Tomorrow's Predictable Punditry, Today

In a surprise announcement, former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has thrown his hat in the ring to try and secure his old job. He will likely be running against incumbent President Hassan Rouhani, who brokered the Iran Deal with the US and is perceived as a moderate in comparison to the hardline Ahmadinejad.

Just to save everyone time, allow me to give you an advance copy of the various partisan pundits' takes on the outcome of this election:

If Ahmadinejad loses:

Republicans: "Now that America has gotten tough under Trump, hostile nations like Iran know better than to cross the US!"

Democrats: "Turns out that when you negotiate with a country rather than insist on it being an eternal international pariah, you decrease the appeal of the nation's extremist faction. Fancy that."

If Ahmadinejad wins:

Republicans: "I thought the Iran Deal was supposed to moderate Iran? Thanks Obama!"

Democrats: "Wow, you mean aggressive Islamophobia and saber-rattling by Donald Trump ends up emboldening radical forces in the Middle East? Who could have known?"

Shining Moments

As he departs office as President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reflects on his greatest accomplishments:

Outgoing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said during a farewell ceremony that publicizing his Holocaust denial was a major achievement of his presidency.

“That was a taboo topic that no one in the West allowed to be heard,” Ahmadinejad said in a speech Sunday, according to the Iranian Fars news agency. “We put it forward at the global level. That broke the spine of the Western capitalist regime.”
Ahmadinejad’s remarks on the Holocaust appeared on the Fars news site in Arabic, but not on its English website, which covered other aspects of the speech.

Some things never change.

But perhaps more interesting was the response of the incoming Iranian President:

President-elect Hassan Rohani described Ahmadinejad’s anti-Israel remarks as “hate rhetoric” that had brought the country to the brink of war, the German news agency dpa reported.

Some things change quite a bit. Very interesting.

Post-Nap Roundup

It was such a wonderful day outside. I have no idea why I came back to my apartment and collapsed into an 1.5 hour nap.

* * *

Uganda's "kill the gays" bill is back, albeit it sounds like the execution part itself has been removed.

Adam Serwer comments on the President inviting Common to the White House.

In the burgeoning intra-Iran feud between Ayatollah Khameni and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Geneive Abdo explains why we should root for Khamenei. Recognizing the force of her arguments, nonetheless, I myself am rooting for injuries.

Anti-Shariah laws -- bad for religious liberty, hence, bad for the Jews.

Robert Farley on Chomsky the IR theorist.

Do my homework with me! Read Martha Nussbaum's critique of Judith Butler.

I Dream of Djinnis

Something is going on in Iran, where President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is feuding with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The spate started when Ahmadinejad attempted to fire his intelligence chief -- a move vetoed by the supreme leader -- and now the Ayatollah is telling Ahmadinejad to reinstate the chief or resign. Meanwhile, several Ahmadinejad allies have been arrested on accusations of sorcery and invoking Djinns (call me an Ahmadinejad apologist, but I'm guessing the charges are trumped up).

Lest anyone get too excited, this appears to be a right vs. right war: President Ahmadinejad hsa been pushing Iran into a considerably more "pure" nationalist direction and has been attempting to arrogate state security power in his own hands; the clerical leadership wants to maintain the theocratic bent of the state and, of course, is less than thrilled to see Ahmadinejad trying to get out from under their thumb. The (relatively) progressive Green Movement is not part of the feud, and if the government does collapse, it will likely be barred from running in any elections.

Bar None Roundup

There's a feeling of freedom in the air, but it will dissipate as soon as I start working on my bar application in earnest.

* * *

Israeli and Iranian relief workers join together in Japan. Unfortunately, as Harry's Place notes it is likely that one of the two countries will force out a denial that any cooperation occurred at all (remember this?).

I really like the cartoon at the bottom of this post.

Ahmadinejad predicts that the Arab revolutions will destroy Israel. Of course, he seems to say everything from the sun setting to the birds chirping will have that effect, so forgive my skepticism of his savvy geopolitical analysis.

Dahlia Lithwick describes Connick v. Thompson as "one of the meanest Supreme Court decisions ever."

More minimalism from the Roberts Court! (see my older post on the subject).

Reconsideration Roundup

The problem with going big or going home is that sometimes ....

* * *

Is Bibi thinking of selling the West Bank withdrawal to right-wing Rabbis by waving US security guarantees over their head?

Ahmadinejad blusters: "The United States doesn't understand what war looks like. When a war starts, it knows no limits."

Senate minority blocks the repeal of DADT. Relatedly: John McCain still a hack, Tony Perkins still a dick.

The stats of a "front-runner".

Like all other religions, Christianity has a broad array of different views on moral questions, and we shouldn't take the seemingly abhorrent perspectives advocated by some and paint the entire faith with a broad brush.

Nate Silver has a comperenehsive assessment of the likely impact of the Tea Party, on election day and beyond.

A neat map that tracks the racial divides in DC.

PA Savages Iran, Ahmadinejad

I figured there existed some tension between the Palestinian leadership and the Iranian government, given that the latter (a) tends to arrogate itself the right to speak for Palestinians and (b) provides support for brutal separatist groups which violently removed the PA from various Palestinian territories. Still, this is pretty amazing:

The one who does not represent the Iranian people, who falsified election results, who oppressed the Iranian people and stole authority has no right to speak about Palestine, its president or its representatives," Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudaineh said about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

I have to ask whether this is the first outright statement by a (non-Israeli) middle eastern leader that Ahmadinejad stole the election and is an oppressive tyrant?

This, once again, reinforces the delineation between the folks who actually support Palestine living side-by-side in peace with Israel, and Iranian-backed stooges who couldn't care less what happens to Palestinians so long as they can be used to whip up racist hatred.

The Irony Drips

Now, this is from Fox News, so trust it exactly that far, but they're reporting that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is now alleging that the US is conspiring to stop the savior of mankind from returning.

Why do I say the irony drips? Well, while Mr. Ahmadinejad is referring to the "Hidden Imam", here in America, most of the top policymakers have a different idea of who the messiah will be. And the eschatology behind that guy's return, so far as I understand it, revolves pretty heavily around getting loads of Jews to return to Israel. Now, Sarah Palin fantasies notwithstanding, thus far American policy has not been geared at encouraging Jews to flock en masse to the Holy Land -- and that's a good thing. But it does tickle me that, in a weird way, Ahmadinejad's statement is essentially that he wishes we would.

How Titus Pullo Brought Down the Islamic Republic

HBO's series Rome focused on the exploits of two Roman soldiers, Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo, weaving a tale of how these relatively minor characters had a huge impact on the course of human history itself. In the episode How Titus Pullo Brought Down the Republic, for example, a friend of a man Pullo had killed attacks Pullo as he is escorting Marc Antony to the Senate. The ensuing brawl is seen as an assassination attempt by Pompey, and the political fallout of the event directly leads to the collapse of the Roman Republic. And so we see how one man, a bit player by all accounts, can through his actions change the tide of history.

I think of this episode when I reflect upon the death of Neda Agha-Soltani, whose shooting at the hands of a Basij sniper is becoming the banner around which pro-democracy protesters are rallying. Neither Ms. Agha-Soltani, nor her killer, were major political figures. The sniper likely will remain anonymous for all time. Moussavi did not intend for to die, and I am sure that Ahmadinejad did not wish her to be killed.* And yet, in their deathly duo, they may be the ones who cause the collapse of the Islamic Republic of Iran in its current form.

There is much happening in Iran's halls of power, which will undoubtedly have great impact on the future of that nation. But everyone's best laid plans can be swept away by the squeeze of a single over-zealous triggerman, and the martyrdom of a brave young woman.

* Not out of any tenderness of his heart, but because the fallout from her death may be the event which finally causes him to break his grip on power.

The Ahmadinejad Waltz

Steps in various directions, but you always get back to the same place. Step forward:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in an interview broadcast Sunday, said his government would accept a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians if Palestinians did.

"Whatever decision they take is fine with us," he told ABC's "This Week."

"We are not going to determine anything. Whatever decision they take, we will support that. We think that this is the right of the Palestinian people. However we fully expect other states to do so as well."

Step back:

Ahmadinejad, who has called for the end of Israel's existence as a Jewish state, also argued that people in the region should be allowed to hold a referendum — and if they vote Israel out of existence, other nations should accept that.

I wonder what happens if the Palestinians accept a two-state solution and the surrounding nations nevertheless vote Israel off the island?

Which is the sort of thing one wonders in lieu of: "What gives people who live outside of Israel's borders the right to vote on Israel's existence in the first place?"

Moon's Full Statement

Mark Goldberg of the UN Dispatch has the full text of Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon's response to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech opening the UN anti-racism conference:

Statement by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the remarks by the President of Iran at the Durban Review Conference

I deplore the use of this platform by the Iranian President to accuse, divide and even incite. This is the opposite of what this Conference seeks to achieve. This makes it significantly more difficult to build constructive solutions to the very real problem of racism.

It is deeply regrettable that my plea to look to the future of unity was not heeded by the Iranian President. At my earlier meeting with him, I stressed the importance of the Conference to galvanize the will of the international community toward the common cause of fight against racism.

I further stressed the need to look to the future, not to the past of divisiveness. In this regard, I reminded the President that the UN General Assembly had adopted the resolutions to revoke the equation of Zionism with racism and to reaffirm the historical facts of the Holocaust respectively.

We must all turn away from such a message in both form and substance. We must join hands and work together to achieve a constructive, substantive agenda to combat racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.

Goldberg verifies my intuition that -- when adjusted for diplomatese -- Moon's reaction was the equivalent of apoplectic rage. It is extremely rare that a head of state gets called out so explicitly by the Secretary General.

No More Free Passes

Showing determination not repeat the racist fiasco that was Durban I, a mass walkout by mostly European delegates (the AJC reports that Morocco was among the nations that left) to the UN anti-racism conference in Geneva occurred during Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech (specifically, the parts where he goes off on a vicious anti-Zionist rant). Zvika Krieger, live-blogging the speech, captures the excitement as a beautiful message was sent to one of the world's foremost purveyors of hatred and extremism.



Ahmadinejad also had to deal with hecklers and cat-callers yelling that "a racist can't fight racism". And following Ahmadinejad's remarks, the Foreign Minister of Norway took the floor to say that his comments "run counter to the very spirit of dignity of the conference," and that Iran was "the odd man out".

And it wasn't over. After he left the stage to give a press conference, Ahmadinejad was greeted to sight of hundreds of protesters blocking the way, indicting him for his suppression of the Ba'hai and other oppressive acts. Included in the crowd was none other than Elie Wiesel (who, I suppose Ahmadinejad believes, simply had a really bad nightmare for eight years). At the conference, one journalist asked why Ahmadinejad devotes so much energy to savaging Israeli actions against the Palestinians, but virtually none to Muslim-on-Muslim violence. He answered that such activities, at root, were the fault of Western interference in Muslim affairs. Shocking.

UPDATE: HuffPo has a list of all the countries which either walked out or are boycotting the conference altogether (Morocco was not listed as a "walk-out" country):

Boycotted altogether: Germany, Australia, Canada, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland and the United States

Walked out: Austria, Belgium, Britain, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic (has left the conference for good), Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, , Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, St. Kitts and Nevis

YNet reports that Jordan also left the hall.

Meanwhile, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has joined the chorus condemning Ahmadinejad's speech, saying the goal was "to accuse, divide and even incite."

Jews Are Political Simpletons

That's the message of Roger Simon, who thinks that American Jews treat the Democratic Party like a "religion" and whose reasons for "fealty" are "at best sentimental and nostalgic, and at worst self-destructive."

As it turns out, these sorts of articles are just as obnoxiously patronizing when written to Jews as when they're written to Blacks. I always assumed that I supported the Democratic Party because they are a closer match to the majority of my political commitments -- some of which are religiously linked (such as peace in Israel, or defending the rights of religious minorities in America), some of which are not (like protecting gay rights and supporting racial equality). Though it must be said that even the positions that aren't directly related to my religious status still are strongly informed by my interpretation about Judaism's mandates regarding social justice.

Anyway, it turns out I vote the way I do because I'm blinded by nostalgia about the 60s. So, according to Simon, I should abandon my entire lifetime's worth of political views because some Democrats didn't join a symbolic protest against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This, apparently, is the mature thing to do. Color me unconvinced.

I'm very open to supporting Republicans. All they have to do is (in deed, not words) support gay rights, support racial equality and affirmative action, support aggressive anti-poverty measures instead of blaming the poor for their own problems, oppose school resegregation, oppose retrograde views about women's rights and pay equity, oppose the toxic neo-conservative foreign policy mix of petulance, self-righteousness, and bombast, crack down on polluters, protect the middle class from predatory lending practices, and oppose efforts to inject overt Christian theology into the public arena. In other words, not be Republicans. Until then, I feel like I'm being quite reasonable supporting the Democratic Party.

Jews are smart people. We know what we're voting for.

Via Randy Barnett.

Preventative Care

Opinio Juris has a guest-post by Israeli academic Elihu Richter, who makes a case for adopting a "precautionary principle" in favor of punishing those who incite to genocide.

The proposal to indict the President of Iran for incitement to commit genocide is the template case study for applying the Precautionary Principle based on "predict and prevent" as opposed to "proof of intent after the event".

It is my premise that the core of a program for prevention of genocide and genocidal terror should be based on applying public health models for prediction and prevention which specify surveillance, prevention and control of early genocidal conditions and proactive interventions keyed to early predictors. Based on the lessons of the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Darfur, and many other genocides, it is clear that state sponsored incitement and hate language are highly specific early warning signs that should be the trip points for preventive legal action, instead of waiting for prosecution after genocide is over.

Text, subcontext, and context. The foregoing is the basis for some statements I would like to make about text, subtext, and context. The text is the threats--some claim they are merely predictions--to wipe Israel off the map as part of this decision. The subtext is the pictures of missiles below which phrases such as these threats appear. The context is the enriching of uranium in violation of UN resolutions, developing ever more advanced missile systems, promoting Holocaust denial, and supporting terror groups with explicitly stated genocidal agendas, and the fact that the President of the country carrying out such enrichment, is the most vocal advocate of these genocidal threats.

Subtext and context, I submit, are critically important. Up to Oct. 25 2005, Ahmadinejad's predecessors were quoted as having made many threats similar to those made by Ahmadinejad. These were ignored by the International legal community. Had these "inchoate" statements triggered some kind of punitive action, would we be where we are now? Re context, I would be willing to bet that Ahmadinejad--and many others--had made many similar statements on all kinds of soapboxes when he was a minor politician unknown to the world. The case for action to prevent an imminent peril emerged from the day he became President, acquired real power, his statements about wiping Israel off the map became headlines everywhere, and his government rejected all UN resolutions concerning Iran's nuclear plans.

Lapsed period between the statements and the actions. I believe the discussion of the lapsed period has to take into account the fact that children are those most vulnerable to the effects of incitement and hate language from official state sponsored sources, such as texts, media, and places of worship, and the effects may be decades later. We know that for adults, where there is an authoritarian environment, incitement can convert normal people into sadistic killers over a matter of months. But children are the most vulnerable group, as is the case for so many toxic exposures in medicine, and incitement and hate language reaching children increases the likelihood of intergenerational transmission of the effects. As with all cause-effect relationships in which the relations between exposure and effect may be years or decades (e.g. Asbestos, cigarette smoking and cancer, or DES in mothers and congenital malformations in their offspring), we cannot dismiss the case for legal action and accountability just because there is a long lapsed period between exposure and effect. Where the audience for incitement includes schoolchildren, even if there are no immediate effects, we have an obligation to apply R2P-the responsibility to protect future generations-to ensure R4L-Respect for Life.

In a sense, this is pie-in-the-sky. The international community will take no substantive action against Iran and its leadership for genocidal rhetoric towards Israel so long as it remains just rhetoric and not action. Of course, as Prof. Richter eludes to, intent becomes moot after the event, so we're really just rolling the dice and hoping (a rather common trope when it comes to the fates of vulnerable minorities -- Jews and otherwise). But Prof. Richter I think at least establishes the grounds by which we could take substantive action.

Iranian Jews Settle in Israel

CNN reports on a cluster of Iranian Jews who have just moved to Israel -- the largest group in recent memory. Many have family members already in Israel -- some of whom they haven't seen in years. At least as the story reports it, they are quite glad to have made the move.

The Jewish community in Iran is the most vibrant in the Middle East (excluding Israel, obviously), and is actually treated fairly well. But there have been some reports of discrimination, and the community is definitely nervous about President Ahmadinejad's increasingly strident and hard-line stance against Israel, which they think runs a serious risk of a domestic backlash against Iranian Jews.

On the one hand, these people are my sisters and brothers, and I want them to feel secure wherever they live. And, more than anything else, isn't that Israel's purpose? To provide a haven for Jews who don't feel safe in their land of birth? So in that sense, I am happy that they are in a place where they don't have to look over their shoulders for being Jewish.

But at the same time, it's disheartening why they felt they had to move. There are, to be sure, many good reasons as a Jew to move to Israel. Personal security is definitely one, but it should not have to be. Security aside, I am glad there is an Israel -- a place where Jews are the norm and not the margin, a place where we're in control of our own destiny. But yet, I don't want to move there. I prefer to make my contributions in America, because I think I and my people have something to add to our delightful cultural mosaic. And I wish that other countries recognized that too. Some countries (albeit usually inartfully) say they specifically want Jews to move there. I want us to be wanted. I want us to contribute to the flourishing of Israel, and the US, and France, and Japan, and yes, Iran. So even though I support the right of any Jew to emigrate to Israel, for any reason, at some level I want to maintain the diaspora as well.

Or How About Persia?

In a sense, its ridiculous to even respond to the anti-Semitic babblings of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who today reiterated his call to exile the Jewish state to Europe or Alaska. Both the places are rather nonsensical locations for a Jewish state -- the former because that's the location Jews were fleeing from (should we put our new capital in Dachau?), and the latter because there is absolutely no link between Jews and Alaska (why wouldn't that be every bit as colonial?).

But the Jewish historical and communal links to Persia and Babylonia, on the other hand, are centuries old. And given President Ahmadinejad's ever-so-sincere concern for the well-being of Jews and Palestinians, and his absolute serious commitment to ending the conflict, I'm sure he wouldn't mind sacrificing a nice little chunk of his own fiefdom to donate to the now-homeless Jews. Certainly, it's much fairer than forcing the Inuit to do it. And it would be such a great gesture of good faith, too!

Any day now.

Laughter

I wanted to write about Iranian President Ahmadinejad's much harped upon speech before Columbia University. But I was somewhat conflicted, and was having difficulty getting words to paper. But I think two posts, in conjunction, get most of my feelings straight.

First, from the Carpetbagger Report, the image of students simply laughing at the Iranian President when he started spouting off non-sense (in this case, saying that Iran didn't have any homosexuals).

And second, from the conservative blog The Nose on Your Face (happily linked to by Powerline), imagining the questions Columbia's liberal student body might ask Ahmadinejad -- questions that applaud his dictatorial policies, laud his hatred of Israel, and...condemn ethnic slurs? Because what really would reflect well on Columbia and America would be a sophisticated critique of Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial, while having him "pelted with Slurpee cups and greeted with cries of 'Hey cabbie!'"

One of these responses showcases the best America has to offer when faced with a spokesman for evil and tyranny. One of these, less so.

Ahmadinejad is a crazy man, and even though is power in Iran is vastly overstated, he still has the power to real damage and violence that can effect American interests (not to mention moral interests) the world over. We would do well to take that capacity seriously. But one thing I do not fear about Ahmadinejad is his ideas. Put him in a room with America's brightest young minds -- people who do not need to worry about whether their dissent will cause them to be dragged off and shot -- and his ideas will rapidly receive the reception they deserve. I can think of no better way to combat his ideological poison than this: give him a mic, listen attentively, and then laugh him off the stage.