Here is something that is very Jewish for you: “Is Rouhani
the New Gorbachev?” Well no, he is not. And why should he be? That question is
the title of Sharansky's article which also came under the subtitle: “How to
test a supposed reformer: Stand firm on sanctions, wait for proof.” It was
published in the Wall Street Journal on November 18, 2013. You see, it is a
typical Jewish put down to ask if someone is as “good” as someone else, let
alone assert that he may not be.
So here we have a Natan Sharansky who is nowhere near being
a Mugabe, let alone a Mandela, assessing the standing of Iran 's Hasan Rouhani by comparing him with
Gorbachev of the old Soviet Union , and finding
him to be not as good. Sharansky does this, even after he makes it clear that
Gorbachev too was not all that good to begin with. But he was made to act
appropriately by the Western democracies, says the Jewish author. And how did
they do that? Not by doing business with him like said the Iron Lady, Margaret
Thatcher, but by “helping him,” says Sharansky which is a euphemism to mean
kicking asses – a favorite fantasy of the Jews.
The reason why Sharansky took the trouble to write this
article is to warn the world that “The plotlines of what is happening with Iran today are
familiar.” And so he goes on to draw the parallels between what happened to the
Soviet Union and what he sees happening to Iran today. And like the Soviet
Union that was brought down by the actions of the West, Iran must also
be brought down by similar actions, says he. To explain all that, he gives a
version of history that conforms to the traditional Jewish mutilation of
history – a version that is tailor-made to suit the current circumstances.
He tells of the situation in the old Soviet Union and the
response to it in America
on two levels. There is what motivated the personalities involved, and there
are the historical facts. His understanding of the motivations is his own;
especially that he drags into the mix Andrei Sakharov, George Bush Senior and
himself. And so, I shall not challenge him on that score. But when it comes to
the historical facts, there are a few things that need to be discussed.
First, the economy of the Soviet Union
collapsed because it was based on Marxist ideas that were inherently weak. The
central planners dedicated much of their workforce to producing capital goods
while neglecting the production of consumer goods. This had the effect of
putting money in the hands of people who then looked for something to buy and
found very little. This caused the money to be devalued with the consequence
that the people did not have the incentive to work hard. Out of that came the
famous saying: “We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us.” The citizens
of the Soviet Union – indeed, the entire
Warsaw Pact – clamored for Western consumer goods that their money could not
buy. The writing was on the wall for all of these places.
As to the sanctions that Sharansky says were brought about
by the Jackson Amendment, they did nothing to bring down the Soviet economy. In
fact, that amendment is still in force today, and no one pays attention to it
except those who wish to tell a joke. But what President Reagan did to hasten
the collapse was to engage the Soviet Union in
an arms race it could not sustain for long. The result was that it came down,
and America
survived but not without consequences. In fact, some of the economic troubles America is
facing today can be traced to that time.
And when you look at what they have in Iran today, you
see an economy that is fairly well balanced between the capital goods they
produce to maintain a healthy development, and the consumer goods that the
people want to buy, including such big ticket item as a thriving auto industry.
Sharansky also writes about the warmongers of yesterday and
today. Well, whatever was said about the warmongers of then, no one suggested
at the time that the option to bomb the Soviet Union
was on the table. The idea was to contain the Soviet Union
and challenge it economically. That is different from the warmongers of today
who wish to do to Iran the
“Shock and Awe” that whipped Iraq
but also broke the back of America .