| What Iran Really Wants |
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| July 17, 2006 |
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BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
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RUSH: One more story here on the upheaval in the Arab world over all that's going on in southern Lebanon with Hezbollah and Israel. "With the battle between Israel and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah raging, key Arab governments have taken the rare step of blaming Hezbollah, underscoring in part their growing fear of influence by the group’s main sponsor, Iran. Saudi Arabia, with Jordan, Egypt and several Persian Gulf states, chastised Hezbollah for 'unexpected, inappropriate and irresponsible acts' at an emergency Arab League summit meeting in Cairo on Saturday. The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, said of Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel, 'These acts will pull the whole region back to years ago, and we cannot simply accept them.'
"Prince Faisal spoke at the closed-door meeting but his words were reported to journalists by other delegates. "The meeting ended with participants asserting that the Middle East peace process had failed [Ha! Really?] and requesting help from the United Nations Security Council," which is the architect of all the failed peace processes! "It is nearly unheard of for Arab officials to chastise an Arab group engaged in conflict with Israel, especially as images of destruction by Israeli warplanes are beamed into Arab living rooms. Normally under such circumstances, Arabs are not blamed, and condemnations of Israel are routine. But the willingness of those governments to defy public opinion in their own countries underscores a shift that is prompted by the growing influence of Iran and Shiite Muslims in Iraq and across the region.
"The way some officials see it...Israel is the devil they know, but Iran is the growing threat. 'There is a school of thought, led by Saudi Arabia, that believes that Hezbollah is a source of trouble, a protégé of Iran, but also a political instrument in the hands of Iran,' said Adnan Abu Odeh, a Jordanian sociologist. ‘This school says we should not play into the hands of Iran, which has its own agenda, by sympathizing or supporting Hezbollah fighting against the Israelis.'" So what would be...? Mr. Snerdley, you tell me. What would Iran's agenda be here? What could they possibly want that they don't have? What is it that Iran wants? (interruption) Mmm-hmm. No, no. Well, that's (interruption). No, that's (interruption). I think they could... |
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 Mr. Snerdley said Iran wants a war. I don't think they really do. I think they're content to have proxies fight the war for them. What they want is Iraq. What they want is Syria. What they want is Lebanon, and they want the Saudi oil fields. That's what they want. I told you the other day: imagine a map of the Middle East where every country today says "Iran, Iran, Iran, Iran, Iran," and then there's Israel. Now, if they had their druthers, there wouldn't be any Israel, either. The United Arab Emirates and the Saudis, "Cutter" Qatar, whatever, they're worried about this, as I told you in the previous hour.
The Iranians are not Arabs. They are Persians. (interruption) Well, Snerdley is asking me if I don't think that Iran really wants to draw us into a conflict with them. In other words, you're saying that Iran wants war with the United States? Well, of course. If they think we're going to cut-and-run and then we don't do it, then they don't want a war with us. If they actually thought that we would not cut-and-run, I don't think they want a war with us. I don't think Iran wants that at all. I think they think if they can get what they want without having a war, that that would be cool, and that's why they're employing this strategy with trying to kick us out of Iraq and to try to make and render Israel impotent and so forth. This leader... You know, I'm going to tell you a little story.
I'll just tell you one thing. You know, the Friday before my infamous trip to the Dominican, I met with, as I told you, President Bush in the Oval Office for 20 minutes, and I asked him about this guy. I understood that I'm going to get surface-level answers here, but I can just tell you what he said. He said, "We don't know yet who this guy really is and what he really is. Is he really a lunatic or not? Is he trying to make us think he's a lunatic with all this talk about blowing Israel 'off the map,'" and Bush even talked about the 12th imam. Bush said, "All this talk about the 12th imam, he's out there talking about he's presiding over the end of the world as we know it today, and we don't know if he's real or not. We're trying to get boots on the ground and get some accurate intelligence about it."
Now, I didn't expect to be given a briefing as though I'm a member of the administration when I'm asking the questions, but I can only tell you what he said. But it is a good question and it is an interesting answer. Is this guy really the lunatic that he's portraying himself to be? After all, it probably helps this guy if everybody thinks he is a lunatic. "I don't know what he's going to do next. If he says he's going to to blow Israel off the map he might actually do it. He wants the Saudi oil fields; he may actually go over there and try to get them. If he believes that he's the guy that is here on earth at this point in time to preside over the arrival of the twelve imam and the wiping out of Western Civilization and culture, which is what he's saying he is, if he really believes that..." |
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 Well, how do we deal with lunatics? You don't deal with them rationally. You put them in some institution and let Nurse Ratched have at him. We can't do that with this guy. The closest we have to a Nurse Ratched is Hillary and I don't know that she's up for this, and I don't know that we could get Ahmadinejad to get in a room with her. So that option is sort of cut off from us. But if he's smart like a fox, that's another thing. That is why with Israel opening up this western front against Hezbollah and surrounding and basically cutting them off, if we did the same thing in Iran, I think you'd have a profound impact there. You don't need to occupy the country. There's a restive population in Iran that don't like this mullah-dominated leadership over there, and the key is always how to spark the revolt and support them when that happens. You've heard a lot about Newt and his proclamation that we're in "World War III." He was on Meet the Press yesterday with Tim Russert, and this is his comment. This is all the context of the comment.
GINGRICH: The Iran-Syria-Hamas-Hezbollah alliance, a war in Iraq funded largely from Saudi Arabia and supplied largely from Syria and Iran, the British home secretary saying that there are 20 terrorist groups with 1,200 terrorists in Britain, seven people in Miami videotaped pledging allegiance to Al-Qaeda and 18 people in Canada being picked up with twice the explosives that were used in Oklahoma City with an explicit threat to bomb the Canadian parliament and saying they'd like to behead the Canadian prime minister; in New York City, reports that in three different countries people were plotting to destroy the tunnels of New York. We're in the early stages of what I would describe as the Third World War.
RUSSERT: This is World War III?
GINGRICH: I believe if you take all the countries I've just listed that you've been covering, put them on a map, look at all the different connectivity, you have to say to yourself, "This is in fact World War III."
RUSH: Well, I happen to agree, but I've been saying this since 9/11. I think if you want to say that, you want to call World War III, it began then, and as always, the problem he said is we're a very prosperous country, and we have a lot of affluence and we have a lot of people with a lot of time on their hands. We've got a lot of people living really, really good lives and they don't want to think that they're in a war, and they don't want to get up in the morning thinking that we're in a war. Once you admit that you have you have a commitment to dealing with it, and then you've got the left and it doesn't want to -- you know they're invested in our defeat in all this because they're such a bunch of skullduggins that they don't understand the threat posed to them. (sigh) You have to factor them in because they're there, but you can't rely on them. So it is a serious time, and that's the point there of Newt's context.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT |
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RUSH: To the phones! We go to Bill in Columbus, Ohio. You're up first. It's great to have you on the program, sir.
CALLER: What a pleasure this is.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: Infinitum dittos from the swing state of Ohio.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: I think Israel should go ahead and go directly,uh, after Iran. They have the technology, with their bunker busters, bombs. They could take out their nuclear capacity, eliminate it. They've got the technology. They don't need anybody's approval. The threat is coming directly from Iran toward Israel. They want to eliminate them from the face of the earth. Let them go ahead and take that initiative. Obviously Iran is behind everything that Hezbollah is doing. You make that move, that eliminates the United States having to talk to them about, you know, "Stop your military buildup or the nuclear buildup." Let Israel take care of it. They've got the technology.
RUSH: I addressed this in the first hour. I don't think Israel can deal with Iran without help. It's too far away to send ground troops in for Israel. They haven't even sent ground troops in  to Lebanon yet, not permanently. A little cross-border show of force that I think they pulled them back. I'm not even certain about that, but they have not committed ground troops to southern Lebanon yet. We're all looking for that, by the way. But they're occupied with Hezbollah right now. They've opened up this western front, and they're surrounding Hezbollah. But Israel, you talk about the technology to bomb the nuclear sites? They may have it, but they don't have the technology to get back. Their planes can get there but they wouldn't be able to get back and the refueling...
I'm not actually sure about why that's not a factor. I don't know if they've got tankers or not. They may not have tankers for midair refuel but even if they do it would be a risky thing because that's a long geographic area to cover. We could be helping them. We could be doing to Iran what Israel is doing to Lebanon right now, and it would distract them and it would show them that they are playing to keeps. One of the things I just heard in the break was that Iran has sent some "foreign minister." (Iran has a foreign minister? That sounds too civilized for this bunch.) They've got a foreign minister; they sent him up apparently to Damascus and he's there trying to broker a cease-fire, and a pullback.
Now, don't be fooled by that, when it's your turn to watch the news and you hear this.
I think what that's all about is Iran trying to do two things. Iran is trying to demonstrate that they can be good guys. "Ah, we don't want this war. We don't want any of this to be..." which is BS because they are funding Hamas -- well, Hezbollah. In fact, not just funding them, giving them their orders. They want to demonstrate their power in the region. You know, they want to show that if there's going to be a cease-fire, they're the ones that can make it happen, and that's supposed to get it them respect, you see, as a power in the region. (interruption) Have they said that, or they thinking it? Okay. Yesterday Iran also, in the middle of all this, says that our nuclear proposal to them is "worth talking about." |
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Now, that coupled with the Iranian, quote, unquote, "foreign minister" up in Damascus (which for those of you in Rio Linda is in Syria, and for those of you in Rio Linda that's in the Middle East. For those of you in Rio Linda that's north of Lebanon. I realize for those of you in Rio Linda none of this is helpful (laughing), but I'm trying to be.) I think they're just trying to show they've got power. I think they're trying to show they're the ones that will be able to make things happen or not happen, and by saying that they're willing to talk to us now about nukes is an attempt to get us to shut down because that's what everybody's worried about, "Oh, they want to talk now! Okay, Israel? You must stop! You must cease-fire. You must pull back! Iran is ready to talk." I wouldn't trust these people as far as Madeleine Albright could throw them. Who's next? Michael in Osage Beach, Missouri, you're next on the EIB Network. Hi.
CALLER: Good afternoon, Rush, how are you today?
RUSH: Good, sir, thank you.
CALLER: Good. I just have a couple quick points and then a question for you. First point I wanted to really kind of bring up is, you know, at some time in America we have to hold our leaders responsible. Second is the war in Iraq is completely the responsibility of George W. Bush. Third, the poor execution of the Iraq war and the inability to successfully prosecute the war makes the lone world superpower look weak. Therefore, that kind of lack of cohesive foreign policy coupled with our strategy in Iraq kind of puts us on the outside looking in, and I'm wondering if Iran and Syria see the instability and what we've done up until now, and they're trying to capitalize on that, and as you can see, Israel is a shining example of how to execute the war on terror. So can we actually follow that? Do we have the resolve as a nation? As a people that are obviously going to be affected by this, do we have the ability with the current situation. I -- I -- I -- Say what you want about Clinton and say what you want about Reagan, Carter, everybody. We have to deal with who we have in office today. Can we follow that example of Israel, and can we successfully prosecute and take care of this problem?
RUSH: You know, it's interesting. It's interesting. Without responding to your assessment of the war in Iraq, because I disagree with that, but even as you say that's at this point really  not the focus, if you look at what happened after 9/11 -- just as an illustration. This is a little bit roundabout way of getting the answer to your question, but here goes. After 9/11, what did we do? Essentially what he did we do? We went to the world and asked for permission to respond, and we asked the rest of the world to join us, and the rest of the world -- well, enough of the world on the Security Council to block it -- told us to go to hell. The Israelis didn't ask anybody. They don't get permission from anybody. When they're hit, they fire back. |
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One of their soldiers, two of their soldiers kidnapped, they fire back, and they don't go and ask anybody for permission. Why do we ask for permission? Why do we do it? Well, it's one of the I think shackles actually of being a superpower, to just run roughshod all over the world as the world would consider it to be. They already do! Even though we spent months, years at the United Nations trying to get the world to deal with Saddam Hussein. Not just two years after Bush came into office, but all through the nineties after the first Gulf War, and the UN and the world didn't do diddly-squat. Finally, we did, but it took 9/11. Now, without us being hit again, I don't know that we would go to Iran and do what I, here on this program, safely ensconced behind the Golden EIB Microphone, I admit, am advocating.
But I do know this. Since you mentioned all these other presidents, since I have. If there's anybody who would do it, it is George W. Bush, and he at the G8 was pretty bold in defending Israel when most of the rest of the world doesn't want to be on Israel's side in this or in anything else. So do we have the national will, are we bogged down? I think one of the problems -- and you've gotten very close to it; you've put your finger on it here, and I even mention this had months ago with the "bogged down in Iraq" is multifaceted. If you want to say we're bogged down, I say it only in the sense that we haven't used but a tiny portion of the power that we can fully project.
We haven't done that. We're fighting a minimalist war. Why are we doing that? Well, I've answered that in countless other programs and I don't want to repeat myself here. But it has led to the impression in this country among the population -- and we are a representative republic -- that we can't do this kind of stuff anymore, and we've gotten to a point where 2,500 casualties, "Oh, nooo-ooo-oooh! It's horrible! We can't handle this." So whether there's the national will or resolve is another thing, but I also know if we're going to do this we wouldn't put it to a vote of the people. We would put it to a vote of the representatives of the people and then let elections deal with what the American people think of the action and the result. |
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