The Iranblogging continues.
First, courtesy of Instapundit, comes this bit of analysis from Austin Bay:
“Don’t underestimate the strategic effects on Iran of Saddam’s demise. Saddam presented Iran with a long-term threat, one the ayatollahs could use to legitimate a degree of internal militarization. Now, the Butcher of Baghdad’s gone. Iranians have seen Iraqis dancing in the streets. Is it time for the Theocrats of Tehran to take a hike?”
I’ve made this argument for some time, after being persuaded by books such as Michael Ledeen’s The War Against the Terror Masters and Ken Pollack’s The Threatening Storm that the various fundamentalist/fascist/terrorist regimes of the Middle East are all interconnected, and that when they start falling, the demise of any one will accelerate the downfall of the others. As in George Orwell’s 1984 (and here’s one case in which its actually appropriate to utilize the Orwellian comparison), Iran’s ayatollahs used the presence of a hostile next-door neighbor as an excuse for their own draconian militaristic policies. The fear they drummed up in the Iranian populace was not without some justification, mind you: Saddam had attacked Iran in the past, largely unprovoked, and during the course of their disastrous war proved himself willing to deliberately inflict massive suffering on the civilian Iranian population even when such actions had little or no practical or even propagandaiacal strategic results. With Saddam, his army, and his weapons out of the picture, it’s going to be a lot tougher for the ruling theocrats in Iran to convince their people that they need them in charge. (Moreover, many of the young people involved in the anti-theocrat demonstrations are probably too young to clearly remember the war with Saddam in the first place, making it an even less effective incentive for compliance.)
That Instapundit item also pointed the way to this Slate round-up of the current situation in Iran, both regarding the protests and Western efforts to force the country to curb its nuclear weapons program. If you ask me, here’s where the current “Where’s the beef?” WMD fiasco in Iraq will be the most damaging to the administration (and the world): If intelligence about Iraq’s capabilities couldn’t be believed, won’t it be even more difficult to convince the world (who, it must be said, all seem in agreement that Iran is further along the nuclear path than Iraq was, if not as far as North Korea) that Iran’s capabilities are threatening as well?