KHAMENI’S “KAMPF”

At the site of the Gatestone Institute Amir Taheri explores the book published in Iran by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Taheri’s column on the book is published there under the heading “The ayatollah’s plans for Israel and Palestine.” Taheri has also adapted his Gatestone column into a piece for the New York Post published as “Iran publishes book on how to outwit US and destroy Israel.” Taheri’s columns are of great interest. They don’t tell us anything we don’t already know, but they nevertheless add depth to what we already know.
Our Supreme Leader thinks that we can do business with Islamic Republic of Iran. He wants to set Iran up as a constructive regional power. He is in the process of financing and facilitating Iran’s development of nuclear weapons and otherwise strengthening the regime. Our Supreme Leader is going into partnership with their Supreme Leader.
Their Supreme Leader has Israel and Jews on the brain. Their Supreme Leader thinks that Israel must be destroyed: “Khamenei makes his position clear from the start,” Taheri writes. “Israel has no right to exist as a state.” Taheri observes that their Supreme Leader “uses three words.” One is “nabudi” which means “annihilation.” The second is “imha” which means “fading out,” and, finally, there is “zaval” meaning “effacement.” Taheri explains:
Khamenei insists that he is not recommending “classical wars” to wipe Israel off the map. Nor does he want to “massacre the Jews.” What he recommends is a long period of low-intensity warfare designed to make life unpleasant if not impossible for a majority of Israeli Jews so that they leave the country.
His calculation is based on the assumption that large numbers of Israelis have double-nationality and would
prefer emigration to the United States and Europe to daily threats of death.
Khamenei makes no reference to Iran’s nuclear program. But the subtext is that a nuclear-armed Iran would make Israel think twice before trying to counter Khamenei’s strategy by taking military action against the Islamic Republic.
In Khamenei’s analysis, once the cost of staying in Israel has become too high for many Jews, Western powers, notably the US, which have supported the Jewish state for decades, might decide that the cost of doing so is higher than possible benefits.
Our Supreme Leader thinks this is all for “domestic consumption,” or subject to some cost-benefit analysis known only to Obama himself. That’s not the way it works with anti-Semitism or Islamism, but the regime is reaping benefits galore courtesy of President Obama anyway. And our Supreme Leader hasn’t done much to detract from their Supreme Leader’s analysis:
Khamenei counts on what he sees as “Israel fatigue.” The international community would start looking for what he calls “a practical and logical mechanism” to end the old conflict.
Khamenei’s “practical and logical mechanism” excludes the two-state formula in any form.
“The solution is a one-state formula,” he declares. That state, to be called Palestine, would be under Muslim rule but would allow non-Muslims, including some Israeli Jews who could prove “genuine roots” in the region to stay as “protected minorities.”
Adolf Hitler published Mein Kampf (in English, “My Struggle”) in 1925 and 1926, seven or eight years before he took office as Chancellor of Germany in 1933. It’s a shame that the British didn’t attend to it when it became relevant to dealing with Hitler in office. Looking back after the war, Churchill wrote with his customary brilliance that “there was no book which deserved more careful study from the rulers, political and military, of the allied powers. All was there…Here was the new Koran of faith and war: turgid, verbose, shapeless, but pregnant with its message.”
How thoughtful of Iran’s Supreme Leader to give us Palestine — his Kampf, you might say — as we go into partnership with him.