Iranium
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“Death to America,” say the leaders of Iran, constantly.
I’m all for peace, love, and understanding, but even I am not hopeful that we will ever be friends with the current regime in Tehran.
The Ayatollahs came to power in 1979 as a direct backlash against the American-backed Shah. The Shiite extremists blamed the United States for almost turning Iran into a decadent, secular western society.
When America allied itself with Iran’s two main rivals in the region (Saudi Arabia and Israel) and invaded its two neighbors (Iraq and Afghanistan), we solidified the perception that the US was enemy number 1.
According to the pessimistic documentary “Iranium,” it is definitely the Islamic Republic of Iran that is the belligerent party in this new cold war. And the United States shouldn’t ever trust the Iranians or let our guard down.
The film reminds us that one of Ayatollah Khomeini’s first foreign policy actions was to storm the U.S. embassy in Tehran and take 52 Americans hostage.
It also reminds us of the 1983 suicide bomb that killed 241 marines at a barracks in Beirut. The attack was masterminded by the Iran-sponsored militia group Hezbollah.
The most interesting claim that the movie makes is that the Iranian Constitution is unique — and uniquely evil. Supposedly, it doesn’t say a thing about the Persian people or the country itself. It is a global message of jihad. The purpose of the Islamic Republic is to spread the Shiite religion by force.
It is an ugly fact that there is a line item in Iran’s annual budget that specifically sets aside funding for international terrorism.
Up to this point, “Iranium” is educational and almost reasonable.
In the final chapter, the film gets apocalyptic and kooky. The documentarians argue that if Iran gets a nuclear weapon, it will be the end of the world — almost literally.
They claim that Iran will detonate a nuke in the atmosphere in the middle of the United States, creating a shock wave that will burn out every single electric device in the country. Nine in 10 Americans will be dead of starvation or disease within the year.
I refuse to even waste my time trying to refute this ludicrous paranoid nightmare fantasy. The actual worst case scenario is that Iran will drop one nuclear bomb and then we will promptly invade the country and annihilate the Islamic Republic.
The more probable scenario is that the Iranian people will get sick of their crappy cleric overlords before they even become a nuclear power and overthrow the regime themselves.
I agree that the current regime in Tehran is disgustingly backward and barbaric. But the Persian people themselves are not.
If you think that human history began in the late 1970s and that Barry Gibb and Donna Summer are Adam and Eve, I can see how you can make the mistake of thinking that the Persians are by nature intolerant.
If you do a little research, however, you’ll learn that the Islamic Republic is a brief, ugly exception to the rule of Persian pluralism. In the mid 6th Century BC, Zoroastrian Emperor Cyrus The Great proclaimed that all minority faiths in the Persian Empire must be treated with tolerance and respect.
In other words, there was slightly greater religious freedom in Persia 2600 years ago than there is in Mississippi today.
In conclusion, the idiots in Iran can say “Death to America” all they want. It is their reprehensible regime that will be dying soon.