What Ahmadinejad Knows

One of my cousins had emailed me yesterday after reading President Ahmadinejads comments during his UN speech. He wanted to know if Ahmadinejad was crazy.

Today in the Wall Street Journal, columnist Bret Stephens answers the very question my cousin posed to me yesterday.

Could it work? Like any politician, Ahmadinejad knows his demographic. The University of Maryland's World Public Opinion surveys have found that just 2% of Pakistanis believe al Qaeda perpetrated the attacks, whereas 27% believe it was the U.S. government. (Most respondents say they don't know.)

Among Egyptians, 43% say Israel is the culprit, while another 12% blame the U.S. Just 16% of Egyptians think al Qaeda did it. In Turkey, opinion is evenly split: 39% blame al Qaeda, another 39% blame the U.S. or Israel. Even in Europe, Ahmadinejad has his corner. Fifteen percent of Italians and 23% of Germans finger the U.S. for the attacks.

What Ahmadinejad knows is that there will always be a political place for what Michel Foucault called "the sovereign enterprise of Unreason." This is an enterprise whose domain encompasses the politics of identity, of religious zeal, of race or class or national resentment, of victimization, of cheek and self-assertion. It is the politics that uses conspiracy theory not just because it sells, which it surely does, or because it manipulates and controls, which it does also, but because it offends. It is politics as a revolt against empiricism, logic, utility, pragmatism. It is the proverbial rage against the machine.

Chances are you know people to whom this kind of politics appeals in some way, large or small. They are Ahmadinejad's constituency. They may be irrational; he isn't crazy.

See it here; http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704654004575517632476603268.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

So how do you build common ground with the Pakistanis when 14 times more of them think the U.S. government did 9/11 than believe Al Qaeda had anything to do with it? Same thing with the Egyptians. How about those Germans?? How long does it take to convince hundreds of millions of Muslims (many with little or no education) that the US government DID NOT blow up the Twin Towers in order to start two wars. I'm pretty sure we're fighting a losing battle on that front.

Ahmadinejad isn't crazy. He has Obama on the ropes and knows Obama isn't going to use strong arm tactics (U.S. military) to enforce anything he says. He also knows that by keeping the world focused on the Palestinian problem....he can continue to spin his centrifuges in quest of a nuclear bomb. And if he does manage to get one, the entire world will be on the ropes....as we wonder if Hezbollah or Hamas will end up the recipient of an Iranian gift.