A catastrophe in the making - Times Online: "
Moscow has used apocalyptic language before, and no one is seriously suggesting that Warsaw or Crakow will become smoking ruins any time soon. But the Polish move, and the Russian threat, provide the clearest evidence yet that the six-day Georgian war has spread to Eastern Europe’s ancient fault-lines."
I suppose the only good thing out of all this, is that we can safely say, that the Russians are just as bad as the Americans. Until last week it was US this and US that, and poor old Russia has no force, and they are the "good guys". Go to any blog or forum in the web, and you see it filled up with how US did this to Iran, and how it removed Mossadegh, brought back the Shah. And normally you get an answer, from the more educated types, that in the 70's we had the Soviet threat to worry about. Jimmy Carter came around and called Iran something to the effect of "Iran was the bastion of stability". And then he did nothing when Khomeini came around. The Shah called it the alliance of Red and Black.
Now it has gone full circle, the Russians, are the bad boys again. They are no longer given the benefit of doubt. The right wing in the Western world breathes a sigh of relief. The nationalists who are above relgion and politics, also feel that they can finally tell the politicians, to forget their "democratization" ideologies, and think about national soverignity, which is more important. So hopefully in Iran, the nationalist sentiment will rise above political and relgious differences. We Iranians will put Iran above politics, religion and commerce.
What we can now say, is that the US will feel vindicated, that its campaign into Iraq is not unique. Or is it, that the US's actions in Iraq, led the Russians to believe that they can send their tanks and aircraft anywhere as well. And what are we to think, that the next escalation will be Iran, when one little skirmish between the IRGC and US forces erupts into a full scale war? As we can see, it does not take much to light up fireworks. Will Russia and the US want to cut up Northern Iran from Southern Iran. Will we become balkanized? These questions are old questions that we never thought would come around, but they have.
World history is full of scenarios like these, and for a moment I thought the 21st Century was going to be different. History repeats itself, but not exactly. We do not have a strong nationalist in Iran. We have a Royal Institution and Cyrus Reza Phalavi has been chosen to run it. We need to have the identity of Iran be asserted so that it does not become second to religion as it is now, or to democracy as a Federation of states. Iranian culture is winning against the Seyyeds and their religious dogma. People ignore them. But is the Royal Institution really doing enough. It has not really created an alternative council to uphold real Iran as opposed to this theocracy. And if it has, the media of the world have shut it out. More needs to be done on both the media side, and the Royal Institution side. Not even an alternative Council of Guardians that put nationalism above everything else, has been created. All the other little organizations are purely political.
Ironically the Iranian identity and self-concept is now very strong. We have all had to make big choices. The youth in Iran clearly know what they don't like. They do not like the Seyyeds. They do not like politics, religion, or big business. People want to have freedom to express and build what they want to do. That freedom to express and build comes from the Spirit of the Avesta, that has written some 15000 years ago, that "Gozineshi" is the only way to "Khorsandi". An Iranian wrote this, and it has remained in our hearts all this time. It is at the root of Free Will. The Iranian Free Will is there to save and unite us and it is winning against the Seyyeds and any future alien wherever it may come from; be it from the US side or the Russian side.
