An Incentive, Not A Deterrent

Bernard Lewis says that MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) does not work with people who want to be destroyed.

Outdated Cold war concepts, such as mutually assured destruction (M.A.D) are irrelevant when it comes to Iran , because the Iranian president and his circle see such a scenario "as an incentive, not a deterrent," renowned scholar Bernard Lewis said during a lecture Monday evening at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Addressing a packed hall, Lewis spoke after a screening of the film 'Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West'.

"Ahmadinejad and his group clearly believe, and I don't doubt the sincerity of their belief, that we are now entering an apocalyptic age, which will result in the triumph of their messianic figure," Lewis said, referring to the twelfth Imam, Mahdi.

"Muslims, like Jews, believe that there are things you can do to hasten the messiah. M.A.D doesn't work with these people."

Lewis added that the threat of many Iranians perishing in a war did not deter the Iranian leadership, which believes "it would be doing them a favor, by giving them a free pass to heaven."

"Iran is a mortal threat, and one also has to take account of the apocalyptic mood of Ahmadinejad and his circle. Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, has an end of time scenario," the scholar said.

"There is only solution to the Iranian threat, and that can only come from the Iranian people," Lewis said.

Let me note that the Jews who believe you can rush the Messiah are few in number and do not run any countries.

I do think that the Iranian people will have to change Iran. However, there are some Iranian people who think that a push from the USA might be helpful.

WASHINGTON - While United States Minister of Defense Robert Gates, along with many specialists on the matter, warn against a military attack on Iran, which in their view will entrap the Iranian people behind the Ayatollah regime, Iranian student leader Amir Abbas Fakhr-Avar believes an attack will have the reverse result.

In an exclusive interview with Ynet, Fakhr-Avar describes his blueprint for how to topple the regime. If the West launches a military attack on Iran , “The top brass will flee immediately. People will come out onto the streets protesting, why are we being bombed? Many of the regime’s mid-level officials will shave their beards, don ties and join the (civilians) on the streets.”

So he does expect at least street protests in opposition to an American bombing. He also thinks thtere is a better way.

He testified before the US Senate, met with President George W. Bush and senior administrators in the State Department and the Pentagon, as well as with experts and analysts on Iran, like Professor Bernard Lewis and others.

His message to the West is: Stop supporting the reformists in Iran. Help us topple the Ayatollah regime. He claims the time is right; all that is needed is a push from the West.

Fakhr-Avar believes the revolution can be accomplished within ten months to a year. He does not ask for much from the Americans: “What we really need is the tools,” he says. “Cell phones, computers, cameras, publication ability. This is the funding we need for our (revolutionary) activities, to coordinate within Iran and outside.”

Publication ability could mean nothing more than copiers. Or fast printers hooked to computers. At 30 pages a minute you can do 1,000 pages in about 35 minutes. Spread that around to 10 or 20 sites and you have a clandestine printing industry. Easily disguised as a business.

So what Amir see as his role in the USA?

Our main purpose and help we can give the administration is to help them to decide better. They don’t know that society that well, they really don’t know the regime or the people. We need to help them – we being the opposition outside Iran.

In my testimony to the senate I told them a few things: Mainly that sanctions will help to make the regime weak, and that they need to put down the regime.

The outside world does not know much about Iran, maybe they know at best 10 percent of what is going on in Iran, what the people’s sentiments are. Seventy percent of the population is under the age of 30, but they’ve had grand experiences. They’ve been through post-revolution, war, robbery during (Akbar Hashemi) Rafsanjani’s era, so-called reform.

Once burned twice shy they say.

Not the mobiles, not the cell phones. They don’t have the technology to stop it, and there are too many. Right now they’re busy controlling each other’s mobiles – the mullahs, so that’s why some of these guys are doing it freely. However, landlines, they do control. But mobiles there are problems.

What is interesting is that the rest of the world believes in the information network of the Islamic regime is very strong, but that is not the case. They are extremely weak. They have a very low IQ.

Say. Where have I heard that before? One must not underestimate the animal cunning, even in people with low IQ.

What we need to do then is flood Iran with cheap or free satellite connections. Uplink and down link. I think we have the technology for that.

Ahmadinejad is stupid. We’ve known him for the past 6-7 years from the political arena in Iran. When he was the mayor Tehran his plans were so stupid that people laughed at him. One of them was to pave the roadway that the 12th imam traveled on. He took all the intersections and removed the traffic signals so everyone can go where they want. A few months later they decided it was stupid and put them all back. It cost something like 2 billion dollars.

I wonder who got the paving contracts?

Amir says there is a generation gap in Iran.

People in Iran react the opposite of what the regime says. If the regime says it’s day, they’ll close their eyes and say it’s night. Whatever the Islamic regime fights against- that becomes important to the Iranians. I don’t represent the entire population of course, but I can give you an idea of what are the sentiments. I was elected by the students and I speak for them. Remember, 70 percent are under age 30.

The older generation is stuck in the 70s, the youngsters speak a language the adults don’t understand

The majority of the population don’t care for Hizbullah or the Palestinian people, mostly because they see that their money is going to them.

Israel’s attack on Hizbullah was they best thing they’ve done in recent years. It helped to clean up the land from the terrorists, when they don’t have land they have no place to run troops, that’s why they drove Hizbullah crazy, regime in Iran wasn’t happy either.

Wow. Israel's fight with Hizballah has cheered the anti-government Iranians. That is a side effect from last summer's war I wasn't even aware of.

I hope the Iranian people get the tools they need. And, if necessary, the mullahs get a good hard shove to help them out the door.

I remember reading a few years ago an Iranian stating that if an American attack kept civilian casualties under 1,000 it would be worth it.

Faster please.

Cross Posted at Classical Values