Iran

Reports from Iran tell a story of an increasing crackdown by what has become a repressive and nervous regime. Its nuclear ambitions demonstrate a technological sophistication which presents a curious irony. More and more of the educated young are turning against the Ayatollah’s State, their common purpose given momentum by the communications potential of the very same technological advance. Censorship is no longer effective, as in the days of tapping landlines and closing newspapers. It is this enlightenment and growing public unrest which will in time lead to change in Iran. In other words the Iranian people alone will effect reform and bring their country in from the cold.

The more the West, egged on by Israel which is the sole author of almost all of its modern troubles and a good few of ours, bullies, berates and demands that Iran mends its way to our path, the more the regime will be bolstered and entrenched. Sanctions do not work in this situation. Witness North Korea, Cuba, Libya. The combined total of the longevity of these regimes is nearly 150 years. Sense has come to prevail with Libya, though not among certain naive U.S Senators. We also pursued an aggressive policy of sanctions against Saddam Hussein. The least said about that calamity the better.