Thersites Writes

Yet again, that smug thug, the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (who I will now refer to as 'Thingy' as repeatedly typing his surname is a surefire route to RSI) is rattling his sabre. Iran continues to try to get nukes (for civilian purposes, honest guv!), destroy Israel, spread Persian hegemony across the Middle East and generally be a shit. No change there, then, but it's now helmed by someone who looks like a stoned Alan Rickman and who can't be arsed to do up his top shirt button or wear a tie. The scruffy git.

It'll all end in tears. No matter how big and strong you are, it's never good to piss off neighbours who hate you anyway. There are enough Sunni Muslim states and indeed well-armed Israelis willing to bury the hatchet (in the nearest Shia, alas) and stand up to the yobs from Tehran, including Thingy.

Plus, Thingy is making enemies here, there and everywhere. If you really want to be a world power, do you really want to threaten the destruction of Europe and the US? True, everyone in the EU are, as a rule, too shit-scared to stand up to the Islamist ASBO brigade. But that can and will change - it's a fact that worms will eventually turn if you step on them enough.

That's bad news if you're a moderate Muslim and it's you who's getting the rubber glove treatment from overzealous coppers. But there's a certain callousness on the part of radical Islamists towards their 'brothers'. If a few or many get harassed, beaten, lynched or beaten up, then it's a golden opportunity for cheap propaganda. And hey - if they were good before they snuffed it, they'll probably go to heaven, so it doesn't really matter anyway...

(And that's what defines Islamic extremism - a tendency, indeed a need, to find a convenient get-out clause for everything, allowing one to be a total twat and still sleep at night. For if truth be told, the Islamists are more like traditional politicians and media whores than they dare admit. It's all self-serving realpolitik, hot-air rhetoric and weasel-words once you strip away the zeal.)

But perhaps what will do for Iran, other than a hail of Israeli warheads, is its own success. Since 1979, the Iranian population has boomed, with the average age now being around 24.8, and a growth rate of 1.1% in this year alone. [SOURCE] And there's nothing more damaging to a bunch of corrupt, ageing, stuffy old git mullahs and their toadies than a large number of bored, well-educated young people.

Perhaps that's why Thingy uses a potent cocktail of religion and nationalism to drug the masses. But what happens when those ambitions are frustrated?

Thingy and his mates might well be happy to live in a Sharia cage, enforced by bearded bootboys masquerading as a decency police. But for the young of Iran, living in that cage for the rest of their lives must seem a dismal prospect.

And so, it may well be that the Iranian regime will come crashing down once its first true crisis comes along. But whether that will be the passion of youth or a nuclear winter is yet to be decided. For now, it's happy to keep on playing chicken with its enemies, and may yet have to be plucked…