Michael Fumento writes: Hmm… 30,000 Iraqi soldiers and militia being held up from taking Tikrit by 150 ISIS fighters. And apparently with Iranian leadership, if not some Iranian fighters. As I’ve said before, Arabs do not make the best fighters. (Iranians aren’t Arabs, BTW.) Certainly Iraqis don’t.
Hard to hide 100,000 troops. That’s got to be too high. But yes, they are sending men there. And it poses a whole new risk to Israel. Again, Iranians aren’t Arabs. They can fight. And in population it outnumbers Israel by about nine to one, plus has the advantage of being led by a dictatorship. No hemming and hawing. Israel has its hands full just with Hezbollah. I wouldn’t want to be in their position. Another reason to not move to Israel.
Oh, and almost a fourth of Israelis now are Arabs. Some put nationality ahead of religion and culture, but others are hardly reliable as soldiers. Iran is unified. Active personnel in IDF is about 180,000 although there are several times that in well-trained reserves. But Iran has 550,000 active personnel alone. Many officers are combat veterans. Very intimidating.
Dual purpose? Syria is Syria. CIA may know why they’re their but we don’t. Nor their numbers. But remember these guys are descendants of a vast and sprawling empire. As with Mussolini, some people never forget that. Or their peoples. I think rump states in Iraq and Syria fit nicely. Israel? That’s personal. Hate the Jews and want the Holy Land. Only Christians have abandoned that idea. So long as they can take selfies there.
Luke Ford: Average Iranian IQ is 84, four points below Mexico. Iran doesn’t exactly punch above its weight in any endeavor I can think of. Bunch of barely literate incompetents.
Chaim Amalek writes: “Even if that is true and even if those tests provide an accurate gauge of Iranian mean intelligence, what difference does it make so long as Iran has an elite that is capable of doing the heavy thinking and a proletariat that is capable of doing the fighting and dieing? It certainly proved that it has the latter in the long, drawn out Iran / Iraq war of the 80s. As to what its elite is capable of, I speak from personal knowledge when I say that they are at least capable of copying and deploying any technology that Pakistan has, and Pakistan has assembly lines for mass producing nuclear weapons and long range missiles. The notion that the result of some IQ test that someone gave to some group of Iranians sometime in the past demonstrates that they are not a threat to others is an example of racism blinding one to certain realities on the ground. Certainly the high IQ Jews who run Israel are more realistic about this threat than that.”
“Another factor is population size. Iran is about ten times the size of Israel. It has been too long since I formally studied statistics to do the math (plus I’m too lazy to work it out here), but my guess is that even if Iranians average ten fewer IQ points than Israelis, Iran may well still end up having more people than Israel who score in the top few percentile on those very same tests.”
Michael Fumento: “Persians in the US have been VERY successful, as Lewis Fein can attest. Half of Beverly Hills is Iranian. I have two brothers who married Persians, one of whom does extremely well at a big pharma company. But of course those are self-selected and most had ties to the Shah. That said, other than Sofia Vergara, name a Colombian living in the US who has done well. Or latinos generally. Don’t let Iran’s 14th Century religion fool you. Lot of smart people there. Soon to have The Bomb.”
Paul Kotik: “Luke, the mean IQ doesn’t matter at all. What matters is the distribution of IQ, and the top end. The Iranian population produces more than enough ultra-intelligent people to develop nuclear weapons, manage a global petroleum business, manage a global terror network and consistently outwit the United States as it extends its territorial perimeter to the Mediterranean.”
Michael Fumento: “Despite what Hollywood would have you believe, wars are not usually won by the most courageous, the most skilled, the side with the best spies. They’re won by those with the most resources. America’s secret in almost all of its wars has been swamping the opposition with numbers of men and amount of equipment. Likewise, Israel has so far fit the Hollywood definition by winning wars while incredibly outnumbered. But again, those were ARABS. Arabs are suck fighters. I’ve seen Arab soldiers and Afghan soldiers and the difference is incredible. I’d put Iranians much closer to Afghans. Israel couldn’t defeat a force of well-equipped Afghans ten times the size of its military.”
“I think it’s very simple. Iran wants to call the shots in Iraq and Syria and intimidate (Finlandize) everyone else in the Mideast. That will be the new Persian Empire.”
“Afghans don’t seem particularly skilled, but they are very aggressive and love fighting. Too much. Who else plays polo with a headless goat? Arabs are cowards. It’s their culture, just as it’s part of latino cultures to always show up late if at all. Which, not incidentally, is also part of Arab cultures. They’re just plain unreliable. I wrote about how I was interviewing one Iraqi post commander and he was so proud that he’d fought off some attackers (with lots of Marine help). I asked if he pursued them. Hadn’t occurred to him. I began berating him until I realized that’s not good form for a journalist! Haha!
“Why do you think it’s taking 30,0000 Iraqis to dislodge a few hundred ISIS from Tikrit? AT LEAST a 20 to one ratio? ISIS doesn’t rely on Arabs for its fighting. I don’t know what countries it relies on; not Arabs.
“Al Qaeda in Iraq used them as their preferred snipers, too. I’ll bet more than one tried to put a scope on me. But maybe not, since they all missed!”
