The Los Angeles Times Talks About Iran and Shows Why the West is so Weak and in Apparent Decline
By Barry Rubin
Help! Our lives have been turned into a parody, a satire. How else can you explain things like the Los Angeles Times editorial of September 8, entitled, “The U.S. and Iran: It's time to talk.” The editorial isn’t just stupid; it’s full of lessons about how large parts of the Western elite thinks about international affairs nowadays. It’s scarier than a speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
After all, this is one of the major newspapers of America, supposedly run by adults, and it serves a major city. How could it be so completely unresponsive to reality, to news and developments, living in a fantasy world? Even the quality of writing is so bad that I checked to make sure this wasn’t a hoax.
Of course, we know this is due to ideology (everyone must want to be friends; nothing is worth struggling for); willful blindness (radical, anti-American Islamists sponsoring terrorism, we don’t see any radical anti-American Islamists sponsoring terrorism!), and a complete lack of comprehension about how other political cultures think and behave.
Yet even granted all that how can supposedly serious people write an opening paragraph like this one:
“A conversation with the Tehran regime is the best option for dealing with our differences. The possibility of failure shouldn't Obama from making the effort.”
Really? Is this true after years of failed talks, after recent rejections of Obama’s efforts by the Iranian regime, after the stolen election and the ferocious repression (unprecedented even in the quarter-century since the Islamist revolution), after the lies and cheating and broken commitments on Tehran’s part?
Someone can only say this if they believe that there is no alternative whatsoever to talks, which would no doubt involve U.S. concessions to prove America’s good intentions. And sure enough:
“French President Nicolas Sarkozy may have said it best some years ago when he declared that the only real alternative to `an Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran’ was a concerted diplomatic push by world powers to address that country's nuclear program.”
Does this newspaper have any conception of power politics, of what the word “concerted” means here? Does it have any idea what it will mean for U.S. interests, the Middle East, the lives of millions of people if Iran gets nuclear weapons?
Of course, to avoid the push doing any pushing, at the very last moment the dictatorship in Iran put forward a bit of bait to delay the effort while it moved forward on its nuclear program. Would anyone be enough of a sucker to take the bait? Yep:
”Just in time last week, Iran's chief negotiator announced that he has an `updated nuclear proposal’ and is ready to accept Obama's invitation.”
Just in time. In other words, the newspaper is relieved that Iran saved the West from having to do something. Is there any skepticism, any cynicism, any stick with the carrot? Nope.
Help! Our lives have been turned into a parody, a satire. How else can you explain things like the Los Angeles Times editorial of September 8, entitled, “The U.S. and Iran: It's time to talk.” The editorial isn’t just stupid; it’s full of lessons about how large parts of the Western elite thinks about international affairs nowadays. It’s scarier than a speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
After all, this is one of the major newspapers of America, supposedly run by adults, and it serves a major city. How could it be so completely unresponsive to reality, to news and developments, living in a fantasy world? Even the quality of writing is so bad that I checked to make sure this wasn’t a hoax.
Of course, we know this is due to ideology (everyone must want to be friends; nothing is worth struggling for); willful blindness (radical, anti-American Islamists sponsoring terrorism, we don’t see any radical anti-American Islamists sponsoring terrorism!), and a complete lack of comprehension about how other political cultures think and behave.
Yet even granted all that how can supposedly serious people write an opening paragraph like this one:
“A conversation with the Tehran regime is the best option for dealing with our differences. The possibility of failure shouldn't Obama from making the effort.”
Really? Is this true after years of failed talks, after recent rejections of Obama’s efforts by the Iranian regime, after the stolen election and the ferocious repression (unprecedented even in the quarter-century since the Islamist revolution), after the lies and cheating and broken commitments on Tehran’s part?
Someone can only say this if they believe that there is no alternative whatsoever to talks, which would no doubt involve U.S. concessions to prove America’s good intentions. And sure enough:
“French President Nicolas Sarkozy may have said it best some years ago when he declared that the only real alternative to `an Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran’ was a concerted diplomatic push by world powers to address that country's nuclear program.”
Does this newspaper have any conception of power politics, of what the word “concerted” means here? Does it have any idea what it will mean for U.S. interests, the Middle East, the lives of millions of people if Iran gets nuclear weapons?
Of course, to avoid the push doing any pushing, at the very last moment the dictatorship in Iran put forward a bit of bait to delay the effort while it moved forward on its nuclear program. Would anyone be enough of a sucker to take the bait? Yep:
”Just in time last week, Iran's chief negotiator announced that he has an `updated nuclear proposal’ and is ready to accept Obama's invitation.”
Just in time. In other words, the newspaper is relieved that Iran saved the West from having to do something. Is there any skepticism, any cynicism, any stick with the carrot? Nope.
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