Yes Persians like to think of themselves that way and they have a long history. Still the fact remains that the Persian court was Arabized when they were conquered which explains the roots of the Iraq/Iran conflict. Which also explains why Hussein acted as if he had WMD, after all this is what he told his interrogators and incidentally what his nuclear scientists told us about WMD. There is a collective whackiness, that I do grant. The West has escaped the whacky because we had these philosophical movements renaissance, reformation, enlightenment.

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The reference was to political messianism — In the US we tend to practice a more secular flavor (tho’ if we look carefully we can detect the religious roots). The secular form still results in the same sort of preference for the ideal or ideological over the practical. But no, I’m not thinking that Jesus = Mahdi, not at all.

And I will have to differ on your assessment of Muslims and that use of “all” — after all, you know all too well how the MSM so easily pillories and mis-represents Evangelicals. They focus on the extremes, and so you have these assumptions that all Evangelicals are haters, or hard-right keep the girls pregnant and barefoot, barely literate etc etc. etc. We know the prejudice first-hand. How different is this lumping together of all Muslims?

For our critique (as conservative Evangelicals) to be heard, it must be still be grounded in the actual social reality. Nuance helps. And in the case of Iran, theirs is a composite society — how could it not be with 60 million? There are the middle class (sizeable in Tehran); there is a policy elite different from the popular or religious leaders; there is the split between the religious revolutionary guard and the regular military, etc. It would be a fundamental mistake to underestimate them or think they cannot be supple and sophisticated in their dealings. The controversy over the shutdown of the woman’s magazine Zanan indicates something of the variety of voices in Iranian society, as well as the repressive role of the religious Guardians.

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Now, Harris, be very careful when you compare Jesus and the Mahdi. I doubt you want to go there on this board.

I do see a certain collective “whackadoodleness” in these people (all Muslims in fact). Everything they do is based on violence, killing and repression, from the honor killings, to the burkhas, to not wanting girls to go to school, gang-raping women who are in the wrong car with the “wrong” guy — the list is endless. So, yes, I can see people like Ahmadinejad and the Mullahs deciding to use a nuclear bomb on Israel. These are the same people who sent their children out in the first wave, unarmed, against the Iraqis. Death is the cost of doing business for them.

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We have certainly suffered from our messianism, as well. The tendency to look for a savior is not simply their’s alone. As to Israel — again more subtlety helps here. President Ahmadinejab is certainly on the record as you say, so too are the supporters of Israel for taking strong military action against Iran. There is nothing to suggest that the leadership of Iran as a whole is especially irrational, and even less that they are collectively “whackadoodle.” That’s not the stuff of rational thinking but just letting the choler control us. It scarcely counts as wise (as in “wise as serpants”).

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Frank: For the record, let me state that I most certainly do not equate their actions with ours. (And maybe you’re not addressing me in the first place.) There are, however, eerie similarities in unilateral actions being justified by an assumed moral superiority.

That said, watch these two new reports of an Ohio woman being arrested, beaten and strip searched — by male officers, no less — for calling 9-1-1 after being assaulted (warning: digitized nudity on jailhouse videos):

lewrockwell. com/blog/lewrw/archives/019138.html

[Delete space between DOT and COM]

This certainly wasn’t done for religious reasons, I readily grant. But what gives with this tendancy lately of American cops to go ape feces under the most inapproriate of circumstances?

Might it have something to do with the militarization of American law enforcement agencies?

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Frank: For the record, let me state that I most certainly do not equate their actions with ours. (And maybe you’re not addressing me in the first place.) There are, however, eerie similarities in unilateral actions being justified by an assumed moral superiority.

That said, watch these two new reports of an Ohio woman being arrested, beaten and strip searched — by male officers, no less — for calling 9-1-1 after being assaulted (warning: digitized nudity on jailhouse videos):

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/019138.html

This certainly wasn’t done for religious reasons, I readily grant. But what gives with this tendancy lately of American cops to go ape feces under the most inapproriate of circumstances?

Might it have something to do with the militarization of American law enforcement agencies?

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This is really nothing new. Remember what happened to Salmon Rushdie?

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but really folks, at the very least learn the difference between Persians and Arabs. This anti-Islamacist hysteria makes you little better than the typical Muslim Rube-in-the-street.

As to Iran, it will be better to understand the fragmented nature of governance in the country, here the quote from the press release is pertinent:
“A careful review of the draft clearly shows that it is nothing more than a legislative tool to consolidate power around the regime and extend its religious tyranny globally,”

What is missing, is that the President Ahmadinejad is exceedingly unpopular these days (bad economy does that to you), so it is natural to play to the base. Not that we don’t do the same (of course not! how could you think that?). That, and there is an election coming up in March. In its run-up, there has also been a Constitutional reform push to limit Reformers from participating.

Add to this, no other mention of these “reforms” in other press sources — this clearly looks less like a turn to Islamic nastiness, and much more like a piece of internal politicking. Sort of like Romney’s ill-fated pledge to “double Guantanamo.” Politics is like that; it makes you do and say stupid things.

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