Rattlesnake Ridge      

 
      BFF

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!“ Emma Lazarus (definitely NOT Europeans)

“Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says that Western countries are plotting to generate drought in some areas of the world, including Iran. “According to reports about climate, whose authenticity has been verified, the European countries have used certain equipment to discharge clouds and prevent rain-bearing clouds from reaching regional countries such as Iran,” President Ahmadinejad said on Thursday. He made the remarks in the inauguration ceremony of a domestically-built dam in the central Iranian province of Arak. Ahmadinejad said the matter would be pursued by Iran’s legal authorities, IRNA reported. The Iranian president said such measures by European countries are aimed at creating tension and hostility in the maritime borders of regional countries. “Just as it was said before, I believe that the war of the future will be the war over water.”……….”

He is right in one thing although he is not original: that water will very likely become a cause of future conflict. It already is: from the water disputes between Egypt and Nile-source African countries to the ‘issues’ Iraq has with Iran and Turkey and Syria over control of river water. Even the long Iran-Iraq war which was a result of Ba’athist aggression had water as its main component: the Shatt al-Arab waterway. That is the part Ahmadinejad is right about.
As for the rest, I suspect he is out of his mind if he is serious about it. Europe has seen one result of the droughts and desertification in Africa: the waves of unwelcome immigrants crossing the Mediterranean. Europe is also now worried about the impact of the Arab revolutions on creating a new wave of immigration to its shores. The last thing the Europeans want is to create another drought in the Middle East with more immigrants creating more neo-Nazis like Geert Wilders and Le Pen and others. I am not sure about Sarkozy, though, playing Napoleon and a softer version of a racist Fascist, desperate for his reelection. (There is no European equivalent of Emma Lazarus and her immortal verses on Liberty Island).
Sometimes I think Ahmadinejad shoots his mouth without thinking, then is forced to stick to his announced position out of pride. It is a Middle East thing. I have suspected that his Holocaust “quasi-denial” is also along similar lines.
(Later a professor of environmental science at Tehran University politely but firmly refuted Ahmadinejad’s assertion of European-induced droughts).
Cheers
mhg



[email protected]