and assembling mobs of thousands screaming for death and destruction, you’d have no illusion that they had an easy time of it. This didn’t happen because somebody just pointed to some verses in the Koran and everyone said: Oh, now I get it! We must seize control of the world and kill everyone else. They murdered or intimidated into silence Muslims who disagreed with them. Even today hundreds of millions of Muslims oppose revolutionary Islamism. And if you don’t play it smart to have those people as allies–some out of mutually cynical self-interest and some as true brothers who want to live in freedom just like you do–and help them save their lives and countries you will never achieve anything
The three types are the al-Qaida style groups; the Salafists, and the Muslim Brotherhood. They are all equally dangerous and some are more dangerous in different ways. Have no illusions.
To understand al-Qaida, which of course goes under many names and regional local groups, is simple. It has one strategy: kill! Its only tactic is terrorism. It is like those nineteenth-century revolutionary movements that always failed and for which the Marxists had so much contempt.
These small groups were always persuaded that if the workers would only be roused to a general strike or that enough officials would be assassinated the revolution would come like a nuclear explosion. Now, these movements always failed but sometimes they laid the basis for others to succeed. Remember, the People’s Will helped launch the Russian revolutionary movement; an anarchist assassinated an American president; the Serbian state-sponsored terrorist cell set off World War One in 1914, and of course al-Qaida created September 11.
Al-Qaida and its various versions in Morocco, Gaza (the Palestinian Resistance Committees), Iraq, Somalia, Europe, Yemen, and a dozen other places is dangerous in that it can stage terrorist attacks. In a place where no government exists—like Somalia—it might conceivably seize power. But al-Qaida is not the great threat of the twenty-first century. It is a problem for counter-terrorism and relatively lightweight counterinsurgency.
They may be the worst guys but they are not the West’s main global strategic problem. Everybody who isn’t basically a supporter of an al-Qaida group hates al-Qaida except for the Taliban which is really sort of a similar version. Why? Simple. Because al-Qaida wants to overthrow every regime (they do play a little footsy with Iran but even that’s limited). Oh, and they also loathe Shia Muslims which makes for even more enemies and fewer potential allies.
It is “stupid” to have no friends because that means everyone has a motive to get you and nobody has a reason to help you or give you safe haven. Doesn’t sound like brilliant strategy, right? But there’s more.
Al-Qaida, although the name means in Arabic “base,” ironically, has no political base. It sets up no real mass organizations; it doesn’t do social welfare work capable of rallying whole countries behind it. There is no way that hundreds of thousands or millions of people will rally to its cause. Imagine someone in 1917 saying in Moscow, “Forget about those moderate Bolsheviks. It’s the anarchists we have to fear.”
In other words, they are in a distant third place.
But even al-Qaida can be used by the Brotherhood. Look at what happened: an al-Qaida group stormed into an Egyptian base, killed lots of soldiers, stole a couple of vehicles, and attacked the border with Israel.
True, the Egyptian regime (that is, the Brotherhood) attacked and killed some of the al-Qaida people. After all, these terrorists had murdered Egyptian soldiers. But what did the regime tell its people? That Israel was behind the attack. Israel had murdered Egyptians. And therefore there is more reason than ever to hate and wage war against Israel. This is how Middle Eastern politics works. And that’s one reason why the Brotherhood—as it incites to hatred and violence even as it kills the even more hateful and violent—will never be moderate.
Then there are the Salafists, a word coined only recently in part as a pretense to pretend that the Muslim Brotherhood is moderate. But this also does describe a distinct set of groups, for example the Palestinian groups Jaish al-Islam and Jaish al-Umma. Egypt is the place where the Salafists developed in a most sophisticated fashion. But it’s important to understand why that happened. Indeed, that point is central to comprehending what’s going on now.Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Egypt is the place where the Salafists developed in a most sophisticated fashion. But it’s important to understand why that happened. Indeed, that point is central to comprehending what’s going on now.
In the 1970s, when President Anwar al-Sadat made the mistake of letting the Brotherhood return to public life in practice, he threw fear into them. Advocate violence in Egypt; come out too openly against the regime; even become too successful and back to the concentration camps you go!
So the Brotherhood leadership, elderly and many of whom had been tortured and seen their colleagues hung, played it cool. They had no illusions about underestimating the strength of the regime. Yes, they said, the day of revolution will come but meanwhile we are in a long-term stage of da’wa, organize and educate. Patience is essential. Don’t make the regime too mad. Yes, hooray for killing Israelis and Americans! But at home keep the murders to a few too boldly open secularists.
There were, of course, young men who were too impatient. Our leaders are cowards. They have betrayed the true word of Islam! Let us organize for a more imminent revolution, maybe even take up arms right now and shoot down the evil regime’s officials. And they even gunned down Sadat himself. There were many such groups—one, Islamic Jihad, joined up with al-Qaida—but they had different views, mixes of strategies, and leaders. Some were almost sects with charismatic shaykhs.
Now they have blossomed forth, eager for violence and instant revolution. Their al-Nour party—which only represents part of this complex mix of groups that may or may not cooperate—got about 20 percent of the parliamentary vote.
Is the Brotherhood their friend or enemy? Should they raid police stations and blow up pipelines or not? Should they set up morality patrols and beat up young men walking with women and also women who aren’t dressed as the Salafists wish? There are many different views.
Sometimes the Brotherhood uses the Salafists as a convenient excuse. If Islamic Jihad lobs rockets and mortars at Israel, well—wink, wink, nudge, nudge—that isn’t the fault of Hamas is it? At times, the Salafists can furnish the Brotherhood with the needed storm troops though I would not suggest for a moment that the Brotherhood owns the Salafists. They are definitely two different groupings, but their interests can blend and the “radical” Salafists provide the “moderate” Brotherhood with a convenient excuse when one is needed.
One thing is clear though: the Salafists’ goal is the precise, exact same as that of the Brotherhood. The only question is how fast to go, how radical to talk, and how much violence to use.
And another thing is also clear: neither in Egypt, nor in Tunisia, nor in Gaza (where the Brotherhood is called Hamas) will the Salafists overthrow the Brotherhood people. We can be less sure about Syria where the balance of forces is not yet so clear.
Finally, we come to the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood is the Communist Party of Islamism. And you don’t have to take it from me that was an idea expressed by the moderate, anti-Islamist brother of the Brotherhood’s founder.
The Brotherhood wants a Sharia state. It would like a caliphate (run by itself of course). It wants Israel wiped off the map and America kicked out of the Middle East. It wants women put into second-class citizenship and gays put into their graves. It wants Christians subordinated or thrown out. It wants all of these things.
And it will pursue these goals with patience and strategic cleverness. One step forward, one step back; tell the Western reporters and politicians what they want to hear. Pretend to be moderate in English while screaming death curses in Arabic.
These are the people who are coming to power. They hate their Shia counterparts generally and will kill them also at times. They will drag down their countries’ economies. Ironically, they will succeed in making Israel relatively stronger as they beat and burn and tear down; as they set back their countries economic advancement; as they kick half the population (the female) down the stairs.
They will lose. Just as the Communists did; just as the Nazis did; just as the Fascists and Japanese militarists did. But how many decades will it take? How many millions of people dead and injured? How much human potential and natural resources wasted?
And will Western policy make easier the ultimate triumph of moderation, moderation that includes millions of anti-Islamist Muslims and also includes lots of Middle Eastern Berbers, Kurds, Turks, Iranians, Druze, Christians and—yes—Israel. Or will the West make things harder, longer, and worse.
Of victory, I have no doubt. Of Western good sense, all too much uncertainty.
Really helpful analytical overview, Barry. Can you please do the same with revolutionary Shia Islam?
Prof Rubin – if you do write a piece about revolutionary Shia Islam could you also discuss the question as to whether and to what extent the Shiites might make a temporary alliance with the Sunnis (e.g. Iran and Egypt)
Bravo Barry – you are back in top form.
so why do you consider the Sunni variety of revolutionary Islam to be a greater threat than Shia? Also, in this assesment do you distinguish between long and short terms?
Just like with cancer, there are common forms and rare.
The common forms kill more people that’s why they are more of a threat.
Sunnis constitute between 87 and 89% of all Muslims, Shiites between 10 and 13%, there is just one percent of other sects. (Alavites, Ahmedis, etc)
Your analysis is excellent. (When is it not?) But I puzzle. The Nazies, Japanese and Fascist threat was militarily defeated. By whom? The USA, of course, was the real opposition! The overcoming of Communism was a much more complicated matter and involved more than military might. But it did involve American opposition! Your certainty that Brotherhood, viz., Islamic supremism will be “defeated” is almost an axiomatic truism of history. In the long run we all seem to go under someday. In the meantime, between ca. 40 B.C. (Caesar and Octavius) on there was a more or less 500 year expansion of Roman empire rule, which of course ended Judiacic existence in the territory of today’s Israel. Fine, ca. 2000 years later the Jews returned to their homeland. How many other peoples rolled over by the Roman war machine returned home? I suspect most such groups were wiped off history’s course. I do hope that Israel, America or the West will not experience an Islamic version, the caliphate, of the Roman imperium. This is not imaginary comparison. I do hold to the thesis that Islam in its origins is the only empire entity that made it out of antiquity into modernity and that is seeking, in the “imperial” hands of the Brotherhood, to reconstitute itself. What does all this have to do with your certainty that imperialistic Islam will lose (someday, if we grant it for the moment a hypothetical victory)?
The common factor in the defeat of the imperialistic expansionists of the 20th Century, was the serious opposition of the USA. I try as I might, yet I cannot remember FDR inviting, say, Göring to the WH to talk over whatever. When did the Secretary of State hire Hitler’s secretary? But, Obama has invited Morsi and other Islamists!?! Alas, to all intents and purposes it appears that the Obama leadership of America is actively muting the oppositional function that America played in the past. Would George W. or Romney have promoted the Brotherhood seizure of power in Egypt? I will not go on listing events that suggest Obama’s sterling NON-opposition to Brotherhood Islam. I believe that my point is clear. My judgment may be shortsighted, inadequately informed or just plain full of prejudices, though I doubt it. Whatever the objective foundation of my evaluations, it appears to me that a key factor in your certainty is strikingly lacking, namely the clear opposition of the USA to Brotherhood Islam. The Jews have been able to return home after a couple of thousand years. To my knowledge, my “republican” brothers of the Roman Republic (I am a fan of Cicero) never got a second chance. Perhaps I am being a bit pessimistic here (I learned it from the “real” Spengler). Nevertheless, am I on to something? Where is the key opposition? If absent, what does this imply?
My comment here should be viewed as a continuation of the one that is attached to one immediately above. I mentioned playfully that my pessimism was derived from the “real” Spengler”. Well, I just read the non-real “Spengler”, namely David P. Goldman’s “North Korea on the Nile”. If Goldman/Spengler has produced an adequate analysis, based on the a current description of what is going on between the Brotherhood and Iran, it seems that the danger noted by Barry Rubin has augmented–and alarmingly so. I expressed doubts about the willingness of the USA under Obama’s non-resistance to the Brothrhood to lead the basic oppositional force, as was done by FDR and Truman to Reagan in oppositions to the imperialisms of the 20th Century. If I understand “Spengler” there may be little or nothing that the submissive Obama can do, presuming he recognizes a danger that demands reacton. An Egyptian/Iran axis could well make American resistance passé, i.e., hardly effective. Can someone tell me that I am wrong with my suspicions?
Unfortunately, I have to agree with Leonard. The paper by Prof. Rubin contains a good analysis, but its prediction part is full of wishful thinking. Spengler is right on the point here.
But I don’t think that the history repeats itself. And surely we won’t see the Roman imperium in the coming 500 (!) years. If the history would repeat, it would enter new Middle Ages. Unfortunately, I am not so sure that we even have 500 years – not with nuclear weapons, quickly developing technology, global economy, enormous human population and imminent climactic and ecology crisis. I don’t think we even have 100 years. We are at the bifurcation point: only some major improbable development like colonizing Mars, could open new horizons and save the mankind from a large-scale collapse and possible extinction. We should have done it already (late Armstrong is right)!
It can be that we have lost our only chance.
Leonard,
You wrote
>The Nazies, Japanese and Fascist threat was militarily defeated. By whom? The USA, of course..<
Not true.
The Nazis were defeated by the Soviets. The US did help, but even without the US the Soviets would have defeated the Nazis, thought it would have taken a longer.
80% of German soldiers were on the East-front.
Islam is no longer (if it ever was) a religion; it is a political ideology bent on world domination masquerading as a religion. Right now, it is sending its fifth columnists to infilitrate the West and to destroy it. It has been very successful in Europe, and it is now hitting the shores of America. Unfortunately, no one seems to have the sense to say, enough and no more.
Prof. Rubin: As always, well said, and refuah shlemah.
You might judge all Christianity by the Crusaders or all Jews
by the small minority of Israeli settlers who are violent towards
Palestinian civilians or a whole religion (Islam) followed by millions of people from many different cultures, many of whom have lived in peace with neighbors of other religions for years. Or you could read Prof Rubin’s excellent essay again and understand that things are a bit more complicated,
as he points out.
As for Europe and America – the situations are different.
There is real reason to be concerned about Islamism in Europe – although the Muslims there were not sent as a fifth column but came seeking work and a higher standard of living. They are a relatively larger proportion of the population in Europe (as compared with America), tend be be less educated and
less economically well off. And the economic situation in Europe will get worse – maybe a lot worse before it gets better.
American Muslim immigrants arrive by plane – they dont sneak in illegally and therefore they are more easily screened. They tend to be better off and more integrated into American society. Of course, there are Islamists and they need to be watched, but in America the greater danger is hysteria and racism on the part of some Americans which has led to the burning of mosques.
Chava – It doesn’t take a majority of Islamic adherants to be of the same mindset. It just takes enough, which can be a minority, to make it so. My favorite example is how Germany was taken over by the Nazis. In the 1933 election, the Nazi party got about one-third of the vote. Coalition politics being what it is, that was enough to allow Hitler to go on to impose a dictatorship on Germany. Comparably, in Islam, there are enough crazies around to intimidate the rest and impose there will on the rest, and terrorize the rest of the world.
STRONGLY disagree! The muslims in Europe are a demographic time-bomb and they have openly stated they will take over in 2050 when they know they will have the numbers. They already have ALL of Europe quivering in their boots – falling over each over to appease the muslims at every opportunity – and all it took was a little bad behavior. Car-b-q a few thousand cars and get your way on everything. No blood shed. Surrender without a fire shot.
In America they are using the same stealth jihad they used in Europe. They don’t have the numbers YET, but they’ll get there. They’ve completely take over one American city and that is Dearborn, MI. If you want to see America’s future take a look there. Meanwhile, our schools are forcing children to cast away our Judeo-Christian heritage in favor of islam. Pathetic!
Chava,
In important ways Islam is different from Judaism and Christianity.
Statistically Muslims are much more likely to be criminal than any other group especially when it comes to rape and other crimes against women.
Secondly the difference is in the roots: Christianity rests on Jesus. Jesus never raped anyone, never tortured, murdered, let alone mass-murdered, never taught deception nor wold domination, Jesus never had sex with 9 year old child. Muhammad did all that and more. Neither do Jews have a pathological founder like Muhammad.
Your opinion about “violent settlers” is mistaken, understandably so, if you read the main stream news. Overwhelming majority of the so called “settlers” are very decent people.
Islam is a religion,allah is their god and the Koran is their religious book.
With the evolving reality of Islam that you laid out so well,why does Israel continue to follow the appeasement and retreat model with them foisted on them by the culpable West ?
We can see what is going to happen in Judea and Samaria after Abbas goes off to meet Yasser but Israel is still drinking the Washington Kool-Aid and seem to think peace with infidels is what these Islamists want.
It looks like it’s going to take a major war to get all these 2 state solution fools of Israel to make their final shameful exit and bring about wiser heads to rule in their place. Wise leaders who will understand the danger Israel placed itself in by following the nefarious agenda of a dubious ally.
This recipe, to enlist “moderate Muslims” to fight the “extremists” is doomed to fail. Within the barbaric civilization of Islam there is no civil mechanism, and only weak arguments available to counter those who take their Islam seriously. And as more Muslims flee the predations of their failed nations, they simply spread the virus of Islam, they don’t stop it.
Most Islam analysts seem to agree with Barry Rubin’s approach : enlist the moderates to fight the extremists. Where is this working? Where has this worked in the past? Answers: nowhere. Never.
The genocidal impulse within Islam was dormant for a long time – Muslims had run out of ready victims to rape, terrorize, subjugate, and rob. Islam’s caliphate was exhausted, it’s life force all but expired when the Caliphate fell at the opening of the 20th Century, a spent force. But then the accident of oil began pumping trillions into the depleted coffers of Islam and it enjoyed a miraculous deathbed reprieve.
What the world sees today is not some kind of metamorphosis of Islam, or “revolutionary Islamism”. What we see Islam revitalized, with more adherents than ever before in history. We see an Islam with tens of thousands of little footholds across the planet. We see Muslims of all stripes with their eye on the long prize of Jihad, domiination, subjugation, terror, and the murder of their enemies. Muslims are successfully using the looted wealth from the West to wage global Jihad, to birth more Jihadists, and to corrupt and deceive the victims in their cross hairs.
We dare not be complacent, and our victory is not assured. I believe the belief that workig with the “moderates” will somehow (through magic, perhaps?) defeat the “extremists”is wrong. First, we are doomed to make a muddle any such effort; we cannot even tell if the aide to our current Secretary of State is an “extremist” or a “moderate”! So there is no way for us to ever divine who the real moderates are. Second, evidence continues to mount that so-called “moderate” Muslim communities may be anything but. We see with frightening and increasing frequency, that the so called “vast majority of peaceful Muslms” keep popping out Jihadis. After discovery, the “moderates” express their shock (“He was such a nice boy! We had NO idea!”), before lapsing right back into their non-ending lectures about our intolerance and Islamophobia…
The modern world has never faced something like Islamic fascism which confronts us today. Old bromides, old-think, and old comparisons do not apply. Islam certainly shares many of the nightmares and terrors of other mass-murdering ideologies, it is unique. It is a world “religion”. It enjoys special protections and immunities among it’s intended victims that communists and fascists never enjoyed. It has trillions to fund Jihad now, with no end in sight for the money train, and most ominously, more than a billion adherents, with many of them colonizing the West and infiltrating our academies, our military, and our government.. Islam will not let go as “easily” as Nazism, Communism, etc. Are we up to the fight? We seem exhausted. The notion that we can work with “moderates” only assures that the ascendancy of Islam continues.
Excellent formulation:
“And as more Muslims flee the predations of their failed nations, they simply spread the virus of Islam, they don’t stop it.”
Indeed, the West should not receive refugees form the Muslim lands unless they forsake Islam first. And even then they should be placed in quarantine, where they are carefully observed. If they exhibit any signs of Islam they should be returned to where they came from.
The one important weakness of Islam that the Westerners don’t understand is that they are very insecure. Right under the surface they know well that they are inferior. All they need to do is to look around and see that not only Western countries, but by now, also East Asian countries, and even by them most despised India has overtaken them and the distance is only increasing. They are left in the dust, humiliated.
It is only because the West continues to ponder to them and keeps making idiotic statements about their “great civilization”, about their “contribution to science”, about them being a “great religion”, end all that other nonsense, that they are not yet defecting by the millions.
If instead, we would institute powerful propaganda strategy, just like it was done against the communist block, they would disintegrate.
Broadcast daily to the Muslim world exposing among other things the depravity of their disgusting founder Muhammad the savage rapist, torturer, massmurderer and shameful pedophile. Tell them about the Muslim parasites in Europe living of welfare and raping the non-Muslim girls and women. (The for a musloid being a rapist are approximately 300 times higher than for a non-musloid. )
Embarrass the Muslims, and Islam, and at the same time encouraged nationalism to replace Islamism.
Yabba Dabba,
What you wrote is brilliant.
I’d like to connect with you, don’t know how. I sure wish there was an option on this blog, to send a private message. Well perhaps there is, I just don’t know how. Anyway, perhaps you could send me a message on the Facebook to “vivarto vivart”.
Indeed, it is like AIDS virus that hides inside the very cells of the immune system that is supposed to destroy it.
Likewise, Islam is using our freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and our tolerance to destroy all of the above.
The first step towards the cure is correct diagnosis. You are right that distinguishing between moderate and radical Islam is wrong. The moderate Islam is like retrovirus built into the chromosome waiting for the opportune moment to become active.
Islam will not let go as “easily” as Nazism, Communism, etc. Are we up to the fight?
The West can’t even bring itself to identify this enemy and it’s leaders keep brainwashing the masses that it is a religion of peace,that is why we are losing on every front.Thanks to our own government there are more Mosques being built in America than at any other time. National Suicide is U.S. Policy as it is Israel’s. The Iranians see this and only want to help, give a little push to the suicidal nuts who think appeasement will work to stop this cursed evil.
There is a simple spiritual understanding to what we are witnessing in this final chapter.At one time the West had the light of the world that kept the darkness of Islam at bay.Ever since the West dumped it’s spiritual light,the Judeo-Christian foundation removed,the darkness has filled the void like a torrential flood.The UK and Europe as a whole is a perfect example of this with churches boarded up or turned into Mosques.
The reason I see clearly that this is God’s judgment on the West for turning their back on Him and embracing perversity is because the leaders of the West are aiding and abetting this evil and apocalyptic invasion.
http://news.yahoo.com/17-afghans-beheaded-insurgent-attack-party-105555181.html
West is 100% behind this radical Islam resurrection: from letting Nazi allies – Muslim leaders off the hook for the Iraqi oil, down to radicalizing Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight Soviet troops during the Afghanistan invasion; pumping these savages with weapons, funds; sending the US instructors to teach them kill only to experience these skills on the hide of their own soldiers a dozen of years later. West is behind so called Arab Spring that only brain washed western democrats see as democratic movement. Stable military regimes, the only suitable regimes to keep this blood thirsty, supremacist ideology in check were forcefully replaced with radicals with help and excited applause of useful western idiots. Millions of dollars pumped into radicals again. Why? West, read the US, is broke and had enough of this oil dictate. It needs new war to get the economy back on track and natural resources re-allocation. Radicals play right into this genius, long term strategic trap. They are taking over Europe that will rise against carefully orchestrated “suicidal policy of multiculturalism” and participate in “just” liberation war. Many people will perish in flames of war that is being cooked now with radical Islam as one of its main ingredients. And the US is not the only country that won the WWII. Enough with this military narcissism already! You might despise Soviet Union all you want but military efforts and enormous sacrifice of its long suffering people, well over 20 million perished also had something to do with this victory, don’t you think? Soviet Union had been fighting Germans from June 22nd, 1941 and when did the US officially enter this war physically in Europe? The Land lease was an enormous assistance to Soviet Union but human sacrifice of gigantic proportions on this country’s behalf should not be so blatantly forgotten!
Surely the US is not the only country that won the WWII. There were also UK and USSR. The war could not be won without the Soviet Union. But you will not find a moderate part between the Nazi Germany and the SU. Both were monsters. Don’t forget that already approaching Berlin soviet Marshal Zhukov made his troops to run before the tanks through mine fields. He was in hurry. Have you ever asked yourself how did it happen that SU lost more than 20 millions (some say 30 millions!) soldiers (only counting soldiers!) in WWII, while Germany lost 4 millions, if I remember it right, on all frontiers?
Please. China at war with Japan is a potential world threat. Russia re invading Georgia is a world threat.
Al Queda is a threat because we are playing with them. Not in any way to minimize those who have died in this fight but can anyone honestly say that so many men have died in this war for any other reason than the West is somehow giving the rag heads a fair fight.
The moment the west has a real enemy on its hands we will mow the arabs down like grass.
Just do the math. The only thing keeping the mullahs alive is the fact that West, and yes Israel, can still afford to play games with them.
At the end of 1920s and even in 1933 the West could easily deal with Germany and Soviet Union, but there was an economic crisis as now, and they had no will as now. And there also was Japan … We know what followed.
True. But the list of 30′s era German and Austrian nobel Laureates include the likes of Heisenberg, Shroedinger. It was a real country. At some point Iran will indeed achieve 1940′s technology. And it will be shocked to discover what 21st centur technology has come up. Really do you think we are throwing out our old nukes without having something better?
Now on the other hand there are totalitarian countries out there with a real at kicking our butts. That’s all I am saying.
i wonder why i can never see spelling errors before hitting ‘submit comment’.
Shroedinger hated Nazis, so he would have supported the West if he had a chance, or at least he’d not collaborate with the Nazis on making the nukes.
Heisenberg, on the other hand, was most likely a Nazi supporter.
I am not sure that the West could have easily dealt with the Soviet Union in 1933. It was still a powerful country. Any attack would trigger Russian nationalism. The west tried to defeat the Soviets after the revolution and failed.
something