France bans the Burqa, Iran bans the mullet.

I'm tempted to say banning the mullet might prove Iran's cultural advancement over France... but that would be having a joke and this is kind of serious....

"In an attempt to rid the country of "decadent Western cuts", Iran's culture ministry has produced a catalogue of haircuts that meet government approval. The list of banned styles includes ponytails, mullets and elaborate spikes."

Good thing I'm bald and don't need to worry about this when in Iran. Good thing my wife's culture runs to kimonos instead of burqas and there isn't legislation about what she can and can't wear.

Are we even now, children....Or do we have to ban something else?
Can I wear a ski mask in Paris?

I heard local radio host Lindy Burns relate an anecdote about how she started up a casual conversation with an Australian Muslim lady wearing a burqa. Burns said it was a nice colour. The lady commented that when she wears her purple one, people seem more afraid of her.

Is this what we have come to... where a colour will decide whether a bit of cultural attire evokes fear?

If a woman freely wants to wear a burqa I'm fine with that. If she wants to dress as a Klingon, I'm fine with that too.
How about we all just don't care what other people wear?

Blair unrepentant

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair says he had no regrets over the invasion of Iraq...

No matter the lack of WMDs, the intense public disquiet, the massive number of casualties and the subsequent debacle of a failing occupation... he thinks it was worth it. More troubling, he says Iran presents the same opportunity to mount pre-emptive slaughter.

As you will have worked out by now, I am of the opinion that the war was a catastrophe for the rule of law and the struggle against terrorism. For what little it counts, I was of this opinion before the coalition of the willingly fooled even went into Iraq.

"So you'd prefer Saddam Hussein was still in power?" is the inevitable cheap retort (and strawman argument).
The answer is "no, I would prefer he'd have been removed by means other than full scale invasion".
Tracking this hypothetical exchange to its next evolution, I would then come under attack for hypocrisy and "moral confusion"...

As if moral clarity automatically means "...invade". It does not.
There is nothing clouded about my morality: I think massive unnecessary death is a very bad thing. I think creating a beacon for terrorism in the Middle East was a very bad thing. And I think deception of the public about how, why and when the decision was arrived at... was a very bad thing.

Much has been made of Blair's religious bent in how he arrived at his decisions.

Matthew Parris, formerly a conservative MP, writes:

"Tony Blair is a Manichean, or dualist. He believes that the Universe is best understood as an eternal struggle between the forces of good and evil, in contention for dominance. Christians are supposed to believe that the battle is already won, and Mr Blair’s dualism is (paradoxically) closer to Islamic fundamentalism than to the Gospels. For Mr Blair at least “Axis of Evil” was not just a Bushite soundbite: it was a profound philosophical insight into the meaning of world history."

I'm personally not convinced that Christians are in fact supposed to believe the battle is already won, but whatever... rigid dualism in politics is dangerous, is the point.
All 'our' enemies are not, in fact, friends of one another. Acting is if they are, or as if the fact doesn't matter... is stupidly dangerous. It DOES matter. How destroying Al-Qaeda transformed into taking down a regime who were hated by Al-Qaeda and who had nothing to do with 9/11 will become a paradox of policy that will darkly entertain students, teachers and observers of political theory for centuries to come, should civilisation live so long (I like to think it will).

Parris categorises the different types of people who are bitter about Blair's lack of repentance into original opposers of the war (like me), hindsight critics, and another group: "most ominously of all, a number who have not really repented of their doctrine of muscular interventionism, are now eyeing up Iran, and badly need to distinguish between what happened last time and what might happen if we try it again."

Comments by Parris in The Times Online, sourced here.

Iran... where will this lead?

Years ago I watched President Reagan, who was not half the president the Republican party pretends, be very careful about the Philippines when obvious and clear election fraud was committed by the followers of Ferdinand Marcos. That election had followed the assassination of his opposition, which his government was implicated in. The US had backed up Marcos, who stole billions from his people, and stood by him when he declared martial law.
The fraud was too much for the US senate however, and the Reagan administration offered to get Marcos and his shoe-happy harpy to Hawaii. American influence supported Marcos through his atrocities and American influence also decided when it was all over.

And now... Iran.
Very different situation. Iran, unlike the Philippines, is not a US ally. Very, very far from it.
Obama is criticized from being too gentle with the Iranian government, but too heavy a hand could provoke another Tiananmen Square massacre if the Ahmadinejad regime feels the need to appear defiant and in control. Set back democracy in Iran even further.
I'm not sure what the critics would have Obama do instead (but then some of those same critics were happy to nuke Iran, oppressed citizens and all, in another conversation).

This isn't the Philippines.

And let's not be rosy-eyed about the opposition.
People standing on rooftops yelling "death to the dictator" and "God is great" does not go down a treat in the West normally. Neither should it in this situation either.

Obama calls for a "peaceful resolution".
That'd be great. But let's hope that "peaceful" doesn't end up just meaning quiet mass murders.