A Modest Proposal for Bringing About a More Democratic Persia

Persia is in crisis, the mullahs in charge are fighting amongst themselves and it appears that Khamenei is in open warfare with others in the Assembly of Experts. Khamenei's unleashed his personal thugs, even importing foreign thugs to prevent the people from demonstrating their disgust at the coup Khamenei engineered to prop up his pet madman Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The United States is in a unique position amongst world powers to effect the situation. There was a little Declaration of Paris a few years back (153 years back, to be precise), but the United States never signed that treaty, so we alone amongst major powers reserve the right to issue Letters of Marque and engage privateers on behalf of our nation. Given President Obama's international outlook, I believe he should combine that international inclination with some (very) old fashioned capitalism.

Last year, due to limited refining capacity, Iran floated over 30,000,000 barrels of crude on VLCCs (very large crude carriers) in the Persian Gulf. If they are still doing that practice (haven't seen any more recent articles on the subject), that means potentially (at $70/barrel) $2,100,000,000 worth of crude idling in the gulf. The Congress should use their power, as enumerated in the Constitution to issue letters of marque for privateers willing to commandeer that crude and take it to friendly refiners (say in Qatar or Bahrain), giving the privateers a small percentage (say only 2%, which would still add up to $42,000,000) of the take, and keeping the rest of the proceeds from the refining to be held in trust for the people of Persia. Promise to turn over these proceeds the moment a fairly elected government is granted control (irrespective if that is a pro-western government).

Denying Khamenei and his thugs billions of dollars in oil profits, while also using the crude that's already floating in the gulf to stabilize the oil market during this current turmoil would help the rest of the globe tremendously. This would also deny Khamenei one of his primary political and diplomatic weapons. Europe would denounce us publicly, while cheering us privately. The people of Persia would know without any doubt that the United States Congress is on their side. The Somali pirates have shown us how vulnerable these huge ships are (given their miniscule crews), there are plenty of security companies that could put together task forces that could easily takeover all the oil Iran is floating in the gulf.

The Congress needs to lead on this issue, rather than reprimanding Pres. Obama for not taking the initiative, Congress must use the powers explicitly left to them in our Constitution and help the Persian people remove their current dictatorship.

How Long Would It Take for The NYT to Blame Bush . . .

. . . unlike the how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop question, this one is answerable.

It only took 6 sentences before the Bush Administration was the guilty party (as far as the NYT editorial board is concerned) with regards to the latest Iranian provocation.

Persia is ruled by nuts, but that can't be enough, instead it has to be our nut's fault cause he hasn't tried hard enough to reach out to their nuts over the past 7 years.

I say nuts to that.

Instead we should continue to grab hold of the Mullahs by the nuts, and squeeze them, squeeze them hard. They may be crazy, but they're not stupid

It must be so comforting to live in a world where there is one person to blame for everything that happens, one place to point the finger, and one easy answer to all problems (whatever the Bushies are doing, recommend the opposite).

They're going to miss that certainty when it's gone.

LOL Fundamentalists?!?

I admit this one is in very questionable taste. But, I have a feeling that Ms. Oppressive Bangs would still argue that all religious fundamentalist are created equal. The photo above (sans cutesy caption) would argue against that point. I'm not making fun of this man's torture, I'm attacking those that would draw false comparisons between this barbarity and the more run of the mill fundamentalism we have at home.

The original caption for this UPI image reads as follows,

Saeed Ghanbari receives 80 lashes in public view in the Qazvin province, 91 Miles (165 Km) west of Tehran, Iran on August 21, 2007. Ghanbari was convicted of consuming alcohol and having sex outside of marriage. (UPI Photo/Mohammad Kheirkhah)

If you are prayerful, pray for Saeed Ghanbari, if you aren't prayerful, at least recognize the huge difference between the Iranian religious police and our more local (and far less violence prone) Christian Fundamentalist. The Iranian religous authorities do this in the open, what they do behind closed doors is a thousand times worse. Here's hoping the people of Persia will rise up against their oppressors and rejoin the modern world. Until they do, they remain a serious threat to the rest of the globe. And a people who would do this over a drink, a slap, and a tickle, are not to be allowed to develop WMD under any circumstance.

Photos That the Ahmadinejad Administration (and Their Mad Mullah Enablers) Show With Pride . . .

The state run news agency in Iran posted a bunch of photos showing how they treat folks they deem not Islamic enough.

Michelle Malkin puts together the photos along with many links, YouTube footage and commentary. She can be strident and shrill, but in this case her target deserves all the anger she can generate.

I would love to see Hollywood make a picture about a dystopian big brother government running rough shod over the lives of their citizenry and not set it in the United States or Great Britain.

Here we have a real life 1984 society that has exhibited many of the Freedom is Slavery and War is Peace virtues that so many like to accuse our society of having.

That picture won't ever get made, instead we get the Flood tale turned into a eco-friendly bumper-sticker message movie. Or you get the beheading of a journalist turned into a moral-relativist tale about how we just need to understand each other better.

I can enjoy pictures where the politics don't match my own. The current run of Dr. Who throws in digs against the U.S from time to time and I'll let it slide cause it's entertaining. Listening to the director's commentary of Pan's Labryinth and while watching it completely passed me by that it was all really about Boooosh and the evils he unleashed since 9/11. I still love that show, and the director's personal political idiocy won't prevent me from thinking or saying that Pan's Labryinth was the best film of 2006 by far. Where I take exception with the politically correct nonsense and groupthink endemic in Hollywood is when it leads them to make bad narrative and artistic decisions in the service of making a stupid political point, or worse yet, where they forget that they are primarily artist and just pound home their stupid politics without offering any entertaiment in exchange.

We've got everything Orwell ever warned about in Iran, and they're pursuing nuclear weapons on top of that, but it will be a snowy day at Hollywood and Vine (and not just a few flakes which happens once or twice a century, but I'm talking a foot of snow in a day) before they make a dystopian picture set in any of the modern day countries that see 1984 as a blueprint for governance.

Allow Me to Translate

Mullen said the "main message" in the United States having two aircraft carrier battle groups at present in the Persian Gulf "is to reassure our friends" from a "position of great strength."

From this piece (via Drudge) by the AFP (no byline), but I think the real main messages are,

a) We aren't all pussified like the Brits/Europeans (at least not yet, the first Tuesday in November 2008 will decide how unpussified we remain).
b) We won't hesitate in unleashing hell upon your shores should you try this with Americans.


The problem is that there may be elements within the Iranian Revolutionary Guard that want hell unleashed on their own country believing (wrongly) that a direct military confrontation with the United States will solidify their power and shore up their waning support with younger Iranians. Plus they might also have some zealots in their midst that believe that this will hasten the return of the Hidden Imam. Sometimes you have to make the times fit the prophecies, I guess.

Whatever Happened to Name, Rank, Serial Number?

BBC analyzes the current crisis between the UK and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Maybe this will be the turning point where folks around the globe realize that we aren't the bad guys.

Here's hoping.

Pres. Ahmadinejad is evil, the Mullahs are evil, the Iranian people do not deserve to be mistreated the way they have been by this gross perversion of a government that has ruled over them since their 'revolution'. Despotic regimes eventually fail, they always do, unfortunately they are often replaced by other despots, and generate misery for their populace in the process. One of the key ways to make their populace forget their misery is to manufacture conflict with an outside force.

The current regime in Iran is in serious trouble, and there are signs that a real revolution may happen sooner than later. Of course, it has to be sooner than when it can be reasonably inferred that they are truly capable of producing their own nuclear weapons, cause that's something that in no way shape or form can be considered acceptable so long as they are run by religious zealots whose stated goal is the elimination of another nation and all its people. Iran isn't run just by Holocaust Deniers, but Holocaust Enviers, and that's sick as well as dangerous.
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And, this post (by Guest Poster, Terra, Sol, the post's title which I pay homage 'aka' steal, with my own) at Samizdata, doesn't think much of how the captured personnel have acquitted themselves so far.

Also, maybe the crazed cowboy reputation that our nation has achieved may not be such a bad thing.

Judging by the majority of comments left at the above linked BBC article, a surprising number of Brits wish for their nation to 'cowboy up' on this one.

One simple solution would be to show the Iranians the true value of having your very own nuclear weapons (which despite all the EU togetherness, both France and Britain maintain their own separate nuclear arsenals), and making sure in the process that Iran is set back decades from that goal of getting some of their own. A nuclear armed British sub being spotted in the eastern part of the Black Sea may not be such a bad idea (so long as the Russians are given fair warning).

The threats of minor bullies must be met not with stern words, but with bigger threats backed by real actions.

Prime Minister Thatcher understood this when provoked by Argentina, Prime Minister Blair seemed to have understood this earlier in his tenure, but has lately gotten a bit wobbly.

If the message boards at places like the BBC are an indica, then the British people are ready to be less wobbly once again.

Hopefully, The Iranian people will see where this path will lead and murder the Mullahs for us. Kill them now, or be killed by them later (either directly, or in a suicidal war Iran can't win), the choice is theirs.

Hasn't He Heard of EMail?

H.E. Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad President of the Islamic Republic of Iran writes another letter to the United States.

Daniel Drezner responds on our behalf so that the rest of us don't have to.

Thank you Prof. Drezner.

(and thank you Prof. Reynolds for linking to Prof. Drezner).