Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: La sindrome di Hitler

Tradotto in italiano su "Repubblica" di oggi. Un'energica dose di puro buon
senso (btw, anche Zakaria ha letto le cazzate di Lewis per quello che erano:
The historian Bernard Lewis warned a few weeks ago that Iran's president,
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, could be planning to annihilate Israel - and perhaps
even the United States - on Aug. 22 because it was a significant day for
Muslims). Fatela finita con "Hitler". O, come dice Zakaria: Look at your
calendar: it's 2006, not 1938.
Namib
------
The Year of Living Fearfully
By Fareed Zakaria
It's 1938, says the liberal columnist Richard Cohen, evoking images of
Hitler's armies massing in the face of an appeasing West. No, no, says Newt
Gingrich, the Third World War has already begun. Neoconservatives, who can
be counted on to escalate, argue that we're actually in the thick of the
Fourth World War. The historian Bernard Lewis warned a few weeks ago that
Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, could be planning to annihilate
Israel (and perhaps even the United States) on Aug. 22 because it was a
significant day for Muslims.Can everyone please take a deep breath?To review
a bit of history: in 1938, Adolf Hitler launched what became a world war not
merely because he was evil but because he was in complete control of the
strongest country on the planet. At the time, Germany had the world's second
largest industrial base and its mightiest army. (The American economy was
bigger, but in 1938 its army was smaller than that of Finland.) This is not
remotely comparable with the situation today.Iran does not even rank among
the top 20 economies in the world. The Pentagon's budget this year is more
than double Iran's total gross domestic product ($181 billion, in official
exchange-rate terms). America's annual defense outlay is more than 100 times
Iran's. Tehran's nuclear ambitions are real and dangerous, but its program
is not nearly as advanced as is often implied. Most serious estimates
suggest that Iran would need between five and 10 years to achieve even a
modest, North Korea-type, nuclear capacity.Washington has a long habit of
painting its enemies 10 feet tall-and crazy. During the cold war, many hawks
argued that the Soviet Union could not be deterred because the Kremlin was
evil and irrational. The great debate in the 1970s was between the CIA's
wimpy estimate of Soviet military power and the neoconservatives' more
nightmarish scenario. The reality turned out to be that even the CIA's
lowest estimates of Soviet power were a gross exaggeration. During the
1990s, influential commentators and politicians-most prominently the Cox
Commission-doubled the estimates of China's military spending, using largely
bogus calculations. And then there was the case of Saddam Hussein's
capabilities. Saddam, we were assured in 2003, had nuclear weapons-and
because he was a madman, he would use them.One man who is greatly enjoying
being the subject of this outsize portraiture is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He has
gone from being an obscure and not-so-powerful politician-Iran is a
theocracy, remember, so the mullahs are ultimately in control-to a central
player in the Middle East simply by goading the United States and watching
Washington take the bait. By turning him into enemy No. 1, by reacting to
every outlandish statement he makes, the Bush administration has given him
far more attention than he deserves. And so now he writes letters to Bush,
offers to debate him and prances about in the global spotlight provided by
American attention.Ahmadinejad strikes me as less a messianic madman and
more a radical populist, an Iranian Huey Long. He has outflanked the mullahs
on the right on nuclear policy, pushing for a more confrontationist approach
toward Washington. He has outflanked them on the left on women's rights,
arguing against some of the prohibitions women face. (He wants them to be
able to attend soccer matches.) Almost every week he announces a new program
to "help the poor." He uses the nuclear issue because it gives him a great
nationalist symbol. For a regime with little to show after a quarter century
in power-Iranian standards of living have actually declined since the
revolution-nuclear power is a national accomplishment.Even Ahmadinejad's
most grotesque statement, implying the annihilation of Israel, is likely
part of this pattern. Iran is seeking leadership in the Middle East, and
what better way to do so than by appropriating the core grievance of the
Sunni Arabs: Israel. By making his dramatic statements, he is taunting the
regimes of the Arab world, using rhetoric they dare not, for fear of
Washington. His rhetoric is not so new; the Iranian "moderate" Ali Hashemi
Rafsanjani said similar things. The real shift that has taken place in the
Middle East is that 30 years ago most Arab regimes would have made
statements like Ahmadinejad's. Today his "rejectionism" stands alone.Iran is
run by a nasty regime that destabilizes an important part of the world,
frustrates American and Western interests, and causes problems for allies
like Israel. But let's get some perspective. The United States is far more
powerful than Iran. And, on the issue of Tehran's nuclear program,
Washington is supported by most of the world's other major powers. As long
as the alliance is patient, united and smart-and keeps the focus on Tehran's
actions not Washington's bellicosity-the odds favor America. Ahmadinejad
presides over a country where more than 40 percent of the population lives
under the poverty line; his authority is contested, and Iran's neighbors are
increasingly worried and have begun acting to counter its influence. If we
could contain the Soviet Union, we can contain Iran. Look at your calendar:
it's 2006, not 1938.

 ------
#_Ottimo!
Infatti tutti si spolverano le mummie proprie, ma non si decide mai di
aprire le finestre del museo per cambiare un po' l'aria, che l'aria e`
greve.
Giano