Culture

Iran is a paper tiger

December 06, 2010
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* Iran is a paper tiger

Iran is a paper tiger

Thursday February 24th, 2011

Doors open at 6pm. The debate starts at 6.45pm and finishes at 8.30pm.

Event Info

Listen to what President Ahmedinejad of Iran says about Israel: “The world powers established this filthy bacteria, the Zionist regime.” Here he is on the West: “We thank God that our enemies are idiots.”

Does this man sound like a serious threat? The Islamic regime in Iran loves to bare its claws and snarl, but isn’t this all just am dram posturing? It may suit Israel to portray Iran’s sabre-rattling as an existential threat and it may suit the US to play up that threat. But even if Iran does acquire a nuclear strike capability won’t it be primarily for exhibitionist reasons? And won’t that threat be dwarfed by the far more sophisticated weaponry that Israel and the US could muster in response?

That’s the argument of those happy to dismiss Iran as a paper tiger. But have they got it horribly wrong? Would Arab governments really have beseeched the US to bomb Iran – as revealed by Wikileaks – if its regime were no more than a duff joke? Could it be that a nuclear-armed Iran is every bit as bad as the scaremongers say it is?

http://www.intelligencesquared.com/events/iran