With all the excitement over democracy/anarchy spreading like margarine around the Middle East, I haven't heard many wankers wank about this just yet. Iran is deploying warships through the Suez Canal. Ho hum, right? Iran's always doing crazy shit.
True, but this is provocative, even by Iranian standards. It's a big, crooked, hairy Persian middle finger pointed at Israel. And Israel is a country known to be sensitive about middle fingers pointed in its direction. Particularly by countries that openly express hopes of turning their country into a sandlot.
So Israel might react. How much is hard to say. It's an escalation of tensions, for sure.
It makes me uneasy, but uneasy in a typical Iran sorta way. But the timing, well, that makes me scratch at my eyes a bit. A guy lights himself on fire in Tunisia, and a few weeks later, a dictator who'd been around since 1987, Ben Ali, gets run out of the country. Soon thereafter, protesters force another dictator, Hosni Mubarak, who'd been around since 1981, to give up his power. There's protests crackling in Algeria, Bahrain, Yemen, and Iran. All these autocratic countries start to get nervous. The "people" are upset, and they're starting to believe that this time, they might get what they want: a real chance at self determination. It's powerful stuff.
But if there's one thing the Muslim world hates more than their own corrupt and tyrannical governments, it's Israel. And if you're an Iranian dictator nervous about a coup d'etat, it's the perfect time to remind "the people" about their true enemy. The best way to make that happen is by provoking the beast.
Warships, anyone?
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