My friend is visiting the Motherland and here is a picture taken below. I’m speaking on Friday on a panel on “Iran: America’s next War” and the picture below is a good question why it’s likely to be yes.

downtown Tehran; not something you would see in Islamabad (I hope)

My own perspective as a libertarian and an Iranian (my Iranian friends have begun to scold me that I overly identify with my South Asian Pakistani heritage as opposed to my Middle Eastern Iranian one) is that the US is consumed by increasing the scope of its national interest and Eisenhower’s warning on the military-industrial complex seems to be coming true. At the same time the West and its allies remain the only real beacon of liberty and prosperity in a pretty dismal world.

Despite the Arab Spring; Israel is the only real democracy in the Middle East and the continued unjustified opprobrium towards it (mirroring Pakistan’s enmity towards democratic India) mars the single most pressing issue in the Ummah; the best killers of Muslims happen to be Muslims themselves. Some of the examples, which come to mind Syria, Sudan in Darfur, Saddam’s Iraq, Iran-Iraq war which cost a million lives, Pakistan in Bangladesh; the new Green Line in Beirut is no longer Christian-Muslim but the airport road, which straddles the Shi’ite & Sunni areas.

Iran has to understand that much as its fuelled on the myths & memories (which are usually the same thing; I can barely remember my own recent past without obfuscating key details) of the Persian Empire it can’t go around challenging the powers that be. It is no David to America’s Goliath rather it is more a case of nasty gnat to a (gentle) giant. I find the British Muslim community, or rather its young lefty leadership, work themselves up over Islamophobia rather than take effective measures on how to integrate in society. Rather than fighting with Israel and the Jews; Iran and the Muslims should be taking lessons from them.

• Israel’s $100 billion economy is larger than all of its immediate neighbors combined. Israel has the highest percentage in the world of home computers per capita.
• Israel has the highest ratio of university degrees to the population in the world.
• Israel produces more scientific papers per capita than any other nation by a large margin – 109 per 10,000 people — as well as one of the highest per capita rates of patents filed.

“Moreover, materially as well (as spiritually), the Israelites will all gather in the Holy Land. This is irrefutable prophecy, for the ignominy which Israel has suffered for wellnigh twenty-five hundred years will now be changed into eternal glory, and in the eyes of all, the Jewish people will become glorified to such an extent as to draw the jealousy of its enemies and the envy of its friends.” Abdu’l-Bahá