Cyrus the Great?
Reader comment on item: Assessing the Iranian Election

Submitted by John W. McGinley (United States), Jun 14, 2009 at 10:07

Who, after all, is this Khamene'i? Like all good analogies, the connection resides in the form, rather than the content, of the analogy. The point is that then, as well as now, a powerful leader from Persia constitutes both Danger and Opportunity for Israel. Will Prime Minister Natanyahu be equal to winding his way through this conundrum?

Ahmadinejad has always been a clown and a puppet. He has served his purpose and, one way or another, will be soon be ushered off the stage. Khamene'i has been wanting to engineer one of the greatest coups for the Islamic Republic of Iran: to be a nuclear power WITH GOOD RELATIONS WITH AMERICA AND THE WEST. He has learned from Israel that respect only comes with the means to utterly destroy your enemies. Iran is now on a no-turning-back track to achieve this status. But he also knows that a nation whose economy is in shambles will neveer be a player in world affairs. Democracy and or a sham Democracy (it doesn't really matter that much) is the road to success in economic matters. This farce of an election was the tool to bring about a kind of "people's" revolution. With Ahmajinedad's removal the popular revolt will have been sated and some quasi-liberal figurehead will succeed him.

The real wild-cards here are Netanyahu and Obama. They are both intelligent. But of the two only Netanyahu is savvy as well. Khamene'i thinks dialectically in the genuine sense ((i.e., not according to the Hegelian/Marxist paradigm)). I suspect that Natanyahu will rise to the pregnant situation now evolving in Iran while Obama will miss the whole point. Obama's will, however, acquiesce to the reality of a nuclear Iran. Five years from now, I suspect, one will see Iran and Israel as the sole nuclear powers in the Middle East. There will be trade with each other to the benefit of both nations even as they maintain a cool distance from each other in other respects.

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