I saw an interesting little blurb about Iran promising Hamas 50 million dollars in aid. Well, I repeat myself..isn't this an expected outcome of 'the West' trying to get Hamas to do away with renouncing Israel? Having said that, Western donors cannot be expected to financially support in assistance a government that does not renounce violence towards Israel. I don't quite remember how Sinn Fein turned from a terrorist group to a political one and when and how they stopped taking up arms.
If only I would have had time to check on that today but...in Austin there was some funky power outages and even my computer geekie husband stayed late at work because of the trouble it caused with their gezillion dollar computer systems.
I will follow up on this tomorrow..
its odd. have known some iranian diplomats about my travels. the nicest people i think i have ever met. the were pretty much pariahs everywhere, and kept to their embassy/housing complex.
ReplyDeletepeople really need to differentiate between the people of a country, its government, and their policy.
all this talk of iran being target #3, i shudder at all those young, growing restless itching for change, intellectuals students professionals, many, unlike th erest of the region, are women, perhaps being silenced along the way..
that government needs to stop playing the "oooh, we're not taking shit from anyone" and focus on what can potentially be a great future for them. they dont have the baggage of being arab, or all the traditions of m.e. per ssay.
all great civilisation can have their time in the sun over, if they want. look at china and india.
It is scary to think that there's another war in the planning (well, one 'in the event of'). Who knows if it ever were to come to pass, the US will at least have refined their 'precision bombing nonsense'. Still, an article I read in Time magazine (I think it was an April or late March edition) mentioned how the guy who runs Iran (sorry, it's late and I don't remember his name right now) has the backing of even moderate Muslims and women as well. Even though he has not come through with some of the election promises (well, that's a common thing here too now) they feel that it's the old "us versus them". They feel because of the US's posturing, that he is coming up for Iran and in a way he's making use of the nationalistic feelings it brings up in the Iranian people. All this posturing ... today's article in the Wall Street Journal mentioned how the US is adopting a 'hedge tactic' or something rather towards China. Heck, if you're the only Super power, you want to stay that way right?
ReplyDeleteBtw...one of my friends' husband is Iranian and as an immigrant and former expat to saudi myself, it never seizes to amaze me how much more people from oppressed countries have an understanding of what's really going on. None of that passivity that goes on in democratic countries. You're right, a lot of people fall into that easy 'those people' routine and do not differentiate at all between 'a people' and 'their government'. On a happy note , that happens the world over though.
Ingrid