Ceren - Chanting Iranian Human Shields Circle Nuclear Plant

Omri Ceren
Commentary/Contentions
15 November '11


http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/11/15/iranian-human-shields-nuclear-plant/

Since the Iranian regime has already declared that no one will dare use force to stop Tehran’s genocidal drive for nuclear weapons, presumably this spectacle was just organized for the sheer hateful fun of it. It’s the apocalyptic chanting that makes the stunt particularly delightful:

Hundreds of students on Tuesday formed a human chain around the uranium conversion plant in central Iran, in a demonstration staged by students to show that Iranians were ready to sacrifice their lives if the nuclear sites were attacked by Israel… After holding a noon prayer session in front of the plant’s main gate, students from Isfahan universities shouted “Death to Israel” and “Death to America.” They vowed to resist in the event of an attack.

I eagerly anticipate intricate lectures from Iran apologists explaining how the students were mistranslated. Yes, they were mobilized by Iranian authorities to serve as human shields for Iranian nuclear assets, the argument will run, but they weren’t chanting “Death to Israel” at all. Instead, what they were saying was “we’d like the mean Zionists who occasionally impose road blocks on the beatific Palestinian people to go back to Europe at some indeterminate time in the future.” And if you think that argument is too stupid for words, and that no media outlet would or could print it, you haven’t been reading the Washington Post lately.

In more recent news, both Russia and China responded to the new IAEA report by emphasizing their utter lack of enthusiasm for new sanctions. Buoyed in part by their support, Iran’s foreign minister recently declared that there’s “no more point” in making concessions, which is another way of saying that there’s no more point in negotiations.

And why would they negotiate? After years of IAEA foot dragging internationally – to the point where Israeli officials are now comfortable calling ElBaradei an out-and-out Iranian agent – capped off domestically by the 2007 NIE quasi-putsch that knocked out Bush’s legs, Iran is now close enough to the finish line that they don’t really need to maintain pretenses any more.

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