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Commenter Olah Chadasha points out why Iran's Arabic neighbors would be menaced in the event that President Ahmadinejad used nuclear weapons against Israel:
Even if [President Ahmadinejad's government] didn’t believe that Israel would strike back, or even if they decided to utilize a small tactical nuclear strike, they fully understand that the fall-out on the Arab world would be disastrous. For example, what about the cross winds and weather patterns on the day they decide to strike? It could very well happen that they don’t account for a glitch in their weather analysis and the nuclear fall-out heads back right in their direction. Or, they could be off by a mile or two, and the bomb could land or detonate in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, or any of the other countless Arab neighbors that reside alongside Israel.
Ahmadinejad's view of current times as providing an opportunity for an apocalyptic confrontation between Islam and the west -- which Ahmadinejad may hope to bring about -- indicates he might not hesitate to risk nuking an Arabic nation.
I recently posted:
As I've noted in the post The Memento Syndrome: Humanity's Short-Term Memory, we tend to think that anything that's relatively new in our lifetime, has never happened before.
I quoted John Quincy Adams' views on radical Islam, which are identical to what has been discussed here.
Commenter Mike Z. has posted quotes from the work of the famous French political thinker, Montesquieu:
From Montesquieu, about 1748, "Spirit of the Laws", Book XXIV, Chapter III:
That a moderate Government is most agreeable to the Christian Religion, and a despotic Government to the Mahometan.
THE Christian religion is a stranger to mere despotic power. The mildness so frequently recommended in the gospel, is incompatible with the despotic rage with which a prince punishes his subjects, and exercises himself in cruelty.
From Chapter IV:
It is a misfortune to human nature, when religion is given by a conqueror. The Mahometan religion, which speaks only by the sword, acts still upon men with that destructive spirit with which it was founded.
We're still trying to wrap our heads around the notion that fundamentalist Islam is not a "love-thy-neighbor" religion like the religions we are familiar with. We feel like no one's ever suggested such a thing. In fact, this has all happened before. People have had to figure this out hundreds of years ago. More from Montesquieu:
While the Mahometan princes incessantly give or receive death, the religion of the Christians renders their princes less timid, and consequently less cruel. The prince confides in his subjects, and the subjects in the prince. How admirable the religion which, while it only seems to have in view the felicity of the other life, continues the happiness of this!
It is the Christian religion that, in spite of the extent of the empire and the influence of the climate, has hindered despotic power from being established in Ethiopia, and has carried into the heart of Africa the manners and laws of Europe.
The heir to the empire of Ethiopia enjoys a principality and gives to other subjects an example of love and obedience. Not far thence may we see the Mahometan shutting up the children of the King of Sennar, at whose death the council sends to murder them, in favour of the prince who mounts the throne.
And quoting a bit more from Chapter 4, part of which is included in Mike Z.'s comment:
4. Consequences from the Character of the Christian Religion, and that of the Mahometan.
From the characters of the Christian and Mahometan religions, we ought, without any further examination, to embrace the one and reject the other: for it is much easier to prove that religion ought to humanise the manners of men than that any particular religion is true.
It is a misfortune to human nature when religion is given by a conqueror. The Mahometan religion, which speaks only by the sword, acts still upon men with that destructive spirit with which it was founded.
Edmund Burke was exactly right. An iTunes link to a dance song to go with this is here.
"The Spirit of the Laws" is available here.
