I’m not as dismissive of Condi’s response to the missive from Iran’s president as some are. (found via The Raw Story)

One may quibble about its aim, but I responded in comments there why I found it disingenuous. And I think Condi’s right to reject it, because it helps settle nothing and offers no overtures beyond “follow our example, since you’ve obviously failed.”

Some overture. I think it exemplifies that the president of Iran is little more than a putz and a tool of the theocrats he speaks for. He certainly doesn’t serve the best interests of Iranian citizens.

(If you can’t get to the liberal catnip blog, the CNN translation of the letter in question is here.)

My comment to that post is repeated here, as a courtesy, if you’re interested.

I wrote:

While much of the letter speaks to the commonality of monotheistic belief, and seems innocuous enough, it also contains certain troubling aspects.

For example, while focusing on Israel, it’s hardly revelatory that it’s existence since 1948 has always been challenged. Certainly, Israel has acted in less than honorable ways at times, but in the context of the common wish of its neighbors to reclaim the territory for Palestinian and Muslim rule, is it not understandable that such aggression is regularly provoked?

It’s not like there’s no precedent for territory to be taken and claimed by a new power. What’s unique is that a world body - the UN - supervised the takeover on behalf of a group that was not a powerful nation, but a vast group of individuals from all over the world.

Western democracies have backed that play, in response to the Nazi genocide against the Jews. All this ongoing heat over such a small tract of land…. yet had the UN declared Nevada as the new Israel, how would the citizens of neighboring states -as well as the displaced Nevadans - react?

Territorial grabs always bring resentment and it takes many generations for such animosity to subside. But it should be clear to all of Israel’s neighbors that the Western democracies will not yield to that opposition, so long as they have the power to protect it.

So when a letter like this, couched in philosophical and spiritual references, merely repeats that the sore spot exists, and goes on to say that liberal Western democracies ‘have failed’, it’s a statement that theocracies remain true to God, while all that we enjoy - liberal ideology and democracy itself, is failing for leaving that theocratic course for secularism.

I’m a liberal. I’m pacifistic in principle, though not exclusively so. I supported intervention in Bosnia and the toppling of the Taliban leadership of Afghanistan, while opposing almost every other military venture of our country in my 50-plus years. Yet I do not view this letter as anything more than an appeal that maintains a God-granted rationale for opposition to certain principles that have largely served the citizens of democratic nations well.

Sure, there is much that is wrong with governments like mine, but much of that is rooted in unregulated capitalism, not liberalism, secularism, nor the principles and freedoms of representative democracy. And compared to most alternatives globally, and in the Middle East specifically, I view theocracies as elitist constructs that are inevitably worse.

So the point of the letter does not really seek to persuade but to justify, by its mentions of the visible flaws of certain democracies that have yielded too much power to corrupt, greedy and inept representatives.

Yet it overlooks an obvious strength that supercedes such representatives. Namely, they are temporary officeholders that can and will be replaced by their citizens, who may be slow to acknowledge the wrongdoings, but at least retain a nonviolent way to toss out the bastards.

Theocracies lack that feature by acting as the sole conduits and interpreters of God’s will, superseding the logic and will of the populace, as well as scientific findings. History is full of examples of how regularly that approach has failed, and how brutal the results of such reigns.

Appealling to Bush to move towards some global system of united theocracies is a prescription to profound failure. It waves an olive branch with one hand while hiding the dagger with another. Not necessarily a dagger threatening Bush, but one that threatens the citizenry of Iran, the US and all societies.

And I don’t think I’m reading between the lines. He states quite clearly that Western democracies have failed, and has uttered not one criticism of any Middle East government, except that of Saddam’s and of Israel’s.

I do not seek to war with Iran. I do not consider it justified at all from all its government has done to date. But neither am I so bound by pacifism to remain blind to what this letter is. It’s not really an appeal to Bush at all. It is propaganda, designed to appeal to the gullible.

And both nations will thrive better without either president in power and without other government officials with theocratic aims.