Double Standards

Double Standards Bespeak Hypocrisy

The media has reported on a suicide bomber attack in south-east Iran, which borders Afghanistan and Pakistan. The bomber killed "six senior Revolutionary Guards commanders, including two of its top officers, and 25 other people on Sunday in one of the boldest attacks against Iran's most powerful military institution."

This, of course, was an evil, murderous act. But what is strikingly incongruous is the reaction of Iran as voiced through the mouthpiece of President Ahmadinejad, who called those responsible, criminals, vowing they would soon be brought to justice. So, let's get this straight. When Ahmadinejad sends Shi'ite extremists into Iraq to blow up Sunni Muslims it represents a noble act of courage and holy martyrdom. When he calls for Israel to be wiped off the face of the earth, it is a righteous demand. But when Muslim suicide bombers kill Iranis they are not holy martyrs, but criminals whose helpers will be brought to justice. But to Ahmadinejad this glaring inconsistency is not a problem at all.

Ahmadinejad is an extreme, fundamentalist Shi'ite. He is looking for the emergence of the twelfth Mahdi (direct descendant of Mahommed) to subdue all the world. You can read the background of Ahmadinejad's messianism here, here, and here. He believes that the twelfth Mahdi is now alive, but currently hidden. He will only show himself at the right time, which will be when Iran and Shia Islam is under terrible threat. It is almost certainly true that Ahmadinejad wants to engage Iran in a nuclear conflagration which will cause the Mahdi to reveal himself, subduing all his enemies, or destroying the recalcitrant (which include the Great Satan, and Sunnis).

Such ideas are, of course, laughable to the sophisticates in the West. It leads to the condescending paternalism which is so often on display toward Iran. The arrogant West forgets that wrong, bad, and evil ideas can have terrible consequences. It also overlooks the fact that people have an unfortunate tendency to act consistently with their ideologies and beliefs. The West tends to discount the problem thinking that no-one could be so stupid, and that in the end Ahmadinejad is just grand-standing like a petulant child, trying to negotiate a deal and extract money out of the West. He does not really believe that Mahdi stuff. Therefore, cutting a deal with him is still feasible and likely. After all, it's the American way.

These things aside, the hypocrisy of Ahmadinejad and his ilk remains. Suicide bombing is OK when Iran does it; then it is not murder, but holy martyrdom. The fact that Ahmadinejad sees no inconsistency in this exposes the depravity of his particular religious beliefs, and therefore, the evil regnant within his heart. People who discount him (and his supporters) as madmen, or as grandstanders are naive in the extreme. Ahmadinejad is both chillingly sane and depraved. But a madman he is not. That view of the Iranian president is Western presumptive arrogance and condescension.