It is amazing how comfortable Americans are comparing people to Hitler. It's such an attractive parallel, of course, because to utter the name Hitler is to end debate; it is to conjure up a spectre that can not be negotiated with, that can not be rationalized, that can not be met halfway, that can only be destroyed with unrestrained violence.
The bad news is that Americans tend to paint themselves into corners by associating every two-bit thug with Hitler; the good news is that, thank god, we are always wrong when we do so.
Some things to consider:
1) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not the dictator of Iran. He was democratically elected to a largely ceremonial position. He is perhaps the fifth most powerful man in Iran.
2) The Iranian nuclear program is entirely legal, as every nation has the right to enrich uranium for electricity and, despite all the hysteria, nobody has proven that Iran's program is for any use other than power.
3) Since the Iranian Islamic Revolution, Iran has invaded zero countries and has bombed zero countries which have not directly attacked it. In the same time frame, the United States has invaded five countries and has bombed more than one dozen, zero of which had directly attacked it.
Ahmadinejad is clearly not a friend of the United States, as the relations now exist. There are clearly fundamental differences between us, mostly concerning the legitimacy of Israel and the definition of human rights. But our behavior towards this man, vacillating from a petty refusal to talk to an intellectually barren association of him with history's greatest monsters, frankly makes the United States look ridiculous.
When President Bush spoke at the United Nations, the Iranian delegation, including Ahmadinejad, sat and listened to his speech, even as they were excoriated directly. When Ahmadinejad spoke, the American delegation left. While this is played as a matter of principle, all it is really reflective of is a childish petulance and an all-too-common refusal to talk to anyone we disagree with because if we disagree with them, they must be evil. And we don't negotiate with evil.
Okay. We all know that any individual who refuses to interact with people who challenge him or disagree with him is cutting himself off from intellectual and emotional maturity. If one is so convinced of his superiority, he would not fear being exposed to different views, as these manifestly illegitimate views would simply reinforce his original stance. The alternative, that one may actually learn from different opinions, is what really frightens the insecure and immature.
What are Iran's sins? They are pursuing nuclear weapons. We take this as an article of faith. It is very, very easy, living in the United States, to lose track of the most salient fact here: there is no evidence that Iran is building nuclear weapons. It most likely is, of course, but we must remember that our idea of manifest truth is what the rest of the world would call an unproven assertion.
Iran's other unpardonable sin, in the eyes of the United States, is that it is aiding insurgents in Iraq. Firstly, we must clarify what is meant by "insurgent". Iran has no common cause with Sunni insurgents, since Sunni chauvinism bled Iran for eight years in the 1980's and Sunni Arabs regularly display contempt for the Persian Shi'ites. If Iran is arming anyone, it is arming Shi'ite militias.
If Iran is arming Shi'ite insurgents, it is only arming the same factions in Iraq that the United States is arming. If some Iranian weapons are being turned on Americans by Shi'ite splinter groups, are American weapons not being used for the same purpose? Do we not honestly think that most American soldiers are being killed by weapons that America gave to the Iraqi government at one time or another? There is one country that is flooding Iraq with weaponry, and it is not Iran.
None of this should be taken to exonerate Ahmadinejad of any of his words or deeds, but it should put those words and deeds in context. The United States invaded Iraq and armed the factions it favors. It then tells Iraq's neighbors that it has no right to do the same, even if those factions are identical. The United States can arm Shi'ites, but Iran can not. This policy is not based on any authority or any legal precepts; it is based only on power. Pure, arrogant power. Iraq is our backyard, not Iran's. That argument falls apart the second you look at a map.
Several of the Iranian president's statements during his recent visit show him to be a foolish and provincial man, such as his insistence that there are no gays in Iran and that a man who has been hiding in a well for the past 1,300 years will return imminently to save the world. On these grounds, he is clearly an idiot. On other grounds, however, we get a glimpse of the savant; there are certain things that this man is actually quite lucid about.
There were two statements that Ahmadinejad made that all Americans should consider. The first, given during a dubious insistence that Iran does not seek nuclear weapons, asserted that nuclear weapons are worthless. If they were of any use, he said, why did they not save the Soviet Union? This is an insight that it would do us well to mull over.
We are horrified at the prospect of Iran having one nuclear weapon. We have 30,000. We seem not to realize that these are useless weapons. They are made simply to destroy indiscriminately. Since states seek control if nothing else, nuclear weapons are useless, since if you destroy everything, you can no longer control it. Ahmadinejad seems to understand this; even if Iran were to acquire such a weapon, using it would bring about the incineration of the entire country, and we should not pretend that whole civilizations can be suicidal.
If Iran is suicidal, why has it not directly attacked the United States? Why has it not rained missiles on Israel? Why has it not flooded Iraq with Revolutionary Guards? Suicidal states, if they existed, would not wait to be struck before attacking; they would attack before being attacked, when they are at their strongest. If we go to war against Iran over the nuclear issue, we will be committing homicide with the "rationale" that we had to preempt our victim from commiting suicide first.
The second prescient statement is that the post-World War II order is over. The idea that France or Great Britain or any other country can unilaterally tie the hands of the world is clearly past its expiration date. These nations have not truly renounced colonialism until they have denounced the power to veto something that 190 other nations may desire.
The security council reflects a worldview in which there are victors (of World War II) and there are vanquished (most of whom were not even involved in that war). Indeed, the huge majority of nations in the UN did not even exist at the end of World War II. The security council reflects a balance of power that has not existed since the late 1940's. It is no longer viable. Period.
So while Ahmadinejad may be an idiot, he also has some valid points. And that, perhaps, is what we fear most of all.
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