Gautam Mukunda wrote:
>
> Gautam Mukunda wrote:
> > Well, there is evidence that they are working together more closely. They
> > are both supporting the Palestinian terrorists extensively, for example.
> > Saddam Hussein gives tens of thousands of dollars to the family of every
> > suicide bomber - in fact, if you worked it out by Purchasing Power Parity,
> I
> > believe it comes out to almost $1M by American standards. The Iranians
> have
> > already been caught smuggling huge amounts of weaponry (including _2 tons_
> > of C4) to the terrorists as well. Saddam Hussein is a sociopath. The
> > Iranians, by contrast, are supremely pragmatic. The common image of them
> as
> > religious fanatics is rather incorrect. Brenda Shafer, who works next
> door
> > to me at the Kennedy School, has done some fascinating work on that topic.
>
> Well, then, can you point us to anything she's produced on that? Or go
> into more detail? Or are you just trying to tantalize us? :)
>
> Julia
>
> Sorry - it's all preliminary work, unpublished yet so far as I know - she
> and I just had a conversation in the hall about it a few days ago. Her
> argument was that if you really study the Iranians act - and accept their
> premises as to where their interests lie, of course - they really are
> ruthlessly pragmatic, not driven by religious concerns in their foreign
> policy in any particular way at all. This suggests (in my interpretation,
> not necessarily hers) that they are deterrable in a way that, say, Hussein
> is not.
Thanks for the extra clarification; if you can provide us with any more
on the subject in the future, I for one would be very interested.
Julia
