Iftar

Hooman Majd's account of the Iftar feast president Mahmoud Ahmadenijad threw while in New York for Iranian-Americans to break the Ramadan fast with him is pretty fascinating. Among other things, it drives home the extent to which whatever it is we're dealing with when it comes to hardline views on the nuclear issue is really basic Iranian nationalism and nothing to do with any religious views or Islamism as such.

Comments

I think you're fooling yourself if you think Ahmadinejad and the radical-Islamist "26 percenters" whom he represents are driven simply or primarily by "basic Iranian nationalism". Ask any Iranian who is part of the other 74 percent and s/he will tell you that Persian culture and history mean little to the hizbollahi, or at least much less than their millenarian vision. Many of them have outright contempt for pre- and non-Islamic Iranian concerns.

Posted by John-Paul Pagano | October 7, 2007 6:07 PM

To whatever extent there are such things as national psychologies and motivations, I presume Iranian nationalism is influenced by its history and religion about as much as the United States. OK, maybe more, being a minority variant of Islam, historically oppressed, and surrounded by its vastly more powerful and numerous main competitor.

OTOH, religion & ideology can sometimes be more important for particular leaders or factions.

Posted by bob mcmanus | October 7, 2007 6:19 PM

Those Iranian-American traitors should be sent to Guantanamo.

Posted by Wurd | October 7, 2007 9:24 PM

I'm not sure what the point of that quite short article was, but it definitely was not particularly "fascinating."

Neither does it establish much about either religion or Iranian nationalism or anything else vis-a-vis the nuclear ENERGY program. All it establishes is that Ahmadinejad adheres to his religion pretty much like Bush does.

If the article had been about a Jewish Israeli leader leading a group of American Jews in some religious dinner, and somebody who was not Jewish commented on it in any way, they would be accused of "anti-Semitism".

As for Wurd, the American traitors who are ginning up a pointless war with Iran over nothing but an intent to seize more oil fields should be shot in the head. Don't even bother with Quantanamo for them.

And BTW, everybody who is involved in running Quantanamo should be executed by firing squad as war criminals.

Quantanamo should be shut down, and all prisoners then repatriated to their citizenship countries (after taking careful note of which ones might ACTUALLY BE "terrorists", as opposed to just people snatched up and rendered here.)

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 7, 2007 10:26 PM

Khomeini shut down the Shah's nuclear program because he felt that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were un-Islamic. The Iranians involved in the nuclear program are in fact working contrary to their stated ideology as defined by their movement's founder.

Posted by Reality Man | October 8, 2007 3:20 AM