Thursday, March 22, 2007

Behavior Therapy

White House spokesman Tony Snow:
    "For all those who've been trying to create this narrative about invading Iran, which is silly, what we've really said is that we're going to use diplomatic means to try to get the government in Iran to change its behavior," White House spokesman Tony Snow said.
Whenever I talk to friends and family in Iran, they point at things they hear on the international news channels such as CNN, BBC, Euronews or VOA News and verify the accuracy of them with me again. They don't completely trust them, especially the Persian services of these foreign broadcasting companies like BBC and Voice of America. Most of all they always ask me what does this Behavior Change Americans always talk about mean? Are they not interested in helping us to Regime Change? [+]

This is actually discouraging for those people who have no other means than foreign news channels to find out about their outer world and once they hear about "Behavior Change", they get completely discouraged and feel left alone. That does not even help change the regime's behavior if that's their intention. It simply gets the mullahs become confident that their own people have no outside support in case of a national anger and they keep on doing whatever evil they have been doing since 1979.

But it's beyond that and it is really interesting to see that people of Iran don't want the US officials to talk of "Regime's Behavior Change". They know as well as Ahmadinejad does that these latest sanctions and useless negotiations barely have teeth, and will do nothing to change Teheran's behavior. So whats the point of changing the behavior of a regime that doesn't abide by any international law and has no respect for them in the first place?

What majority of Iranians expect from the free world is to have their firm moral, financial, tactical and technical support to change the mullahs' regime for the good. They are tired of trash talks in UN or multilateral negotiations that are supposed to get the regime suspend its nuclear programs or stop supporting the terrorists around the world. These useless talks never worked and never will. You can't change the behavior of a natural-born killer who enjoys murdering and hurting others. You either hang that type of person or puts him in a maximum security jail forever. Iranian regime is not an exception. It's a corrupt killing monster that needs to be dealt with properly. No one can get this evil system change its behavior. Once this regime stops doing what it is supposed doing, then it will fade away on its own and that ain't happening. Islamic gov't of Iran's survival is depended on terror, intimidation and deception. Good luck with changing that.

Stop trying to fool yourself about regime's behavior change and start supporting regime change before it's late.

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14 comments:

Anonymous said...

"You can't change the behavior of a natural-born killer who enjoys murdering and hurting others. You either hang that type of person or puts him in a maximum security jail forever. Iranian regime is not an exception. It's a corrupt killing monster that needs to be dealt with properly"

Very good. You're so right.
All I can say is, I think Tony Snow was referring specifically to the nuke situation. They do realize the human rights issues need to be dealt with too.

The problem is, they haven't figured out that the regime isn't going to back off their nukes.
And they haven't figured out that the regime's terrorist threat issues aren't going away even if they get them to back off their nukes program. The regime's been supporting and committing terrorism without nukes for years. The sanctions aren't going to do anything at all about that.

Anonymous said...

Winston: I like your natural-born killer analogy. It's a very accurate description of the nature of the thugs ruling the enslaved Iranians.

Strong Conservative said...

I think America should pursue a strategy similar to what was done in the Cold War with Radio Free Europe and the support of dissidents.
I'm sure there's a Lech Welesa in Iran, he just needs support.

Anonymous said...

Surely someone from a middle eastern culture should understand that what is said in public could either be just the tip of the iceberg to what's said in private or the complete opposite of it. A couple of years ago, an open mic caught Bush telling Tony Blair that Syria and Iran have to "stop doing this shit." Today, we're arresting Iranian agents in Iraq and Iranian generals are disappearing off the face of the earth.

Today, even the anti-Iraq war types like Hillary Clinton are speaking about Iran in the same terms as they spoke about Iraq a few years ago. If things keep going the way they're going, in a year or two we'll have 150,000 troops sitting in Iraq with nothing to do.

Anonymous said...

Can you please be more specific on the specifics of those who you call natural-born killers? My father is a banker, my uncle is the head of "Amoozesh o Parvaresh" in my hometown, my father's friend is a parliament member. They all have government jobs. Do you mean that they are all natural-born killers? This is so not true. You can't label everyone at your wish. This is wrong.

Anonymous said...

Amir:

my uncle is the head of "Amoozesh o Parvaresh" in my hometown

Was ,Farkhro Parsa, the only women Minister of Education during the Shah's regime, a natural-born killer to be executed by the murderous mullahs? A old woman in her late 50's...Why did she deserve to be shot to death by the firing squad.

No wonder you support the regiem, you have lot to lose.

Louise said...

I think Kafir sort of sums up what I want to say: "Surely someone from a middle eastern culture should understand that what is said in public could either be just the tip of the iceberg to what's said in private or the complete opposite of it."

"Diplomatic means" does not mean talking nicey, nicey directly to members of the regime. It means working the back rooms, so to speak. Talking and making deals with all kinds of global players who all have interests of one sort or another in Iran, or for that matter, other common interests that can be used in horse trading, and no one but a fool would expect those kinds of wheelings and dealings would be done in the open, in front of cameras and with journalist taking notes.

They are done with third and fourth and fifth parties in embassies in far flung parts of the world, in places where you'd least expect it. For example, you may have read the theory that during Saddam Hussein's era, it was Iraq's ambassador to the Vatican, of all places, who made a trip to Nigeria to talk to the Nigerians about obtaining the raw materials (yellowcake) for the production of nuclear weapons.

I'm sure the Vatican was just as surprised to hear this as anyone else would have been. I mean who would have thought of watching the comings and goings of any country's ambassador to the Vatican. After all, the Vatican is nothing but a pipsqueak player in the big game of international politics. All they care about is keeping Catholics faithful and the money rolling in.

Similarly, many years ago, one of the by now far too numerous to count attempts to negotiate a peace settlement between the Israelis and Palestinians was brokered via a Scandinavian country. As it was quite some time ago, I don't remember now the details such as which country it was. It might have been Sweden or Norway, both out of the way, quiet countries that by and large keep to themselves and are not heavy weights on the global stage. But that is how diplomatic negotiations take place.

It is in secret deal making in unexpected places with unexpected parties who have common interests, that "diplomatic" efforts are made. It's more like this scenario: "You give me this and I'll give you that, and then together we can see if we can convince those guys up there to make a deal with that bunch down here, which will be in all of our our interests. And by the way, I have a friend who will let us have free use the meeting room in the back in his restaurant to make the deals."

All is not lost, Winston. I think we all know that the regime in Iran is a global trouble maker and it will take a global network of wheeling and dealing to rein them in and put them in vice.

Some of the deal makers may not be the most savory of characters, but that is the nature of global politics. People who expect nothing but saintly behavior are the ones who get swept aside and lost in the tide of history. Those who are willing to make deals, which sometimes have to include a few of the shadier characters in order to achieve a greater good, are the ones who will succeed in bringing the Mad Mullah's reign to an end.

You may note, for example, that Russia has seemingly switched sides more than once in the whole Middle Eastern drama that has been taking place since the Iraq war began. He now seems to be backing off from his attempts to play nicey, nicey with Amadjerkoff. It could be that Putin was playing footsie with Iran as a way of keeping a card up his sleeve to play with the West. In any case, it looks to me like someone else has been talking to Putin and deals are being brokered as we speak.

And wouldn't you just love to know what sort of ultimatum the US and Britain made with Pakistan to get them on side with respect to ousting the Taliban in Afghanistan? I'll probably be long gone before that one is revealed and you might be an old man, living in a free and prosperous Iran.

Sorry for the long post.

Winston said...

Louise

your comments are appreciated

Louise said...

Oh, and I also agree with Strong Conservative, and of course, as you know, many of your other blog fans.

Anonymous said...

Dear Anonymous,

I am opposed to any type of killing, no matter who the victim is. And I hate it when you label anyone who criticizes you. You write as if I contributed to the death of "Farrokhrou Parsa". No, I didn't and I strongly condemn it. I don't support "the regime" either. I just want my country, Iran, to be prosperous and democratic.

Yes. Some mullahs killed some people, but you can't call everyone in Iran a killer. I just want you (Winston) to be specific about who you call natural-born killer.

You better stop labeling people and get real. I don't want you to get my family bombed because you hate mullahs.

Anonymous said...

Louise,

Here's the ultimatum given to Pakistan. Then again, that could be just something Mushie made up to save face among other middle easterners.

Although I see a lot of sabre-rattling going on even among democrats, I have heard that Iran's economy is in near shambles and the strategy may be to just push them over the cliff.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous: You're a fool if you think the world is waiting for either me or Winston or any other peons like the CASMII people to give them advice on how to defend its economic and strategic interests?...If anyone needs to join the reality-based community is you and your ilk in the Islamic Republic who have fabricated a parallel universe and parade your third-world flying boats on military Maneuvers to scare a military that can vaporize the entire ME into smitherens, if they were really the "Great Satan" and "Imperialistic" in nature.

Louise said...

Kafir, the last sentence in your article is really funny:

"President Musharraf has proved a loyal ally though many now will question the means used to extract the co-operation, says the BBC's Jonathan Beale."

Talk about naivety regarding "diplomacy".

My bet is nice sweet promises were also made to Indian as part of the mix and Musharraf was made aware of them. Maybe they also threatened to help Benazir Bhuto stage a come back and write a constitution that guarantees only a woman shall be eligible for Pakistani presidency for the next 50 years. That would have been a nice mixture of wheelin' and dealin' with cards up the sleeve.

Louise said...

Duh!! I remember now. It was called the Oslo Accord, so obviously it was in Norway that that deal was negotiated.