Nuclear Orientalism

I tried reading the Edward Said classic but got discouraged. Now when reading a book becomes too much like work, I’ve taken to just dropping it. But Orientalism, which for prposes of this post I define as the bundle of Anglo-American prejudices regarding peoples of the ‘Global South,’ which used to be called the Third World, is important.

I want to reference two TV shows I watched. Fair warning, spoilers will be encountered. One show is “Tehran,” the other “Spooks” (a.k.a. “MI-5”). Tehran is relatively new, the first season recently completed. MI-5 is much older, of 90s vintage.

Both shows are unashamed, racist slurs on the nation of Iran. In both, Iran seeks a nuclear weapon for purposes of attacking Israel or Europe. Both of these scenarios are the height of idiocy, and both have been successfully foisted on an ignorant public in the U.S., with the disastrous consequences now in view.

It is possible that Iran would like to have nuclear weapons. The evidence for them even aspiring to that is mixed. The evidence that they (or Saddam) have any such weapons was or will soon is utterly lacking.

The real rub is the notion that, if so armed, Iran (or Iraq) would launch a nuclear attack on Israel, Europe, or the U.S. You have to be dumber than a bag of hammers to believe this. Isn’t the suicidal nature of any such attack obvious? To entertain the possibility, not only do you have to be very stupid, but you have to believe the Iranians are very stupid or insane. Either premise is profoundly racist, hence Nuclear Orientalism (‘NO’).

Used to be that the scuttlebut was that Kim Jong-Un was too crazy to be allowed nukes. Well, guess what? He’s got them, had them for a while, he can send missiles over Japan, and everybody is still here. So too with Pakistan. Long before that, it was Red China that could not be trusted with nukes. Ha! The looming question is whether the U.S. can be trusted with nukes.

Both shows are done well enough to bear watching. Spooks is not James Bond-ridiculous, though it still boasts many idiotic details. Nevertheless, in Spooks the guiding notion is that the nuclear-armed Islamic nation of Pakistan is doomed to fall to the Taliban, who would duly try to nuke somebody else. As above, you have to believe the Taliban are stupid and/or insane. Whatever they are, they are not that. After all, they drove the U.S. out of their country. Bin Ladin was not Taliban. He was a wayward agent, as far as the Taliban were concerned. They were obliged to host him but did not necessarily foment 9-11. Somebody connected over there, meanwhile, gave him up to the U.S.

Tehran is a masterpiece of Israeli propaganda. Therein, the Iranian regime lies all the time about its plans and intentions. It connives to construct a nuclear bomb with the intention of nuking Israel. Heroic Jewish- and anti-Islamic Iranians at the direction of Israeli intelligence foil the plot. Tehran is better than Spooks at avoiding dumb plot elements. Nearly every Spooks episode is one of those lame ticking time-bomb tales. The bombs seldom explode. For some reason an endless sequenc of evil-doers have it in for England. Seriously, who gives a f*** about England??

I’m something of an aficionado of espionage tales. The gold standard of course is John Le Carre, with the Slow Horses series in books by Mick Herron and on Apple TV a close second. A long time ago, I read a string of Len Deighton books that weren’t bad. Herron strains credulity a bit, here and there. Le Carre, never. Neither falls prey to basing a story on the premise that the Iranians or other Islamic fanatics are also strategic morons.