Iran

Scott Powell's Islamist Entanglement lectures (also available as individual lectures) help set the historical context for an understanding of the Middle East and last week's lecture on Iran was no different. Beginning briefly with ancient Persia, Scott traces the development what became Iran as part of the various Islamic empires. Important in this regard is that most of Iran, unlike much of the rest of the Muslim world, is Shia. Its religion has thus always put it somewhat at odds with the rest of the Muslim world. After the usual confrontations with the West, Iran began to modernize a little and by the early 20th century some of its intellectuals were attempting to enact constitutional reforms. Unfortunately those reforms failed. Iran has a long history of having an alliance between a military and the religious leadership. The leader is supposed to follow the sacred path and if he does not he deserves to be overthrown. When the leader starts to endorse Western ideas, that is usually when he is regarded as having betrayed his office. Ultimately this is what happened to the American-supported Shah in 1979. Also of note is that Scott presents a somewhat different perspective on the whole Mossadegh-CIA affair of 1953. All in all, this is a highly recommended lecture.

The truth about Hamas and what to do about it

As usual, Caroline Glick puts it best:

The simple truths that the media, Jimmy Carter, the Bush administration, and the Olmert-Livni-Barak government are all unwilling to acknowledge are that Hamas is a genocidal terror group sworn to Israel's destruction and that it represents the will of the majority of Palestinians who elected it to office in 2006 and who continue to support it today.

This plain reality demonstrates that there is only one responsible policy for Israel to follow and for the international community to support if they are truly interested in peace between Israel and the Palestinians. That policy is for Israel to lay waste to Hamas's terror army in Gaza and overthrow its regime. Only when they are forced to pay a real price for their support for terror and jihad - as opposed to being rewarded for it with further Israeli land giveaways - will the Palestinians be forced to reconsider that support. Only when they realize that terror will get them nowhere - as opposed to anywhere they wish - will the Palestinians be forced to accept Israel as an unchanging reality with which they must live in peace.

What it takes to be Homeschool Parent

With all the frequent negative portrayals and comments about homeschooling in the media, it's nice to see a very accurate, positive portrayal for a change. Check it out here!

Update on Ascent of Man

I have now watched eleven of the thirteen episodes of the documentary series Ascent of Man, hosted by Jacob Bronowski. For the most part I have very much enjoyed the show. Bronowski is a passionate, engaging presenter and the content is mostly very rational and at times profound. Nevertheless, at times the presentation suffers from Bronowski's unwillingness to apply the same rational standards that he applies to the sciences to art. He seems to have no issue with modern art, viewing it simply as a response to developments in the sciences and certainly making no attempt to judge it.

However, Bronowski's worst moments are when he attempts to discuss Nazism and its consequences. Here he follows many liberal thinkers in arguing that what makes Nazism (as well as other totalitarian systems) so destructive is their commitment to "absolute knowledge" which he equates with unthinking dogma. Certainly it was the case that what the Nazis considered "absolutes" was dogma to them. Nevertheless, as Leonard Peikoff has pointed out, the Nazis were simultaneously the greatest pragmatists and the greatest dogmatists. This is because they were following the centuries-old philosophical trends that had undermined the objectivity and absoluteness of knowledge, some of their rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding. In fact, had there been a proper philosophic opposition to the Nazis ideas in Germany, an opposition that upheld contextual absolutes based on the reality and reason, history would likely have been very different.

The fact is that fanatical commitment to systematic ideas cannot be fought with calls for "tolerance." It simply does not work. This is a lesson that is still not widely understood even today, 35 years after Ascent of Man was broadcast.

Afghanistan -- The Highway of Conquest

Last week's Islamist Entanglement lecture was about Afghanistan. It is difficult not to feel sorry for Afghanistan -- after all, until the 18th century it was not really so much a country as a place that had been conquered numerous times over the centuries, by empires from the East, West, North and South, earning it the description as "highway of conquest". In 1747 the first independent Afghan Kingdom was finally formed when various tribal factions agreed to submit to the rule of a relatively weak central ruler. However, the situation in the country did not dramatically improve after the 18th century and Afghanistan remains the most primitive of the places so far discussed. The country reminds one of Europe during the Dark Ages or present day Africa -- tribalism and religion predominate in the population's thinking and, apart from foreign interventions, continue to guide its course. No serious attempts at Westernization have occurred until the early 20th century. Scott concludes the lecture with a pessimistic assessment of Afghanistan's future, even more so than either Egypt's or Turkey's. He predicts that the Bush administration's attempt to "democratize" Afghanistan will fail. Next up -- Iran. Don't miss it -- sign up now for the whole course or individual lectures!

Glick on Obama & Clinton

Caroline Glick has another good essay in the Jerusalem Post comparing Clinton and Obama. My favorite passage is the following:

THERE ARE two reasons that a deterrence model will be as ineffective in curbing Iranian aggression as Obama's appeasement model. First, as last week's 25th anniversary of the Iranian-sponsored bombing of the US embassy in Beirut recalled, Iran has been attacking the US and its allies both directly and through proxies since 1979. To date, not only has the US failed to deter such attacks, it has never made Iran pay a price for them. With this abysmal track record against a non-nuclear Iran, it is hard to see how the US can threaten a nuclear-armed Iran with sufficient credibility to make a deterrence-based strategy successful.

The second reason that basing US policy towards Iran on a deterrence model will likely fail is because Iran's leadership has made clear that is not necessarily concerned about the survivability of Iran. From Ayatollah Khomeini to Ayatollah Khamenei to Ali Rafsanjani to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's leadership has made clear that they are not Iranian patriots but global Islamic revolutionaries. Given their millenarian, apocalyptic view of their country's purpose in world affairs, there is good reason to believe that a strategy based on some form of mutually assured destruction would have only marginal impact on Iran's decision-makers.[emphasis added]

Lewis on Codevilla's War

Historian John David Lewis has released an excellent review of the second edition of War: Ends and Means by Angelo Codevilla and the late Paul Seabury in the Michigan War Studies Review. I had read the first edition many years ago and enjoyed it -- it lays out some important truths in this difficult topic, truths that even most of today's intellectuals, both left and right, do not get. Here's the first paragraph of Dr. Lewis's review:

Angelo Codevilla and Paul Seabury are clear about their purpose: "This book was written to open contemporary minds to the essential truths of war, lest those truths intrude of their own accord" (1). Americans, residents of the "magic kingdom," know little of war because it little impacts their lives. After 9/11, "The inhabitants knew enough to be frightened, but not enough to understand." This new edition of the 1989 original has been edited by Codevilla (Seabury died in 1991) and updated with an expanded treatment of "victory," as well as new chapters on "Indirect Warfare and Terror," post-Cold War conflicts, and the two wars in Iraq. The book is a valuable and comprehensive primer on basic issues in warfare for its targeted non-professional readers. The writing is lucid, without jargon, and can be read in sections. At every step, War offers multiple examples to support its conclusions, while foregrounding questions that free people must understand.

Why Ahmadinejad is smiling...

As usual, Caroline Glick has some of the best analysis of what to make of recent events in the Middle East. Here are a few exerpts:

And the fact is that the Sunni states are aligned with most of Iran's policies. They keep Iraq at arm's length and loudly criticize US operations in the country. They continue to back Hamas and ostracize Israel. And they have taken no substantive stands against Hizbullah's subversion of the Saniora government since the end of the Second Lebanon War.

The main reason that the Sunni Arab countries cannot contend with Iran is that their publics share Iran's jihadist ideology. And their publics share Iran's general jihadist ideology because the Sunni states have indoctrinated their publics to believe in jihad through their state-controlled media.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia and their Sunni Arab brothers are in no position to argue with Iran publicly or to confront Iran's Arab proxies because they can't explain to their own people why Iran's bid to destroy Israel and to dominate the world in the name of Islam is a bad thing.

However, to get the full context of how we got to this point, I recommend Scott Powell's Islamist Entanglement lectures which are available both as a set and as individual lectures. Sign up now!