The Mullahs' Dilemma: Power or Paradise?

A couple of posts back, the Geek suggested that there is no need to have panic attacks over the potential of Iran to achieve a rudimentary nuclear capability by the middle of the next decade. He gave one important reason for this conclusion--the bomb is so anti-existential in nature that deterrence generally has worked well. He added that because the mullahocracy in Tehran is one of the most, if not the most, unpopular regimes in the world, it had better pray for peace.

He argued that there would be a rush to push the button first on the part of several nations should a mushroom cloud of unknown origin appear anywhere in the globe. Iran would become the mushroom patch from hell within a very short time.

A reader suggested that the mullahs might not be deterred as the benefits of paradise would outweigh the costs of extermination. Given the Islamist propensity for martyrdom, this objection has merit.

The historical record, including that of the Muslim societies, shows that leaders are perfectly willing to send followers on suicidal missions, but are completely unwilling to send themselves.

A prototypical example of this is "The Old Man of the Mountain," the leader of the late medieval group, the Assassins. As the Old Man showed to visitors, he could select a couple of his assassins at random and order them to jump off the parapet of the fortress to their deaths. Secure in the belief that they would go immediately to the same paradise they had experienced in their hashish driven dreams, the underlings readily jumped.

Wait one, Geek! What about the great Muslim warrior kings like Salah al-Din?

True, Salah al-Din, in common with all warlords and kings from the Heroic Age of warfare, which extended, with breaks, from the time of Ulysses and Alexander the Great down to the battles of Crecy and Agincourt, rode in the front rank, engaged in single combat with the enemy, and took all the risks of war personally. That's true, but irrelevant.

Osama bin Ladin didn't drive the truck bomb to the embassy in Nairobi. Neither did he pilot the speedboat next to the USS Cole. He certainly didn't make the death ride into one of the twin towers or the Pentagon. Neither did any of his immediate leadership cadre.

Going back a few years, the Ayatollah Khomeini did not personally lead the bare handed attacks of Iranian teenagers into the minefields, electrified swamps, and poison gas shells of the Iraqi attackers. Neither did any of the current mullahocracy or the leaders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Himmler never went into combat on the Eastern Front leading his Waffen SS in battle despite all his fantasies about recreating a Germany of the Middle Ages. Hitler committed suicide after all his bravado laden speeches about how he would "die at his post" defending Berlin.

From the Geek's perspective on history, the record is clear. People in power like power. They want to stay in power. If it is necessary that people, even lots of people die so that power can be maintained, so be it. It's better, of course, if the people who die are not part of your own population. It's no fun to have power over a corpse-covered, green-glass wasteland.

That implies that unless the leader is not oriented in time and place, that leader is not going to bet the reality of power on the hypothesis of paradise.

And, what if the mullah in question is a few bricks shy?

The Geek is a historian. He deals with the facts of the historical record, not the hypotheses of psychology. Suffice it to say that the book of history holds the names of many men in command of nations and armies who were of questionable mental balance. Nonetheless, the inclination to suicide of self or nation is very, very rare.

Apparently men can be nuts, true believers, zealots and still want to hold on to power at all costs.

And--get a grip on this--power is only power, if there are people to command.