Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Iran, perché la bomba

Un opinionista iraniano, che oggi vive in Europa scrive la storia piuttosto
spaventosa del perché l'Iran voglia la bomba, come e quando.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/04/16/do1609
.xml
E' un'idea come un'altra, che non mi ha convinto particolarmente.
Personalmente non credo alla religiosità di Ahmadinejad, per esempio. Non
credo nemmeno che -anche se fosse- i deliri mistici spingano la gente a
costruire centrali nucleari e alla produzione in massa di bombe nucleari.
Io per me eviterei gli scenari troppo complessi e mi atterrei a questi tre
elementari punti fermi:
1) Quando il tuo nemico dichiara di volerti scannare, meglio credergli. E'
esattamente quello che ha intenzione di fare.
2) Quando il nemico che affila l'arma per scannarti dice di volersi prendere
una pausa per migliorare le relazioni, meglio non credergli. Le uniche
relazioni che intende migliorare sono quelle con un mucchio di cadaveri.
3) Cercare di capire la psicologia del nemico, di solito, funziona meglio
che pretendere che ragioni come te.
Mi auguro che chi ha le forze per fermare l'Iran stia ragionando negli
stessi termini.
Tb
-- 
luca logi > >Non so. Immagina che qualcuno scriva giudeoquesturino,
luca logi > > ti riterresti lusingato?
sergio > sarebbe di sicuro espressione di antisemitismo per i vari
tonigoebbels.

 16/do1609 .xml
not found (il link è uscito monco):
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/04/16/d
o1609.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2006/04/16/ixop.html
short link: 
http://snipurl.com/pemm
-- 
yo   | icq: 197-276-683
bb   | msn: 
bubba....@gmail.com

 che pretendere che ragioni come te.
Vero, la domanda è: sei convinto di aver compreso davvero la psicologia 
del nemico?
l.p.o.d.p.i.

 Vero
Caspita, ma è tutto un cicip-ciciop questo thread. Sono meravigliato.
Rispondendo: no, non sono sicuro di aver capito la psicologia.
Certo, non mi sento sicuro al riparo degli schemi di Namib e Santini, 
secondo i quali l'Iran aderirebbe al sistema della reciproca 
deterrenza che ha funzionato per lungo tempo tra occidente e urss.
Tb 

 stessi termini.
Mi auguro che le forze che vogliono contenere gli usa e israele stiano 
ragionando negli stessi termini

 []
IMO, perche' Ahmadinejad potra' benissimo essere un dubbio figuro, ma
non e' un fesso. Dopo l'esperienza Irak, teme (a ragione) ingerenze nel
paese. Sa che un forte deterrente potrebbe dargli delle chances.
Ergo
1) Cerca di dotarsi dell'arma nucleare.
Ma perche' quelle dichiarazioni, allora? Perche' non se ne sta zitto,
opera, si mostra collaborativo e poi - zacchete - magari si porta a casa
il risultato? Perche' sembra che faccia di tutto per farsi sagassare?
Che sia per fatto della fortissima opposizione interna?
2) Cosa accadrebbe, infatti, se gli USa (o una coalizione) bombardassero
un paio di basi Iraniane? A parte gli effetti materiali del
bombardamento, si intende. IMO, l'Iran manterrebbe la sua indipendenza
energetice, ma al contempo l'opinione pubblica si schiererebbe con
Ahmadinejad e il suo partito. Le vittime offese.
La cosa puo' sembrare piuttosto sofisticata, certo, ma e' anche
perfettamente lineare. E parte dal presupposto che un Ahmadinejad non
parli a caso. Non lo faccia senza uno scopo.
-- 
Nadja Jacur
-- 
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 stiano ragionando negli stessi termini
Ovvio. Le autoillusioni sono la cosa più pericolosa per tutti.
Tb 

 parli a caso. Non lo faccia senza uno scopo.
Sì, ne parlavo anche con L.P.O.D.P.I.
Penso che la politica, se è ben fatta, come suppongo quella dellIran, 
si lasci sempre diverse porte aperte.
Sicuramente, un bombardamento che non abbatta anche il regime (ed è 
molto difficile che un bombardamento lo faccia), sarebbe già un 
discreto affare per Ahma.
Quindi un bombardamento è conveniente anche per la controparte solo a 
patto che sradichi del tutto almeno la minaccia nucleare. A queste 
condizioni: impianti in cenere, Ahma in sella al suo paese e Iran 
martire e guida dell'Islam, il risultato sarebbe più che accettabile 
per entrambi. Dunque, se i ragionamenti hanno un senso, è lì che si 
andrà a finire.
Per Ahma sarebbe altrettanto positivo -forse anche meglio- mostrare al 
mondo, tra qualche anno, le testate nucleari e i vettori. Visto però 
che questo sarebbe una perdita secca e un disastro per la 
controparte -a meno che tutti nell'area e nel mondo si siano 
rincitrulliti- dubito che si andrà a finire così.
Tb
Tb 

 rincitrulliti- dubito che si andrà a finire così.
Esattamente.
E nel frattempo, da una parte la gente brucera' bandiere, dall'altra si
sbrodolera' di parole su web, TV e carta stampata.
Tutto cambia, nulla cambia.
(Ps: ganzi i preti. Come simbolo di potere non si son scelti un'aquila,
un pigno ferrato, due sciabole incrociate... ma un bastone da pastore.
Per pecore).


 che ha funzionato per lungo tempo tra occidente e urss.
Beh, visto che possedere armi atomiche sembra l'unico modo per 
scongiurare un'invasione USA l'ipotesi non è da scartare.
D'altra parte è anche vero che l'uso, o il tentato uso (è probabile che 
USA e Israele abbiano i mezzi tecnologici e militari per rilevare e 
distruggere un missile nucleare prima del lancio) di armi nucleari 
equivarrebbe all'immediata distruzione, con il beneplacito dell'opinione 
pubblica mondiale tra l'altro.
l.p.o.d.p.i.

 testate atomiche o il regime degli ayatollah.
e donerà agli italiani una bella guerra civile come in Iraq?

 dell'opinione pubblica mondiale tra l'altro.
E' ancora più vero che, se si può evitare di correre il "ragionevole" 
rischio di vedersi volare addosso testate nucleari con un 
bombardamento preventivo, è facile pensare che è esattamente quello 
che accadrà.
Tb 

 deterrenza che ha funzionato per lungo tempo tra occidente e urss.
Non mi pare di aver deetto esattametne questo.
Palmiro Pangloss
-- 
Fight Integralism, Buy LEGO.
questo articolo e` stato inviato via web dal servizio gratuito 
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ab...@newsland.it

 Non mi pare di aver deetto esattametne questo.
Non esattamente. Ho fatto un riassunto semplificatorio.
Ho sbagliato di molto?
Tb

 stessi termini.
Hai ricevuto plausi al bar sport per questa fine analisi? 
-- 


 Per pecore).
Non a caso sono sul mercato da due millenni, senza alcuna intenzione di
cdedere o liquidare l'attivita'. Te guarda invece tutte le aquile
mono-bi-tricipiti, le falciemartelli, i fasci, le stelle rosse e non che
fine hanno fatto.
Palmiro Pangloss
-- 
Fight Integralism, Buy LEGO.
questo articolo e` stato inviato via web dal servizio gratuito 


 post
hai sbagliato.
La mia tesi e' che la ratio per lo sviluppo di un arsenale nucleare per
l'Iran sia di dotarsi di una assicurazione sulla sopravvivenza del regime
rispetto a minacce esterne, e la fine del Baath ha accellerato i tempi. 
Sull'arena internazionale ad altro IMHO l'atomica non serve, rispetto a
minacce interne meno ancora.
Il principale effetto di un attacco all'Iran sarebbe IMHO di fare un
favore al regime: ogni sondaggio e/o articolo che si legge in giro afferma
che anche la parte - pare grande - di popolazione scontenta in caso di
attacco si stringerebbe attorno agli apparati religioso-statuali, mentre
nessun attacco garantisce IMHO il risultato di annientare il programma.
Per non parlare delle plausibili risposte convenzionali e  terroristiche
iraniane , per le ultime delle quali non c'e' nemmeno bisogno che l'Iran
dia precisi ordini o direttive. Insomma, mi chiedo, perche' fare un favore
a quei pretacci?


 iraniane ,
Non sono un fattore IMHO.
L'Iran è già considerevolmente impegnato in questo campo.
Tb 

 L'Iran è già considerevolmente impegnato in questo campo.
E' impegnato ma sempre con un constraint: le possibili reazioni degli
altri stati. In caso di guerra il constraint si allenterebbe notevolmente.
Oltretutto, nonostante la US Navy stabilmente in loco, penso che
potrebbero bloccare Hormuz con gli immaginabili danni all'economia
mondiale.


 L'Iran è già considerevolmente impegnato in questo campo.
non sai di che parli imho... L'iran può costringere israele a rioccupare 
il sud del libano e tutti i territori con tutto ciò che comporta, prima 
o poi vedrai gli ebrei di palestina si stuferanno anche perchè ormai 
l'economia di guerra mostra ampiamente la corda.

 ormai l'economia di guerra mostra ampiamente la corda.
Israele? +5% PIL, investimenti esteri in venture capital superiori 
alla somma di tutti quelli in zona euro, posizione invidiabile nelle 
alte tecnologiche e nei settori ad alto valore aggiunto e rapido 
sviluppo. Pressione di *immigrazione* crescente dall'asia e 
dall'africa.
Avercene, di corde cosě.
Tb 

 
ah si? E allora come mai la campagna elettorale si è giocata in gran 
parte sull'aumento della povertà e sull'economia? Sai non mi pare che 
altri problemi, se l'economia va così bene, mancassero...

 parte sull'aumento della povertà e sull'economia?
E tu sei sicuro che la campagna si sia giocata "sull'aumento della 
povertà", vero?
Per quanto riguarda l'economia, direi che è un eccellente tema di 
campagna elettorale.
Bibi N. ha fatto una riforma thatcheriana che ha messo le ali 
all'economia israeliana a spese di alcune categorie protette, Avodà 
preme perché la ricchezza creata sia redistribuita in modo più equo. I 
pensionati sono incazzati perché non hanno gradito la riforma delle 
pensioni, com'è normale che succeda quando si riformano le pensioni.
Normale -e sano- dibattito democratico di una democrazia forte 
politicamente ed economicamente.
Tb 

Tonibaruch ha scritto:

inutile discutere... Tutto rosa e fiori

 inutile discutere... Tutto rosa e fiori
Economicamente direi di sì. O comunque nulla che non si debba 
invidiare dalle nostre latitudini.
Politicamente c'è quel problemino dell'Iran e quello del governo 
eletto nel territorio confinante che delirano programmi di 
distruzione.
Tb

 mondiale.
Fuguriamoci con i missili nucleari puntati, allora.
Tb 

A me pare che la tua analisi faccia acqua come presupposti, presupponi 
per l'Iran una strategia suicida solo per debellare uno staterello come 
Israele, la cui esistenza agli integralisti fa solo comodo visto che 
altrimenti sarebbero costretti a dimostrare sul serio le loro doti 
politico economiche. Poi quando dici che l'Iran ha fatto del suicidio di 
massa una tattica bellica, quando è stato aggredito dall'iraq (con il 
placet di tutta la comunità internazionale) dimostri una vena di 
razzismo anche nei confronti degli iraniani morti. Sarebbe poi bello 
sapere su cosa basi la tua certezza storica sul suicidio di massa (in 
parole povere i nomi delle battaglie le date le circostanze dettagliate 
che hanno indotto all'uso di tale tattica)

 Hai ricevuto plausi al bar sport per questa fine analisi? 
hanno aperto un bar sport a Corso Magenta? 
-- 
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

 rappresentatività con l'alqaedismo sunnita.
insomma un po' quello che ha fatto Israele a favore di Hamas contro l'ANP
di Arafat eh?


 Ahmadinejad e il suo partito. Le vittime offese.
aggiungi anche che il prezzo del petrolio schizzerebbe in alto, come gia'
sta accadendo adesso che si parla solo di minacce di guerra all'Iran.


 escalation, almeno a livello di guerra e guerriglia terroriste.
Fornire agenti CW a Hezbollah ed Hamas? Le azioni iraniane, come quelle di
tutti gli stati, sono limitate dalla mera presenza degli altri stati.


 che hanno indotto all'uso di tale tattica)
aspetta eh?
-- 
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questo articolo e` stato inviato via web dal servizio gratuito 


 dettagliate che hanno indotto all'uso di tale tattica)
Nice try.
Tb

 Nice try.
ti si chiede solo di circonstanziare dettagliatamente le tue 
affermazioni, affermazioni che fanno parte del sentire comune come le 
leggende metropolitane, ma delle quali non ho mai avuto riprova certa, 
siccome testi storici seri sulla guerra iran iraq non ne conosco e la 
cosa mi interessa magari potresti anche essermi utile. L'unica fonte che 
ho è un volume della osprey publishing (casa editrice specializzata 
nella storia militare) che però non menziona il ricorso a bambini per 
sminare.

 il ricorso a bambini per sminare.
Mi spiace che ti sia perso, ad esempio, questo esauiente articolo di 
Matthias Kunsel su New Republic.
Tb
(sono pagine e pagine, lo copincollo tutto giusto perché è solo per 
abbonati)
A CHILD OF THE REVOLUTION TAKES OVER.
Ahmadinejad's Demons
by Matthias Küntzel Discuss this article (69)
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uring the Iran-Iraq War, the Ayatollah Khomeini imported 500,000 small 
plastic keys from Taiwan. The trinkets were meant to be inspirational. 
After Iraq invaded in September 1980, it had quickly become clear that 
Iran's forces were no match for Saddam Hussein's professional, 
well-armed military. To compensate for their disadvantage, Khomeini 
sent Iranian children, some as young as twelve years old, to the front 
lines. There, they marched in formation across minefields toward the 
enemy, clearing a path with their bodies. Before every mission, one of 
the Taiwanese keys would be hung around each child's neck. It was 
supposed to open the gates to paradise for them.
At one point, however, the earthly gore became a matter of concern. 
"In the past," wrote the semi-official Iranian daily Ettelaat as the 
war raged on, "we had child-volunteers: 14-, 15-, and 16-year-olds. 
They went into the minefields. Their eyes saw nothing. Their ears 
heard nothing. And then, a few moments later, one saw clouds of dust. 
When the dust had settled again, there was nothing more to be seen of 
them. Somewhere, widely scattered in the landscape, there lay scraps 
of burnt flesh and pieces of bone." Such scenes would henceforth be 
avoided, Ettelaat assured its readers. "Before entering the 
minefields, the children [now] wrap themselves in blankets and they 
roll on the ground, so that their body parts stay together after the 
explosion of the mines and one can carry them to the graves."
These children who rolled to their deaths were part of the Basiji, a 
mass movement created by Khomeini in 1979 and militarized after the 
war started in order to supplement his beleaguered army.The Basij 
Mostazafan--or "mobilization of the oppressed"--was essentially a 
volunteer militia, most of whose members were not yet 18. They went 
enthusiastically, and by the thousands, to their own destruction. "The 
young men cleared the mines with their own bodies," one veteran of the 
Iran-Iraq War recalled in 2002 to the German newspaper Frankfurter 
Allgemeine. "It was sometimes like a race. Even without the 
commander's orders, everyone wanted to be first."
The sacrifice of the Basiji was ghastly. And yet, today, it is a 
source not of national shame, but of growing pride. Since the end of 
hostilities against Iraq in 1988, the Basiji have grown both in 
numbers and influence. They have been deployed, above all, as a vice 
squad to enforce religious law in Iran, and their elite "special 
units" have been used as shock troops against anti-government forces. 
In both 1999 and 2003, for instance, the Basiji were used to suppress 
student unrest. And, last year, they formed the potent core of the 
political base that propelled Mahmoud Ahmadinejad--a man who 
reportedly served as a Basij instructor during the Iran-Iraq War--to 
the presidency.
Ahmadinejad revels in his alliance with the Basiji. He regularly 
appears in public wearing a black-and-white Basij scarf, and, in his 
speeches, he routinely praises "Basij culture" and "Basij power," with 
which he says "Iran today makes its presence felt on the international 
and diplomatic stage." Ahmadinejad's ascendance on the shoulders of 
the Basiji means that the Iranian Revolution, launched almost three 
decades ago, has entered a new and disturbing phase. A younger 
generation of Iranians, whose worldviews were forged in the atrocities 
of the Iran-Iraq War, have come to power, wielding a more fervently 
ideological approach to politics than their predecessors. The children 
of the Revolution are now its leaders.
n 1980, the Ayatollah Khomeini called the Iraqi invasion of Iran a 
"divine blessing," because the war provided him the perfect 
opportunity to Islamize both Iranian society and the institutions of 
the Iranian state. As Saddam's troops pushed into Iran, Khomeini's 
fanatically devoted Revolutionary Guard moved rapidly to mobilize and 
prepare their air and sea forces. At the same time, the regime 
hastened to develop the Basiji as a popular militia.
Whereas the Revolutionary Guard consisted of professionally trained 
adult soldiers, the Basiji was essentially composed of boys between 
twelve and 17 and men over 45. They received only a few weeks of 
training--less in weapons and tactics than in theology. Most Basiji 
came from the countryside and were often illiterate. When their 
training was done, each Basiji received a blood-red headband that 
designated him a volunteer for martyrdom. According to Sepehr Zabih's 
The Iranian Military in Revolution and War, such volunteers made up 
nearly one-third of the Iranian army--and the majority of its 
infantry.
The chief combat tactic employed by the Basiji was the human wave 
attack, whereby barely armed children and teenagers would move 
continuously toward the enemy in perfectly straight rows. It did not 
matter whether they fell to enemy fire or detonated the mines with 
their bodies: The important thing was that the Basiji continue to move 
forward over the torn and mutilated remains of their fallen comrades, 
going to their deaths in wave after wave. Once a path to the Iraqi 
forces had been opened up, Iranian commanders would send in their more 
valuable and skilled Revolutionary Guard troops.
This approach produced some undeniable successes. "They come toward 
our positions in huge hordes with their fists swinging," one Iraqi 
officer complained in the summer of 1982. "You can shoot down the 
first wave and then the second. But at some point the corpses are 
piling up in front of you, and all you want to do is scream and throw 
away your weapon. Those are human beings, after all!" By the spring of 
1983, some 450,000 Basiji had been sent to the front. After three 
months, those who survived deployment were sent back to their schools 
or workplaces.
But three months was a long time on the front lines. In 1982, during 
the retaking of the city of Khorramshahr, 10,000 Iranians died. 
Following "Operation Kheiber," in February 1984, the corpses of some 
20,000 fallen Iranians were left on the battlefield. The "Karbala 
Four" offensive in 1986 cost the lives of more than 10,000 Iranians. 
All told, some 100,000 men and boys are said to have been killed 
during Basiji operations. Why did the Basiji volunteer for such duty?
Most of them were recruited by members of the Revolutionary Guards, 
which commanded the Basiji. These "special educators" would visit 
schools and handpick their martyrs from the paramilitary exercises in 
which all Iranian youth were required to participate. Propaganda 
films--like the 1986 TV film A Contribution to the War--praised this 
alliance between students and the regime and undermined those parents 
who tried to save their children's lives. (At the time, Iranian law 
allowed children to serve even if their families objected.) Some 
parents, however, were lured by incentives. In a campaign called 
"Sacrifice a Child for the Imam," every family that lost a child on 
the battlefield was offered interest-free credit and other generous 
benefits. Moreover, enrollment in the Basiji gave the poorest of the 
poor a chance for social advancement.
Still others were coerced into "volunteering." In 1982, the German 
weekly Der Spiegel documented the story of a twelve-year-old boy named 
Hossein, who enlisted with the Basiji despite having polio:
One day, some unknown imams turned up in the village. They called the 
whole population to the plaza in front of the police station, and they 
announced that they came with good news from Imam Khomeini: The 
Islamic Army of Iran had been chosen to liberate the holy city Al 
Quds--Jerusalem--from the infidels. ... The local mullah had decided 
that every family with children would have to furnish one soldier of 
God. Because Hossein was the most easily expendable for his family, 
and because, in light of his illness, he could in any case not expect 
much happiness in this life, he was chosen by his father to represent 
the family in the struggle against the infidel devils.
Of the 20 children that went into battle with Hossein, only he and two 
others survived.
But, if such methods explained some of why they volunteered, it did 
not explain the fervor with which they rushed to their destruction. 
That can only be elucidated by the Iranian Revolution's peculiar brand 
of Islam.
Next: "It was this culture that nurtured Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's 
worldview."
t the beginning of the war, Iran's ruling mullahs did not send human 
beings into the minefields, but rather animals: donkeys, horses, and 
dogs. But the tactic proved useless: "After a few donkeys had been 
blown up, the rest ran off in terror," Mostafa Arki reports in his 
book Eight Years of War in the Middle East. The donkeys reacted 
normally--fear of death is natural. The Basiji, on the other hand, 
marched fearlessly and without complaint to their deaths. The curious 
slogans that they chanted while entering the battlefields are of note: 
"Against the Yazid of our time!"; "Hussein's caravan is moving on!"; 
"A new Karbala awaits us!"
Yazid, Hussein, Karbala--these are all references to the founding myth 
of Shia Islam. In the late seventh century, Islam was split between 
those loyal to the Caliph Yazid--the predecessors of Sunni Islam--and 
the founders of Shia Islam, who thought that the Imam Hussein, 
grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, should govern the Muslims. In 680, 
Hussein led an uprising against the "illegitimate" caliph, but he was 
betrayed. On the plain of Karbala, on the tenth day of the month of 
Muharram, Yazid's forces attacked Hussein and his entourage and killed 
them. Hussein's corpse bore the marks of 33 lance punctures and 34 
blows of the sword.
His head was cut off and his body was trampled by horses. Ever since, 
the martyrdom of Hussein has formed the core of Shia theology, and the 
Ashura Festival that commemorates his death is Shiism's holiest day. 
On that day, men beat themselves with their fists or flagellate 
themselves with iron chains to approximate Hussein's sufferings. At 
times throughout the centuries, the ritual has grown obscenely 
violent. In his study Crowds and Power, Elias Canetti recounts a 
firsthand report of the Ashura Festival as it occurred in 
mid-nineteenth-century Tehran:
500,000 people, in the grip of delirium, cover their heads with ashes 
and beat their foreheads against the ground. They want to subject 
themselves voluntarily to torments: to commit suicide en masse, to 
mutilate themselves with refinement. ... Hundreds of men in white 
shirts come by, their faces ecstatically raised toward the sky. Of 
these, several will be dead this evening, many will be maimed and 
mutilated, and the white shirts, dyed red, will be burial shrouds. ... 
There is no more beautiful destiny than to die on the Festival of 
Ashura. The gates of the eight Paradises are wide open for the holy 
and everyone tries to get through them.
Bloody excesses of this sort are prohibited in contemporary Iran, but, 
during the Iran-Iraq War, Khomeini appropriated the essence of the 
ritual as a symbolic act and politicized it. He took the 
inward-directed fervor and channeled it toward the external enemy. He 
transformed the passive lamentation into active protest. He made the 
Battle of Karbala the prototype of any fight against tyranny. Indeed, 
this technique had been used during political demonstrations in 1978, 
when many Iranian protestors wore funeral shrouds in order to tie the 
battle of 680 to the contemporary struggle against the shah. In the 
war against Iraq, the allusions to Karbala were given still greater 
significance: On the one hand, the scoundrel Yazid, now in the form of 
Saddam Hussein; on the other, the Prophet's grandson, Hussein, for 
whose suffering the time of Shia revenge had finally come.
The power of this story was further reinforced by a theological twist 
that Khomeini gave it. According to Khomeini, life is worthless and 
death is the beginning of genuine existence. "The natural world," he 
explained in October 1980, "is the lowest element, the scum of 
creation. "What is decisive is the beyond: The "divine world, that is 
eternal." This latter world is accessible to martyrs. Their death is 
no death, but merely the transition from this world to the world 
beyond, where they will live on eternally and in splendor. Whether the 
warrior wins the battle or loses it and dies a Martyr--in both cases, 
his victory is assured: either a mundane or a spiritual one.
This attitude had a fatal implication for the Basiji: Whether they 
survived or not was irrelevant. Not even the tactical utility of their 
sacrifice mattered. Military victories are secondary, Khomeini 
explained in September 1980.The Basiji must "understand that he is a 
'soldier of God' for whom it is not so much the outcome of the 
conflict as the mere participation in it that provides fulfillment and 
gratification." Could Khomeini's antipathy for life have had as much 
effect in the war against Iraq without the Karbala myth? Probably 
not.With the word "Karbala" on their lips, the Basiji went elatedly 
into battle.
or those whose courage still waned in the face of death, the regime 
put on a show. A mysterious horseman on a magnificent steed would 
suddenly appear on the front lines. His face--covered in 
phosphorous--would shine. His costume was that of a medieval prince. A 
child soldier, Reza Behrouzi, whose story was documented in 1985 by 
French writer Freidoune Sehabjam, reported that the soldiers reacted 
with a mixture of panic and rapture.
Everyone wanted to run toward the horseman. But he drove them away. 
"Don't come to me!" he shouted, "Charge into battle against the 
infidels! ... Revenge the death of our Imam Hussein and strike down 
the progeny of Yazid!" As the figure disappears, the soldiers cry: 
"Oh, Imam Zaman, where are you?" They throw themselves on their knees, 
and pray and wail. When the figure appears again, they get to their 
feet as a single man. Those whose forces are not yet exhausted charge 
the enemy lines.
The mysterious apparition who was able to trigger such emotions is the 
"hidden imam," a mythical figure who influences the thought and action 
of Ahmadinejad to this day. The Shia call all the male descendants of 
the Prophet Muhammad "imams" and ascribe to them a quasidivine status. 
Hussein, who was killed at Karbala by Yazid, was the third Imam. His 
son and grandson were the fourth and fifth. At the end of this line, 
there is the "Twelfth Imam," who is named Muhammad. Some call him the 
Mahdi (the "divinely guided one"), though others say imam Zaman (from 
sahib-e zaman: "the ruler of time"). He was born in 869, the only son 
of the eleventh Imam. In 874, he disappeared without a trace, thereby 
bringing Muhammad's lineage to a close. In Shia mythology, however, 
the Twelfth Imam survived. The Shia believe that he merely withdrew 
from public view when he was five and that he will sooner or later 
emerge from his "occultation" in order to liberate the world from 
evil.
Writing in the early '80s, V. S. Naipaul showed how deeply rooted the 
belief in the coming of the Shia messiah is among the Iranian 
population. In Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey, he described 
seeing posters in post-Revolutionary Tehran bearing motifs similar to 
those of Maoist China: crowds, for instance, with rifles and machine 
guns raised in the air as if in greeting. The posters always bore the 
same phrase: twelfth imam, we are waiting for you. Naipaul writes that 
he could grasp intellectually the veneration for Khomeini. "But the 
idea of the revolution as something more, as an offering to the 
Twelfth Imam, the man who had vanished ... and remained 'in 
occultation,' was harder to seize." According to Shia tradition, 
legitimate Islamic rule can only be established following the 
reappearance of the Twelfth Imam. Until that time, the Shia have only 
to wait, to keep their peace with illegitimate rule, and to remember 
the Prophet's grandson, Hussein, in sorrow. Khomeini, however, had no 
intention of waiting. He vested the myth with an entirely new sense: 
The Twelfth Imam will only emerge when the believers have vanquished 
evil. To speed up the Mahdi's return, Muslims had to shake off their 
torpor and fight.
This activism had more in common with the revolutionary ideas of 
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood than with Shia traditions. Khomeini had 
been familiar with the texts of the Muslim Brothers since the 1930s, 
and he agreed with the Brothers' conception of what had to be 
considered "evil": namely, all the achievements of modernity that 
replaced divine providence with individual self-determination, blind 
faith with doubt, and the stern morality of sharia with sensual 
pleasures. According to legend, Yazid was the embodiment of everything 
that was forbidden: He drank wine, enjoyed music and song, and played 
with dogs and monkeys. And was not Saddam just the same? In the war 
against Iraq, "evil" was clearly defined, and vanquishing evil was the 
precondition for hastening the return of the beloved Twelfth Imam. 
When he let himself be seen for a few minutes riding his white steed, 
the readiness to die a martyr's death increased considerably.
t was this culture that nurtured Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's worldview. Born 
outside Tehran in 1956, the son of blacksmith, he trained as a civil 
engineer, and, during the Iran-Iraq War, he joined the Revolutionary 
Guards. His biography remains strangely elliptical. Did he play a role 
in the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy, as some charge? What exactly 
did he do during the war? These are questions for which we have no 
definite answers. His presidential website says simply that he was "on 
active service as a Basij volunteer up to the end of the holy defense 
[the war against Iraq] and served as a combat engineer in different 
spheres of duty."
We do know that, after the war's end, he served as the governor of 
Ardebil Province and as an organizer of Ansar-e Hezbollah, a radical 
gang of violent Islamic vigilantes. After becoming mayor of Tehran in 
April 2003, Ahmadinejad used his position to build up a strong network 
of radical Islamic fundamentalists known as Abadgaran-e Iran-e Islami, 
or Developers of an Islamic Iran. It was in that role that he won his 
reputation--and popularity--as a hardliner devoted to rolling back the 
liberal reforms of then-President Muhammad Khatami. Ahmadinejad 
positioned himself as the leader of a "second revolution" to eradicate 
corruption and Western influences from Iranian society. And the 
Basiji, whose numbers had grown dramatically since the end of the 
Iran-Iraq War, embraced him. Recruited from the more conservative and 
impoverished parts of the population, the Basiji fall under the 
direction of--and swear absolute loyalty to--the Supreme Leader Ali 
Khameini, Khomeini's successor. During Ahmadinejad's run for the 
presidency in 2005, the millions of Basiji--in every Iranian town, 
neighborhood, and mosque--became his unofficial campaign workers.
ince Ahmadinejad became president, the influence of the Basiji has 
grown. In November, the new Iranian president opened the annual 
"Basiji Week," which commemorates the martyrs of the Iran-Iraq War. 
According to a report in Kayan, a publication loyal to Khameini, some 
nine million Basiji--12 percent of the Iranian population--turned out 
to demonstrate in favor of Ahmadinejad's anti-liberal platform. The 
article claimed that the demonstrators "form[ed] a human chain some 
8,700 kilometers long. ... In Tehran alone, some 1,250,000 people 
turned out." Barely noticed by the Western media, this mobilization 
attests to Ahmadinejad's determination to impose his "second 
revolution" and to extinguish the few sparks of freedom in Iran.
At the end of July 2005, the Basij movement announced plans to 
increase its membership from ten million to 15 million by 2010. The 
elite special units are supposed to comprise some 150,000 people by 
then. Accordingly, the Basiji have received new powers in their 
function as an unofficial division of the police. What this means in 
practice became clear in February 2006, when the Basiji attacked the 
leader of the bus-drivers' union, Massoud Osanlou. They held Osanlou 
prisoner in his apartment, and they cut off the tip of his tongue in 
order to convince him to keep quiet. No Basiji needs to fear 
prosecution for such terrorists tactics before a court of law.
As Basij ideology and influence enjoy a renaissance under Ahmadinejad, 
the movement's belief in the virtues of violent self-sacrifice remains 
intact. There is no "truth commission" in Iran to investigate the 
state-planned collective suicide that took place from 1980 to 1988. 
Instead, every Iranian is taught the virtues of martyrdom from 
childhood. Obviously, many of them reject the Basij teachings. Still, 
everyone knows the name of Hossein Fahmideh, who, as a 13-year-old boy 
during the war, blew himself up in front of an Iraqi tank. His image 
follows Iranians throughout their day: whether on postage stamps or 
the currency. If you hold up a 500 Rial bill to the light, it is his 
face you will see in the watermark. The self-destruction of Fahmideh 
is depicted as a model of profound faith by the Iranian press. It has 
been the subject of both an animated film and an episode of the TV 
series "Children of Paradise." As a symbol of their readiness to die 
for the Revolution, Basij groups wear white funeral shrouds over their 
uniforms during public appearances.
During this year's Ashura Festival, school classes were taken on 
excursions to a "Martyrs' Cemetery." "They wear headbands painted with 
the name Hussein," The New York Times reported, "and march beneath 
banners that read: 'Remembering the Martyrs today is as important as 
becoming a Martyr' and 'The Nation for whom Martyrdom means happiness, 
will always be Victorious.' " Since 2004, the mobilization of Iranians 
for suicide brigades has intensified, with recruits being trained for 
foreign missions. Thus, a special military unit has been created 
bearing the name "Commando of Voluntary Martyrs. "According to its own 
statistics, this force has so far recruited some 52,000 Iranians to 
the suicidal cause. It aims to form a "martyrdom unit" in every 
Iranian province.
he Basiji's cult of self-destruction would be chilling in any country. 
In the context of the Iranian nuclear program, however, its obsession 
with martyrdom amounts to a lit fuse. Nowadays, Basiji are sent not 
into the desert, but rather into the laboratory. Basij students are 
encouraged to enroll in technical and scientific disciplines. 
According to a spokesperson for the Revolutionary Guard, the aim is to 
use the "technical factor" in order to augment "national security."
What exactly does that mean? Consider that, in December 2001, former 
Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani explained that "the use of even 
one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything." On the other 
hand, if Israel responded with its own nuclear weapons, it "will only 
harm the Islamic world. It is not irrational to contemplate such an 
eventuality." Rafsanjani thus spelled out a macabre cost-benefit 
analysis. It might not be possible to destroy Israel without suffering 
retaliation. But, for Islam, the level of damage Israel could inflict 
is bearable--only 100,000 or so additional martyrs for Islam.
And Rafsanjani is a member of the moderate, pragmatic wing of the 
Iranian Revolution; he believes that any conflict ought to have a 
"worthwhile" outcome. Ahmadinejad, by contrast, is predisposed toward 
apocalyptic thinking. In one of his first TV interviews after being 
elected president, he enthused: "Is there an art that is more 
beautiful, more divine, more eternal than the art of the martyr's 
death?" In September 2005, he concluded his first speech before the 
United Nations by imploring God to bring about the return of the 
Twelfth Imam. He finances a research institute in Tehran whose sole 
purpose is to study, and, if possible, accelerate the coming of the 
imam. And, at a theology conference in November 2005, he stressed, 
"The most important task of our Revolution is to prepare the way for 
the return of the Twelfth Imam."
A politics pursued in alliance with a supernatural force is 
necessarily unpredictable.Why should an Iranian president engage in 
pragmatic politics when his assumption is that, in three or four 
years, the savior will appear? If the messiah is coming, why 
compromise? That is why, up to now, Ahmadinejad has pursued 
confrontational policies with evident pleasure.
The history of the Basiji shows that we must expect monstrosities from 
the current Iranian regime. Already, what began in the early '80s with 
the clearing of minefields by human detonators has spread throughout 
the Middle East, as suicide bombing has become the terrorist tactic of 
choice. The motivational shows in the desert--with hired actors in the 
role of the hidden imam--have evolved into a showdown between a 
zealous Iranian president and the Western world. And the Basiji who 
once upon a time wandered the desert armed only with a walking stick 
is today working as a chemist in a uranium enrichment facility.
Matthias Küntzel is a political scientist in Hamburg, Germany, and 
author of Djihad und Judenhass (or Jihad and Jew-Hatred). 

 Matthias Kunsel su New Republic.
Guarda francamente considerare un articolo di giornale (per di più di 
orientamento neocon almeno ultimamente) una fonte storiografica decente 
è tipico di te. Ti si chiede di circonstanziare con fonti storiografiche 
che si basano su documenti di valore storico se no mi basta il mio 
libello per nulla esaustivo sulla guerra iran-iraq

comica poi la menzione sulle scimmie che in iran non sono autoctone, per 
cui mi piacerebbe sapere da dove venivano le centinaia usate per sminare.

 cui mi piacerebbe sapere da dove venivano le centinaia usate per sminare.
Cazzo, ma stai ancora rosicando sotto la slavina?


 sta accadendo adesso che si parla solo di minacce di guerra all'Iran.
Altro enorme vantaggio per chi traffica in petrolio.
E qui c'e' sia l'interesse dell'Iran, sia quello delle lobby
energetiche. Un interesse squisitamente trasversale.
-- 
Nadja Jacur
-- 
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - 
http://www.Mailgate.ORG

 preventivo, è facile pensare che è esattamente quello che accadrà.
Dimenticandosi delle conseguenze la scelta sarebbe giusta, ma non credo 
credo che chi ha il potere in USA e Israele vi sia arrivato senza essere 
in grado di valutare i pro e i contro.
l.p.o.d.p.i.