Don't Talk to the Mullahs

Bush should respond to Ahmadinejad's letter, but he should speak directly to the Iranian people.

There is an excellent case to be made for initiating an imaginative diplomatic overture to Iran, or rather to the Iranians, and I did my best to lay it out. But this case is not strengthened by the demented letter recently made public by the man posing as Iran's president.

I say "posing," because, however many times our media babble about his "landslide" victory in Iran's "elections," everybody knows that he was put in by the reigning mullahs at the very last moment, after all independent and reformist candidates had been eliminated from the process, and that the counting of the votes was an insult to the meanest intelligence. I repeat the word "posing," because, even as he was putting his signature to the infantile diatribe he dispatched to President Bush, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was being further exposed to his own people and the world as the wretched puppet that he is. Seeking to advance his own pseudo-populist appeal, he had announced that women would henceforth be allowed to attend soccer matches and be in the same stadium as men. (The concession itself shows how depressing is the status quo in Iran.) But no sooner had it been made than the free gift was countermanded by Ayatollah Khamenei, the leader of the theocratic "Guardian Council" that exerts all real power in Tehran. Ahmadinejad, having thus been exposed as the mere monkey on top of the organ, was sent by the organ-grinders on a trip to impress students in Indonesia with his stale theological tropes.

"he should speak directly to the Iranian people."

His words would be twisted if not blocked, and in that part of the world it will only be seen as a sign of weakness.

Does anyone believe they will really perk up to listen and then come away smiling and nodding?

If Bush spoke directly to the far Left in America... do you think they would have the slightest shred of respect for him?

If they could they would spit in his face while he was talking.

Come on, let's be real.

First of all, it worked in Eastern Europe and East Germany during the Cold War.

Second, I understand that there are ways around the Mullahs. Satellite TV is big business in Iran (especially since satellites have to be replaced constantly as the religious police destroy them). Then there's the Internet. I don't imagine that it would be extremely difficult to get some text directly to the Iranian people.

"First of all, it worked in Eastern Europe and East Germany during the Cold War."

At most it was a small factor. The economic rot of the failed communist system was way more at work. And still how many decades did that take as opposed to a speech?

"Second, I understand that there are ways around the Mullahs. Satellite TV is big business in Iran (especially since satellites have to be replaced constantly as the religious police destroy them). Then there's the Internet. I don't imagine that it would be extremely difficult to get some text directly to the Iranian people."

And if that is so, just what will the message or text say?...

Hello, we know you think you have every right under the sun to nuclear power, but we feel threatened so please don't do it.

And that will work? President Bush speaks every week on the radio, how many minds have been changed in the US? The country is still split politically.

Besides, If Bush "speaks to the Iranian people", the Iranians will make a huge propaganda out of the Iranian reply to that, which will be with a big fat "take a hike" attitude. And THAT the Iranians will enthusiastically buy into. And then we will have to bomb anyway, and what will Bush say then?...

Hi it is me again, I know you told me to take a hike but I had to bomb anyway, but now let's be friends and work together...(?)

No, best to hold off on the "speak to the Iranian people" thing until after we get a proper grip of the situation and they see for themselves what the reality is going to be. Then we can talk.

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