Sheda Vasseghi’s response to Simon Jenkins and The Guardian

Following is Sheda Vasseghi’s response to Simon Jenkins’ “The west has picked a fight with Iran that it cannot win”, published yesterday by The Guardian. I'm very happy to hear from dear Sheda again.


Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 12:03:08 -0800 (PST)
From: Sheda Vasseghi
Subject: "The west ... cannot win" article by Mr. Jenkins dated Jan. 18, 2006
To: reader@guardian.co.uk, letters@guardian.co.uk
CC: simon.jenkins@guardian.co.uk

Dear Editor:

The Guardian never fails to amaze me. Mr. Jenkins’ January 18, 2006, article entitled "The west has picked a fight with Iran that it cannot win," at a crucial time in world history amazes me. Either Mr. Jenkins is getting paid by the lobbyists for the Islamic Republic of Iran or he is completely ignorant of the issues in Middle East. Given the number of logical and well-informed political writers around the globe, I am dumbfounded as to why The Guardian constantly publishes such garbage.

First, the title of this article is troubling. Mr. Jenkins obviously doesn’t understand that it’s not that the west cannot win this battle, it "must" win against Islamism. For 27 years, majority of the Iranian people have been telling the world about the new ideological fascism having taken their rich country hostage and how it will be the world’s problem in the near future. The near future has arrived. Iran was "a serious country" prior to 1979, but since the Islamic Revolution and the rise of the incompetent and backwards mullacracy, the country is falling apart because of mismanagement, embezzlement, corruption, poverty, unemployment, enforcement of unrealistic and backwards Sharia law, and collapse of its industrial and technological advancements.

Mr. Jenkins actually goes on to pose the following dilemma for the West – the West should decide whether it will support those Iranians who are anti-Israel, pro-Islamism, and pro-nuclear buildup versus those who support the rights of Israel, secularism, and anti-nuclear proliferation. Is this simple and childlike statement truly considered a strategic dilemma?

As for Iran gaining access to nuclear weapons, the world is not concerned about Iran itself becoming nuclear but rather the Islamic Republic becoming nuclear. The enemy of the world in which Mr. Jenkins and I live is the Islamic Republic not the American government and its allies. There is no "hypocrisy" – we are talking about a regime that believes in Armageddon and the 12th Imam or the Messiah rising to punish all non-believers. Non-believers are those who are not Muslim. This is the Islamic Republic’s belief and culture on which it makes its policies. This is why the Islamic Republic has systematically tried for 27 years to destroy Iranian nationalism. The Iranian pre-Islamic culture and heritage is its number one enemy. That’s why such a regime "has ‘no right’ to nuclear deference."

Confrontation with Iran may not stop the lunatics in Tehran, but a regime change will and is the only solution. With a regime change in a country that is currently using its oil money to fund terrorism, anti-Semitism, Islamic fundamentalism, and abuse of basic human rights, you will see an immediate drop in global terrorism and a return to some normalcy and balance in such a volatile region.

Mr. Jenkins claims that the regime in "Tehran is not a Saddamist dictatorship or a Taliban autocracy." I don’t know what more that devil of a regime has to do for a supposed "intellect" like Mr. Jenkins to understand that the mullacracy in Tehran is a theocratic dictatorship. The power is in the hands of a small percentage of Islamists, mullahs, and Basijis. The rest of the Iranians are held hostage and soon the free, secular, and democratic world will be at their mercy too if governments and general public read and follow Mr. Jenkins’ idiotic advice.

By the way, Mr. Jenkins advises that if we cannot stop the bad guy from "buying a gun," then we should befriend him. Mr. Jenkins was obviously NOT told there is no friendship or peace with the devil. Destroying Islamic fascism and a government such as the Islamic Republic of Iran is the only way to take the gun away from the bad guy.