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Analysis: Iran's Nuclear Program Has Been an Astronomical Waste
Lasrick writes: Business Insider's Armin Rosen uses a fuel-cost calculator from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to show that Iran's nuclear program has been "astronomically costly" for the country. Rosen uses calculations from this tool to hypothesize that what Iran "interprets as the country's 'rights' under the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty is a diplomatic victory that justifies the outrageous expense of the nuclear program." Great data crunching.
How is the US "crazy" compared to the Muslim extremists running around Iraq etc and assisting with their group diet plan by removing parts of people's bodies?
To the Muzzy mind the US is crazy for supporting ungodly things like equality, rights for women, freedom of religion, LGBT rights, freedom of speech, etc.
The 'they would like to be our friends but X' argument wore very thin during the Cold War, and in retrospect, given what we now know about the actual behaviour of the Soviet Union and its treatment of its conquests, it's clear that we needed to carry a very big stick to keep them quiet. Sadly the same siren call to be nice to our enemies is being heard again, on the core assumption that their priorities and values are essentially similar to our own. Once you remove that assumption - which is certainly NOT evidenced by the history of Islam on which Iran seeks to model its behaviour - you are forced to conclude they are a very dangerous country.
It's always nice to nice and live in a comfortable bubble believing that all is well. Unfortunately it ain't, and pretending otherwise is how a country gets itself into big trouble.
Khomeni in 1942 argued: 'Islam’s jihad is a struggle against idolatry, sexual deviation, plunder, repression, and cruelty. The war waged by [non-Islamic] conquerors, however, aims at promoting lust and animal pleasures. They care not if whole countries are wiped out and many families left homeless. But those who study jihad will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world. All the countries conquered by Islam or to be conquered in the future will be marked for everlasting salvation. For they shall live under [God’s law].... Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless.'1
The 13th century Ibn Taimiya articulates a more comprehensive theological justification for the marauding, arguing that the property of non-Muslims must revert legitimately to the followers of the true religion; Jihad is the means to recover these illegally usurped possession, offering a justification for any Muslim to steal from an infidel. This legitimation of their earlier practice suggests that independent Arab marauders descending on villages to steal did do so with religious sanction. This, occurring in advance of the formal expansion of the Islamic Empire, softens up the target for actual conquest.2
1 Barry M. Rubin and Judith Colp Rubin, eds. Anti-American terrorism and the Middle East: A documentary reader. (Oxford: OUP), 2004), 29.
2 Ye'Or, The decline of eastern Christianity under Islam: from jihad to dhimmitude. (Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, US: 1996) 39-40.