The Ahmadinejad Test
The world is divided into two kinds of people. There are the people who take Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at his word, and those who do not. This is the Ahmadinejad Test.
Taking Ahmadinejad seriously is not hard work. All it requires is paying attention to what he says. Not taking Ahmadinejad seriously requires more effort. You have to believe he is a mere puppet who has no real power, or that he can be bought off, or that he doesn’t mean what he says, or that he never said it in the first place.
We believe that Ahmadinejad is something of a rock star to many young people of the Islamic world, particularly those susceptible to being radicalized. We would not go as far as to call him ‘debonair’ (Hugh Hewitt), but he speaks colorfully and with intensity and power. We agree with Robert Ferrigno that he is authentically millennarian, charismatic, and spoiling for a fight (HT: LGF).
The Ahmadinejad Test seems a pretty useful prism through which to guage our fellow citizens, more useful, perhaps, than theoretical distinctions, like the Spencer / Esmay debate. If you take Ahmadinejad seriously, it follows that Iran must be prevented from getting nuclear weapons, no matter what it takes to do so. Thus we noted today UN ambassador John Bolton on one side of the divide.
An example of two men on different sides of the divide might be last Sunday’s MTP. Newt Gingrich was firmly on one side, whereas Tim Russert seemed on the other (“Has our involvement and presence in Iraq and the difficulties in that war, and the costs of that war, limited our options with Iran?…people would support another war? And do you—how would the world respond to the U.S. invading another Muslim country?”) Well, if you take Ahmadinejad at his word, Mr. Russert, it really doesn’t matter how Iraq complicates matters, or how the rest of the world reacts, since above all, Ahmedinejad must be stopped.
There has been a lot of ennui in evidence in the blogosphere over the last few months. There are plenty of plausible and sufficient reasons given for this. We think Ahmadinejad may be a factor, like storm clouds off to the West. There is hail and lightning in the distance; maybe tornadoes too. All you have to do is be willing to look in the right direction. No wonder people are uneasy.
UPDATE
Bruce Kesler has the best round-up we have seen of the more timely and pressing reasons for today’s malaise.