Colin Powell’s Smug Guarantee of Khamenei’s Sanity

[Pat]

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As we have studied many times in the past, our Cold-War Policy of MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) depends, inter alia, on the sanity of the leaders on both sides and whether those leaders truly love their own people.

For example, Hitler as World War II was drawing to a close, ordered the German military to destroy Germany’s industrial capacity in a Götterdämmerung-style “scorched earth” policy. Famously the German military defied this order. But what if Hitler had already possessed nuclear weapons and they were within the control of a handful of Nazi officers who held the same “scorched earth” policy as Hitler???

Another example involves the Cuban-Missile-Crisis Myth.

As we have studied many times in the past, the mainstream American media has created a myth about the Cuban missile crisis!!!

Yes, there were Soviet missiles in Cuba that were discovered early on by American spy satellites.

And yes, President Kennedy did impose a Naval blockade against Cuba with Soviet ships day-by-day steaming full speed toward our Naval blockade.

And yes, we have pondered whether interdicting the Soviet ships would, under international law, have been an Act of War against the Soviet Union as well as having long-since been a blatant Act of War against Cuba from the moment the blockade was imposed.

And yes, for weeks after the end of the imbroglio, Johnny Carson’s standard nightly joke on The Tonight Show was based on the idea that the real nuclear missiles were still in Cuba and the photographs from our spy satellites and naval vessels of missiles lashed to the decks of Soviet ships departing Cuba merely showed fake missiles.

But we also studied the cable traffic between Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and Cuban Prime Minister (and later President) Fidel Castro.

That cable traffic entered the public domain under Glasnost.

It showed that Fidel Castro had offered to sacrifice the Cuban people by firing the Soviet missiles then in Cuba against the United States, following which Castro thought that mopping up would be a fairly easy military task for the Soviet Union.

Castro’s offer clearly described the utter annihilation of the Cuban people by U.S. retaliation, but also described his insane willingness to sacrifice the Cuban people for the supposed benefit of the Soviet Union.

And the cable traffic showed that Khrushchev’s reaction was, paraphrasing: “Who is this mad man and who entrusted any of my nukes to him???”

Accordingly, Khrushchev immediately ordered the missiles removed from Castro’s Cuba ASAP.

But, being the good poker player that he was, Khrushchev negotiated the U.S. withdrawal of its nuclear missiles from Turkey in return for Khrushchev’s withdrawing the Soviet missiles from Cuba -- WHICH HE WOULD HAVE DONE ANYWAY!!!

So what about Iranian nukes???

Is Supreme Iranian Leader Khamenei, who rhapsodizes on almost a daily basis about his intent to wipe Israel off the face of the earth as soon as he acquires nuclear weapons, insane in the mold of Hitler and Castro???

Or is he more like the old Soviet leaders, virtually all of whom were former peasants and absolutely all of whom loved the Soviet people and would never have dreamed of sacrificing them on the altar of some insane idea???

With that background, here’s what Colin Powell said on the subject on Meet the Press last Sunday (1/20/2013) with respect to Ayatollah Khamenei’s constant threats to nuke Israel –

“I’m still an old-fashioned realist (sic) that says deterrence still works and they [the Iranians] should know what the consequences to them would be if they were ever to use or cause us to believe they were going to use such a weapon if they had it and they don’t yet have it.”

How does one deal with such arrogant ignorance???

As we have studied in the past, the Gulf State Six don’t believe Colin Powell’s smug assessment and have long since announced that each of them will go nuclear as soon as Iran does, which means that almost half of the world’s oil supplies which come from the Persian Gulf or downwind from the Persian Gulf might become radioactive in the near future -- in the probably-vain hope that Ayatollah Khamenei can be deterred or, perhaps, in the Machiavellian hope that the specter of a nuclear Holocaust in the Middle East will finally motivate American thought leaders such as Colin Powell to do something about Iranian nuclear weapons.

[And let’s not even pause to consider Colin Powell’s arrogant assertion that Iran does not already have nuclear weapons simply because they haven’t tested any of them yet.]

However, it may be worth pausing to consider how arrogant and misguided opinions such as Colin Powell’s contribute to disastrous American foreign policy.

Especially since the mainstream American media seems unable to fathom why the Obama Administration was so eager to “throw under the bus” Presidents Muammar El Qaddafi of Libya and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, while being unwilling to lift a finger in the case of Syria.

The reason why the pause may be worthwhile is that the mainstream American media seems unable or unwilling to consider the situation from the perspective of the Gulf State Six in dealing with Ayatollah Khamenei’s nuclear threat!!!

First, Qaddafi had been, at least internationally, a model citizen since the U.S. invasion of Iraq following which he immediately got “weak in the knees” and renounced his nuclear-weapons program (and any international policies that irritated America).

[Libya, Iran and North Korea had all obtained nuclear technology from Abdul Qadeer Khan, the “father of Pakistan’s nuclear program.”]

So what lessons do you think the Iranians have learned from the fate of Qaddafi being “thrown under the bus” by the Americans BECAUSE HE GAVE UP HIS NUKES and America’s tolerance of North Korea BECAUSE THEY DID NOT GIVE UP THEIR NUKES???

Second, it was no accident that State Secretary Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates became “persona non grata” in Saudi Arabia following America’s “throwing under the bus” Qaddafi and Mubarak!!!

It will be recalled that Hillary and Gates, on the heels of their throwing Qaddafi and Mubarak under the bus, tried to visit Saudi Arabia to give them advice on how to handle the Shia revolt in Bahrain and how to moderate governmental policies in Saudi Arabia itself.

Is it any wonder that Saudi Arabia refused to accept their visit and immediately marched the Saudi army into Bahrain to crush the Shiite revolt???

And third, is Syria similar to Libya & Egypt in the Saudi view???

Of course not!!!

Libya and Egypt in the Saudi view represented American betrayal of two leaders who had been cooperating with the U.S. for a decade in the case of Qaddafi and three decades in the case of Mubarak.

Syria, in contrast, is a staunch ally of, and utterly beholden to, Iran and located in the rear of Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf State Six as they confront Iran.

So, of course, Saudi and the other Gulf State Six would try to unseat Bashar al-Assad’s minority-Alawi government and put their 75%-majority Sunni brothers in charge.

After all, even Colin Powell should understand that good military strategy means securing your rear!!!

Enough on Colin Powell!!!

It’s upsetting enough that Meet the Press gave him a platform for his views!!!