Archive for category: Jeffrey Nyquist Commentary

My previous analysis of the Iranian crisis focused on whether Israel or the United States will preemptively attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. This question does not require us to investigate which course of action is right or wrong, strategically sound or unsound. The question is whether a certain military action will be taken or not. Today’s column will leave this question and focus on the Iranian side. What does the Iranian leadership want? What are they trying to achieve? What unintended consequences are likely to follow?

On Saturday President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran is about to unveil “major achievements in the nuclear domain.” He said an announcement would follow in a matter of days. More than a week ago, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that Iran would never give up. “We will respond to threats of war and oil sanctions.” Indeed, Iran is suffering from sanctions and the freezing of assets.

UN Security Council Resolution 1696 calls on Iran to suspend all uranium enrichment and related activities. Several other UN Security Council Resolutions have been passed, basically restricting Iranian access to technology and equipment. The European Union has passed sanctions against Iran, as well as several nations – including Canada, Australia, Switzerland, India, the United States and South Korea.

Iranian President Ahmadinejad does not hide the fact that Iran is attempting “major achievements in the nuclear domain.” Undoubtedly, a country that is floating on oil, and has a plentiful supply of domestic energy, does not need nuclear power. Furthermore, why should Iran defy the international community in pursuit of this power? Nuclear power is more expensive than energy from fossil fuels. Add to this the cost of an embargo and sanctions. Is it not madness to persist?

What could the Iranian leaders be thinking? There is only one path to discovery. You have to ask someone who has been inside the Iranian system. Iranian defector and former Revolutionary Guardsman Reza Kahlili has written a book about the inner workings of the Iranian regime, titled A Time To Betray. It describes a leadership that believes in the coming of the Mahdi (or twelfth Imam), a figure from Islamic eschatology who will annihilate the unbelievers worldwide. According to Kahlili, Ahmadinejad “believes that many of the signs of the Madhi’s return have emerged. Known as Hadiths, these signs include the invasion of Afghanistan, the bloodshed in Iraq, and the global economic meltdown.”

Islamic prophecy says chaos and war, famine and mass death will set the stage for the appearance of the Mahdi. What could such a prophecy signify, if not the aftermath of a nuclear war? “People like Ahmadinejad so completely believe that these conditions would hasten the return of the twelfth Imam [Madhi], that they were willing to foment universal war, chaos, and famine to bring it about.” What the Iranian regime wants, according to Kahlili, is to immanentize the Islamic eschaton. Kahlili claims that the Iranian regime plans to unleash a nuclear war – a thousand suitcase nukes detonated in Europe and America at one time (or some such terrorist fantasy).

There is little doubt that Kahlili is accurately describing the openly professed beliefs of the Iranian leaders. What is unclear is whether the pragmatic business of statecraft can be entirely given over to a religious enthusiasm. Do the Iranian leaders govern with the idea of triggering the appearance of the Mahdi?

Last 7 November Joel C. Rosenberg wrote a piece for Fox News with the title Why Iran’s Top Leaders Believe That the End of Days Has Come. In this piece Rosenberg refers to a July 2010 claim by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that he personally met the Mahdi (or twelfth Imam). Furthermore, the Ayatollah claims to be the Madhi’s representative. And there is more.

Last year a CD was widely distributed within Iran, titled The Appearance Is Imminent. From this CD we learn that the Mahdi is soon to appear. The CD also suggests that the Ayatollah Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad are the Mahdi’s helpers. Atousa Bayan, writing on balatarin.com, tells us the CD was “widely criticized” and that Iranian clerics and officials admonished the people who produced it, “and distanced themselves from the program.” However, wrote Bayan, “[T]wo important people did not react to the whole debacle – Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.” Bayan went on to site a prominent Qom cleric who insisted on “the story of a miracle in which witnesses said that at the time of his birth, Ayatollah Khamenei uttered the name of Imam Ali.” Such claims, according to Bayan, show “the deteriorating image of clerics who would resort to telling unfathomable stories in order to create an air of sanctity around Iran’s Supreme Leader, a man bestowed with unlimited and unchecked power….”

In 2008 The Middle East Quarterly offered an article by Mohebat Ahdiyyih, titled Ahmadinejad and the Mahdi. According to Ahdiyyih, “After the 1979 revolution, the Islamic Republic incorporated the idea of Mahdism into its complex system of governance.” In this concept, the government of Iran and its top leaders are, by definition, “representatives of the Madhi in the ‘first government of God’ on earth.” In fact, the Iranian parliament is allowed to exist only insofar as its deputies offer their “services to [the] Lord of the Age [the Mahdi], may God speed his blessed appearance.” Since the first days of Ayatollah Khomeini’s regime, officials of the Iranian government paid lip service to the Madhi. Ahmadinejad and Khamenei are not the first Iranian leaders to pose as harbingers of the messiah. They have merely brought this belief front and center.

Reza Kahlili worked inside the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. He witnessed atrocities. He saw how crazy the regime’s beliefs were; so he decided to work for the CIA – to become a spy. In Kahlili’s account the Iranian regime plans to inflict massive destruction on Israel, the United States and Europe. If Iran becomes a nuclear power, he says, it will be too late for the world. Unprecedented destruction and suffering will follow.

How do we analyze Kahlili’s claim? First, we do not wish to believe such a claim. If we accept what he says, then we must invade Iran with ground forces. This would be expensive and unpopular. No American politician would publicly advocate such a plan. As the Iranian regime has total control over its own population, an internal uprising is unlikely. What is more likely, then, is that Iran will eventually attack the United States. Unfortunately for Khamenei and Ahmadinejad, the chaos unleashed in this attack will not bring forth the Mahdi. Instead, the chaos will bring forth the ascendancy of the undamaged powers (those not hit by Iran’s planned nuclear assault).

The year 2012 is going to be an exciting one. There will be a presidential election in the United States. There may be a military clash in the Strait of Hormuz. But the most important changes may occur in Russia, where the Russian people are preparing to challenge the government of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.  During the street protests in Moscow and other cities last month, a new feeling swept the country. This feeling has its roots in the development of an authentic Russian middle class. It is not a wealthy middle class by Western standards, but it nonetheless bears the mark of self-sufficiency and decency. Either this decency will prevail, or it will be checked. Either Putin will be swept from power or the Russian middle class will be smashed.

On one side of the struggle is the surviving machinery of old Soviet state: the secret police, the Interior Ministry, the large corporations, and Putin’s controlled media.  On the other side we see millions of people who are fed up with arbitrary government power, gangster methods, and who want to see the rule of law. Each side has its own rhetoric, its own philosophy.

Exemplifying the rhetoric of the Russian state, consider a recent Pravda.ru opinion piece titled Nuclear War on the horizon. Here is a view sometimes expressed by operatives of the Kremlin. In fact, something akin to this view was put forward by Vladimir Putin when he spoke to the Russian nation following the Beslan massacre of September 2004. At that time he blamed America for conspiring to murder Russian children, claiming that “someone” wanted to break up Russia and finish off what remained of the Soviet state because Moscow still had nuclear weapons.

In the Pravda.ru column, America is depicted as threatening the entire world with nuclear annihilation. The United States is accused of leading a bloody “genocidal campaign against Libya” and of threatening the same against Iran. No credit is given to U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta for publicly speaking out against a preemptive attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. In fact, the United States is embarking upon a program of spontaneous disarmament. As Congress has been unable to pass the necessary deficit reduction package, the U.S. Defense Department will face what Panetta says are “devastating, automatic, across-the-board cuts that will tear a seam in the nation’s defense.”

The real policy of the United States and the real objectives of the U.S. military are never acknowledged by Putin’s spokesmen. In the Pravda.ru column we read: “The forces of demonic evil now have come nose to nose with the forces of reason.” This was a reference to the Russian fleet stationed near Syria, and the potential for a confrontation with NATO warships. Here the old rhetoric of the Soviet Union appears once more. The war drums are thundering, and the “imperialist aggressor” is called to account. But we cannot take it seriously. For something else has appeared on the horizon, which Putin says was inspired by the CIA: a popular opposition movement against his KGB regime.

Exemplifying this opposition we find Danila Galperovich’s interview with Russian dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, translated for Frontpagemag.com [2] by Yelena Glazova. Here we find a frank discussion of Moscow’s police state methods. Here we learn that the KGB has “lost much of their qualitative acumen and sharpness in the last twenty years.” And why wouldn’t they? According to KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn, the post-Soviet regime of pretended democracy was not supposed to last twenty years. It was designed to overpower the West in ten years. So the plan didn’t work. So Russia’s hidden totalitarian structures have begun to decay. They have remained under fake bourgeois auspices too long; and besides, there is no Stalin to lead them. In this matter we should remember what Stalin said to his henchmen during his last days: “You are like blind kittens; what will happen without me? The country will perish because you do not know how to recognize enemies.”

What Bukovsky goes on to describe is the fate of these blind kittens, caught up in the crisis of Russia’s false democracy. One might say it is the crisis of a deception gone too long, carried too far by structures that can no longer bear the load. A world war might have once saved the current Russian regime, granting it renewed legitimacy in the midst of crisis. But now it is too late. According to Bukovsky, the incompetence of the regime is such that if Stalin were alive today he would have them all shot. “They cannot even blow up the buildings in their capital city without exposing themselves and leaving traces,” Bukovsky added, referring to the 1999 apartment bombings that were used to justify the KGB’s return to power. “Nothing [in the KGB/FSB] works as it should,” says Bukovsky.

So how will this Kremlin, with its third generation blind kittens, survive the growing groundswell of popular opposition? Bukovsky says that the KGB understands how to manipulate mass movements with its network of double agents. But in the end, this method will not work. “The social atmosphere in due course becomes ever more politicized, radicalized,” Bukovsky explained. In the end, the KGB cannot join the protests against itself without damaging its own position. And so, Russia faces a serious political crisis in March or April. This crisis will likely grow, and spiral out of control.

Such is the hopeful, optimistic language of Putin’s opposition – represented by Vladimir Bukovsky. It does not entail fear-mongering or anti-Western propaganda. It simply describes a regime that has lost touch with its people. Such a regime may accuse the United States of fostering a revolution in Russia, or threatening the whole world with nuclear destruction; but the game of deflecting criticism in the wake of fraudulent elections does not appear to be working.

The year 2012 should prove decisive for Russia. Will the anti-Americanism take Russia by the throat? Or will the KGB regime lose its grip? One year from today we should know the answer.

Are we headed for hyperinflation? Consider the Web site of the National Inflation Association (NIA), www.inflation.us  – with the subtitle Preparing Americans for Hyperinflation. According to the NIA, “The United States now has over $76 trillion in total debt obligations. Our budget deficit in February of 2011 alone was a record $225.5 billion, more than the entire year of 2007.” The NIA believes that the U.S. federal government will not be able to balance its budget, let alone pay off its existing national debt. Inflation is therefore inevitable as the government will have no alternative. Not everyone agrees with this assessment, however. Looking at the situation very differently, Wall Street Journal Economic Editor David Wessel concluded that an “immediate outbreak of inflation is improbable.” The economy, after all, is stagnant. How could there be inflation? Of course there are special circumstances that could arise, Wessel admits. But these are nonetheless unlikely.

How are we to evaluate the inflation question? Is there more sense in the “big picture” analysis of the NIA? Or is there more sense in the detailed analysis of David Wessel? The NIA takes the long view while David Wessel is trying to see what may be lurking around the next corner. What we find in the NIA and WSJ is two approaches to the same question. In the game of prediction, “big picture” analysis usually won’t tell you want is going to happen in the short run; and most details of the moment are mere trivia when it comes to the long run.

Those who specialize in long run thinking are sometimes called “philosophers,” or lovers of wisdom. One of the more relevant philosophers of the last century was Jose Ortega y Gasset, who wrote a remarkable little book published in 1930 under the title The Revolt of the Masses. One of the core themes of the book is that, “for good or ill,” the masses have ascended to “complete social power.” Ortega called this situation “the greatest crisis that can afflict peoples, nations, and civilization.” He noted that mass man is only concerned with his own well-being while remaining ignorant of the principles that make civilized existence possible. “They do not see behind the benefits of civilization,” he wrote. “The mass man has a radical ingratitude towards all that has made possible the ease of his existence.” This might include the principles of economics, thrift and industry. The mass man is focused on the immediate future, and immediate gratification. He does not look to the long run. “The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs,” wrote John Maynard Keynes. “In the long run we’re all dead.” (Spoken with due sensitivity to the spirit of the age.)

Something is definitely lost when we adopt a negative attitude toward the long run. In a chapter titled “Primitivism and History,” Ortega argued that “Nature is always with us.” Civilization, however, is not Nature and is not always with us. Civilization is artificial and fragile. “If you want to make use of the advantages of civilization,” he warned, “but are not prepared to concern yourself with the upholding of civilization – you are done.” Civilization exists because of long run thinking. It is maintained by long run thinking. Therefore, civilization is imperiled at a time when nearly everyone is focused on the short run. A key symptom is found in a general want of historical knowledge. “The most ‘cultured’ people today are suffering from incredible ignorance of history,” wrote Ortega. “I maintain that at the present day, European leaders know much less history than their fellows of the nineteenth, even of the seventeenth century.”

A similar statement could be made with regard to economic knowledge. Just as we have been losing our sense of history, we have been losing that sense which says “a penny saved is a penny earned.” If the mass man is merely concerned with his immediate gratification, and if he has no regard for the economic long-run, is not indebtedness his destiny? And once he finds himself ruined by short-sightedness, what desperate measure will he next employ?  Retrogression is likely, Ortega predicted. By this he meant “typical movements of mass men, directed, as all such are, by men who are mediocrities, improvised, devoid of long memory and a ‘historic conscience,’ they behave from the start as if they already belonged to the past….”

If we look back at history, we see that inflation and economic stagnation can exist together. We also see that inflation is the natural course of government when leaders prove themselves ignorant. And why should leaders be any more enlightened than the so-called “experts” and professors who advise them today? What was taken as common sense for centuries is now considered out-of-date. The same John Maynard Keynes quoted above also said, “In truth, the gold standard is already a barbarous relic.” Indeed! The Roman Emperor Caracalla debased the silver denarius from 95 percent silver to 50 percent and then 0.5 percent. Barbarian mercenaries in service to the emperor would not accept payment in Roman coins, but insisted on payment in gold.

History suggests that all fiat currencies are headed for worthlessness. We do not know, of course, how long it will take in any given case. The National Inflation Association has a number of intriguing charts, which readers may wish to evaluate for themselves (see http://inflation.us/charts.html [4]). The one that caught my attention is titled “Fed & Treasury Total Money (FTTM).” According to this chart the Fed & Treasury total money supply began to skyrocket after the 2008 economic meltdown. The NIA set down the following note below the chart, “The DOW Jones has rallied 97 percent from its low in March of 2009. However, adjusted for real inflation, the Dow Jones is about equal to where it was in 1963.”

Inflation is already here, and worse is coming.

Those who fear Russia are easily mocked. “The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming,” is on video. Watch it and laugh. Concern about communist subversion is also mocked. All you have to do is remember what a bad egg Joseph McCarthy was, if you remember at all. To allay any lingering doubt or fear, go to Russia and take the KGB tour. See all the rusting submarines and missile boats you want. You can even see rusty signs in front of Russia’s ABM radar at Sofrino.

If you subscribed to “National Review” when it was still under the influence of Whittaker Chambers and James Burnham, you may remember a completely different magazine than exists today. It’s funny how vigilance and a sense of danger can be turned into smug self-satisfaction over time.

Twenty years ago, a Russian KGB defector named Anatoliy Golitsyn went to see William F. Buckley, the editor of “National Review.” Golitsyn needed help on writing a book with the title “New Lies for Old.” It was about Russia’s strategy of faking the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. As it happened, Buckley showed Golitsyn the door.

After the “patron saint of American conservatives” closed the door on the truth about communist strategy, few would have the courage to look back and say that Golitsyn was right. The changes in Eastern Europe have been deceptive, orchestrated and calculated from on high. The strategy has been to disarm the West and get communist bloc countries inside NATO – to subvert the alliance from within.

Consider the Czech Republic as an example. Having entered NATO, it is yet controlled by the old communists who are waiting for a signal from Moscow. That’s all it will take for them to reverse the changes that have taken place since 1989. Yesterday, I received a letter from a politically active Czech citizen, Hana Catalanova. “I know how hard this is to make people see,” she wrote. “You might think it is better over here … no, it is not!”

The big lie of 1989, the grand deception, was cynically calculated to take advantage of modern apathy and ignorance: “… we are actually living our lives in such lies, and people don’t care,” wrote Catalanova. “What about the next generation, our kids?”

Hana worries about freedom and the truth. Explaining how the communists retained control after the Velvet Revolution of 1989, she noted, “The problem here is that too many people were involved and engaged in shady deals with the secret police and corruption … betraying their friends, fellow workers, next door neighbors. And this is such a small country.”

America has a different excuse for turning its back on freedom and the truth. As I once told a leading Russian military defector who asked about America’s unpatriotic attitudes, “They’re too busy shopping and having fun.”

The Czechs have another problem. “In towns and villages everyone knows everyone,” explained Catalanova, “They are hiding their past behind the silence. They stay deaf to everything that doesn’t concern them, because if they speak up, somebody might tell who they were before. I can tell you, it is all very depressing.”

Hana Catalanova has written an important essay on the imprisonment of Captain Vladimir Hucin, a Czech official who has uncovered the truth about secret communist structures controlling important public institutions. “The whole world must know that communism is not dead,” wrote Catalanova. “It is very much alive and threatens to overthrow the world democracies.”

People here in America look around and wonder why the environmentalists are so strong, why business is under assault and rural property rights are no longer secure. They wonder why so many are teaching Marxist propaganda in schools and universities. Some of us cannot understand why our political leaders keep insisting on further military cutbacks as they continue to do business with the gangsters in Beijing and Moscow.

The short answer is: We’ve been subverted, infiltrated, duped and manipulated by communists and leftists. We have been too busy shopping and having fun to notice their “long march” through our institutions. We have been too absorbed in our careers and personal satisfactions. And now our country has its own hidden (or not so hidden) communist structures. As Russia and China prepare new missiles against us, our own state system allows itself to be unthinkingly nudged toward self-dissolution.

The danger is real, despite all the ridicule that comes to mind about “communists under every bush.” Have you talked to your daughter’s social studies teacher? Have you any idea where all this political correctness ultimately comes from?

If I joined the present chorus writing about shark attacks, the response to my column would be huge. But since I write about the advance of communism, about evidence that our Cold War enemy has been playing a trick on us, I get hardly any response at all. Americans have lost their sense of self preservation, their sense of history.

Do you really think that an enemy of more than four decades simply ran up the white flag because he couldn’t “pay the bills”?

Of course, that’s what you want to believe to keep your peace of mind. But this peace of mind is for fools. Give it up and get with the facts and testimony. The superficial reports on Russia, Chechnya, Eastern Europe and the collapse of communism are laced with falsehood and distortion. Such reports do not convey a real understanding of events.

French journalist Anne Nivat’s book on the Chechin war has recently been translated into English. It deserves to be widely read, though few will understand its importance. Nivat disguised herself as a Chechin refugee and watched events close up. Many of the Chechins she interviewed felt the war was a Kremlin puppet show. “I’m ashamed for Western Europe, where you live in a world of lies,” an elderly Chechin told Navat. “We are all victims, manipulated by the politicians in Moscow.”

The same could be said for America.