The Renaissance man has been offline for over two months. This was due to jungle travel in the Amazon region. It was great.
Now, he's back.
Friday, May 19, 2006
IRAN AGAIN
The Renaissance Man has a question.
There are a fair number of people out there who have observed that the current Iranian president is elected. Apologists for Iran say that the country, while an imperfect democracy is freer and more democratic than most other countries in the region. (At the same time they point out the democratic elections for the Palestinian Authority).To an extent it is true...though the Mullahs prevented Reformers from running, Iranians did select Mr.Ahmadinejad ahead of Mr. Rafsanjani, and there seems to be no doubt that this selection was legitimate.
One of the theories coming out of WWII about the Holocaust was that "peoples", were not to be held collectively responsible for the acts of their leaders. Thus, though we prosecuted many Nazi and Japanese leaders for various war crimes and crimes against humanity, we did not prosecute the civilian population (and low level military) even though many of them at least knew what was happening and a lot were complicit.
Maybe that made sense when you consider that both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were brutal dictatorships. Maybe the people were essentially powerless against the regime (this is giving them the benefit of the doubt, I know, for there certainly was lots of support for the regimes in both countries).
But (and here is the question) should the same rule apply when the government committing the atrocities is democratically elected? When the people make a conscious decision to select a government in the knowledge of the policies they will likely follow, do we still immunize that same population from the easily foreseeable consequences of their actions?
The Palestinians were well aware and were warned that if they elect Hamas, they will lose international support, but they went ahead anyway...what is wrong with allowing them to experience the consequences of their conscious and collective decision?
This new policy coming from the Iranian government is just another in a long line of lunacies stretching back to the Revolution. But now these decisions are being made by a president who forecast them both as mayor of Teheran and in his election campaign.
Fine...it was no secret to Iranians what he would do...maybe he would lead them to disaster with his nuclear programme, but that was a risk they were willing to take.
The Renaissance Man understands the reluctance to contemplate sanctions or even military action against the Iranian people. At home in Canada he knows lots of Iranians, and I can tell you that, at least the ones he knows are great folks. In a different situation, Iran is a country the Renaissance Man would love to visit.
But, it is beyond the ken of the Renaissance Man to see how the security of the civilized world...lets say the CIVILIZATION of the civilized world...can be permitted to be threatened by the insane fanatics in charge in Teheran.
If the people of Iran were a people held hostage by this regime, then perhaps the equation would change. But that is not the case...they voluntarily picked this guy.
Doesn't that change things?
There are a fair number of people out there who have observed that the current Iranian president is elected. Apologists for Iran say that the country, while an imperfect democracy is freer and more democratic than most other countries in the region. (At the same time they point out the democratic elections for the Palestinian Authority).To an extent it is true...though the Mullahs prevented Reformers from running, Iranians did select Mr.Ahmadinejad ahead of Mr. Rafsanjani, and there seems to be no doubt that this selection was legitimate.
One of the theories coming out of WWII about the Holocaust was that "peoples", were not to be held collectively responsible for the acts of their leaders. Thus, though we prosecuted many Nazi and Japanese leaders for various war crimes and crimes against humanity, we did not prosecute the civilian population (and low level military) even though many of them at least knew what was happening and a lot were complicit.
Maybe that made sense when you consider that both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were brutal dictatorships. Maybe the people were essentially powerless against the regime (this is giving them the benefit of the doubt, I know, for there certainly was lots of support for the regimes in both countries).
But (and here is the question) should the same rule apply when the government committing the atrocities is democratically elected? When the people make a conscious decision to select a government in the knowledge of the policies they will likely follow, do we still immunize that same population from the easily foreseeable consequences of their actions?
The Palestinians were well aware and were warned that if they elect Hamas, they will lose international support, but they went ahead anyway...what is wrong with allowing them to experience the consequences of their conscious and collective decision?
This new policy coming from the Iranian government is just another in a long line of lunacies stretching back to the Revolution. But now these decisions are being made by a president who forecast them both as mayor of Teheran and in his election campaign.
Fine...it was no secret to Iranians what he would do...maybe he would lead them to disaster with his nuclear programme, but that was a risk they were willing to take.
The Renaissance Man understands the reluctance to contemplate sanctions or even military action against the Iranian people. At home in Canada he knows lots of Iranians, and I can tell you that, at least the ones he knows are great folks. In a different situation, Iran is a country the Renaissance Man would love to visit.
But, it is beyond the ken of the Renaissance Man to see how the security of the civilized world...lets say the CIVILIZATION of the civilized world...can be permitted to be threatened by the insane fanatics in charge in Teheran.
If the people of Iran were a people held hostage by this regime, then perhaps the equation would change. But that is not the case...they voluntarily picked this guy.
Doesn't that change things?
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