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It’s Frightening What Seems Plausible to Some Folks

This means, first of all, exporting its Islamism to Iraq and Afghanistan, undermining their relatively pro-American regimes. Second, it means undermining the secular regimes in Syria, Lebanon, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia and attempting to establish a pan-Islamic confederation that both controls a significant portion of the world’s oil supplies and, with Iranian and Pakistani nukes, […]

This means, first of all, exporting its Islamism to Iraq and Afghanistan, undermining their relatively pro-American regimes. Second, it means undermining the secular regimes in Syria, Lebanon, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia and attempting to establish a pan-Islamic confederation that both controls a significant portion of the world’s oil supplies and, with Iranian and Pakistani nukes, remains relatively invulnerable to international pressure. ~Michelle Simpson, The Reform Club

Having ripped Niall Ferguson to shreds over his silly foray into future history, and seeing that Justin Raimondo has stomped on those shreds, it’s too bad to see that his dire predictions are being taken so seriously. Let’s recap some very recent history and consider whether any of Ms. Simpson’s forecasts make any sense.

If Iran gets nukes, it will begin exporting its Islamism to Iraq and Afghanistan! Aiee! Oh, wait, they’ve already been doing that in Iraq (thanks to our intervention), and Afghanistan is an overwhelmingly Sunni country where Twelver Imamism would cut absolutely no ice. The “relatively pro-American regime” in Iraq has in it the very sectarian sympathisers and paid servants of Tehran from SCIRI (the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq)–does this mean they will start undermining themselves? Another target: the “secular regime” of Saudi Arabia! Huh? A pan-Islamic confederation of Pakistan and Iran, the powers that have been fighting a proxy war in Afghanistan for a decade? What?

As for Syria and Lebanon, Iran has more or less cordial relations with the Alawi ruling class (which happens to be at least formally Shi’ite) and it has every reason to want to encourage the ‘democratisation’ of Lebanon that we are so keen on pushing, as the chief beneficiary will be their ally in Hizbullah. Iranian nukes are superfluous to establish widespread Iranian influence in the Near East–Iran already is the dominant regional power, and our short-sighted interventionism helped them to become this. Naturally the solution must be to provoke a new conflict, attack Iran and create some still greater power whose rise our government cannot imagine.

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