In English We Call It Lying

There is an Arabic word with which everyone should be familiar. The word is taqiyya. It means to dissemble, to fabricate, to evade by artful deception.

In short, it means to lie.

Taqiyya is not only permissible, it is both obligatory and laudable when used to defend Islam or Muslims against non-believers. Lying joins killing on the list of Islam approved behaviors--provided the target is an infidel.

Shia Islam takes taqiyya a step further. As Shia has long been (or at least seen itself as) a persecuted minority within the larger Muslim community, the use of taqiyya against Sunnis is justified by the needs of the faith.

The Geek apologises for being so professorial. The reason for this step-by-step foundation laying will be obvious in just one moment.

Taqiyya is the reason that Iranian protestations of nuclear innocence must raise more than an eyebrow of disbelief. The Tehran assertions must be rejected as the taqiyya they are.

The latest proof, if any is needed that the Iranians are lying through their beards when they say, "All we want is a few nuclear kilowatts," comes from the British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, writing in today's International Herald Tribune. (http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/24/opinion/edmiliband.php)

Miliband reminds us that the West, specifically the P5+1 (or as he puts it diplomatically, the E3 plus 3) two years ago offered the Iranians a very sweet deal that would have met their expressed desire for nuclear electrical generation capacity while assuring that no bomb would be made as a "byproduct."

The mullahocracy rejected the proposal.

The latest P5+1 offering is a slightly improved version of the one of two years ago. The apparent hope of the diplomats behind the offer was that the economic and social degradation suffered by Iran over the past two years coupled with the promise of more sanctions, more rigorously imposed and enforced, would make the deal more attractive.

The response from all levels of the Tehran regime has been more taqiyya administered with slightly more bluster than before.

Wow! That was sure a hard one to predict.

In case anyone is unclear as to what the P5+1 offered (as some who post on the most "progressive" blog sites apparently are), here is Miliband's (quite accurate and succinct) outline.

Our aim is clear: We simply want to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. It is not regime change in Tehran. The new deal is also clear. It includes specific proposals to assist Iran to acquire everything it needs for a modern nuclear power industry, including technological and financial assistance, legally binding fuel supply guarantees and cooperation on radioactive waste.
It also includes an offer from all E3+3 foreign ministers - which includes the United States - to sit down and talk if Iran suspends its nuclear enrichment activities. And it covers a long list of other potential benefits, from greatly improved political contacts and cooperation to steps towards normalizing trade, economic and energy relations, and agricultural, aviation and development assistance.

Objectively, this is a good offer. Hard to improve on. Lacks only one little detail--

Nuclear weapons.

And, get a grip on this: Nuclear weapons are what the Iranian regime wants. Period.

It doesn't matter if the economy goes further down the tubes. If more capital flees the Shia Paradise. It doesn't matter if unemployment and its inevitable companion--internal turbulence--continues to climb.

The regime believes that it can buy enough time to get the Big Bang it so feverishly has worked, schemed and sacrificed to obtain. Buy enough time economically through evading the sanctions. Buy enough time by exploiting the cash flow from not only oil but the remittances of expat workers and Iranian owned companies. Oliver Gutta gives a very good assessment of this in http://www.metimes.com/International/2008/06/23/_irans_ability_to_avoid_sanctions/6180/.

Internally, the regime is relying on its security forces to keep enough of a lid on the internal dissent to maintain stability. True, the local cops may ignore crime as illustrated in this piece( http://www.metimes.com/International/2008/06/23/iran_revealed_tehrans_taxi_driver_bandits/9755/
But, the ever vigilant eye of the state won't overlook a woman wearing Western clothing or a man with a "Western" haircut (whatever that means.) There are more than a few stories on this, one will do. http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/16/mideast/16dresscode.php.

By focusing on these so called "Western" subversions, the regime can accomplish a pair of linked goals. Provide an out-group suitable for public hating (a favorite of all autocratic regimes under threat.) Reinforce the notion that Iran is surrounded and constantly under threat. (So quit your unpatriotic bitching about unavailable/unaffordable food or insufficient pay or no job in sight.)

At the same time the regime hopes to buy time internationally by using the time honored techniques of taqiyya. The mullahocracy did not reject the P5+1 offer--exactly. Neither did they accept it.

They used a variation of Trotsky's approach to the Germans during the early days of the Bolshevik Revolution--neither peace nor war. No treaty but no fighting.

The Tehran regime assured the world that it would respond to the offer in the fullness of time. The regime allowed as how further discussions might be possible within the context of larger issues such as the absurd package of unlinked items it presented to the EU a few weeks back.

At the same time the mullahs and their talking heads in government stated categorically that ending the enrichment program was unacceptable.

The combination might be just enough artful deception, evasion and deeply shaded truth to give hope to those who want peaceful pastures instead of looming fields of mushroom clouds. A characterisation that fits most of us in the West.

Buy time. If the Iranians can buy a little time, they can hope for a change in US policy. The emergence of a more accommodating American administration. We must remember that in the view from Tehran, the US is the Main Enemy (to use old Soviet terminology.) A less hostile US could well mean that the rest of the P5+1 would be even more irresolute than they have been to date. http://www2.irna.ir/en/news/view/line-24/0806241487192839.htm

Buy time. If the Iranians can buy a little more time, they can hope to gain one of the seats on the UN Security Council that is up for a vote in the General Assembly shortly before the US elections. By having a voice on the "inside" the mullahs can reasonably hope to cause a decent case of havoc in the Council.

By time. If the Iranians can buy enough time, they will finish enough of their centrifuge cascade array to actually enrich uranium to the level necessary for a bomb. At that point the mullahs calculate they will effectively neutralise through deterrence any potential existential threat to the country.

Or, perhaps the mullahocracy has more spacious ambitions than merely deterring an existential threat. The world will know the answer to that when--and if--the Iranians crank out sufficient highly enriched uranium or separate and concentrate enough plutonium for a few bombs.

One thing we can be damn sure of though is any protestations of peaceful intent is simply another big dose of taqiyya.