The news is awash in nuke-talk again. Rahbar’s advisor has signaled that Iran is ready to enter into nuclear negotiations with the incoming Trump administration. https://www.bbc.com/persian/articles/c8dm2888z93o. Meanwhile the governing body of the International Atomic Energy Agency has passed a resolution against Iran at the same time when Iran announced that it is set to bring new centrifuges online. https://www.bbc.com/persian/articles/c98e291v3p3o. The ever-want-to-be relevant governments of Britain, France and Germany have demanded emphatically that Iran destroy its stockpile of 60% enriched uranium. https://www.bbc.com/persian/articles/c80l25g785no.  My answer to the IAEA and European demands is one word, BILAKH!

For the uninitiated in Iranian body language, bilakh is demonstrated by closing one’s fist and raising the thumb mightily in the air. It is in essence the representation of the phallus. It can be accompanied with a voice-over, such as befarma (please, please help yourself) or beshin saresh (sit on it). The American version of the bilakh is the middle finger rising from a closed fist, with the fingernail of the middle finger facing the whomever it is intended for. It can be deployed silently or with utterances like “sit on it” of “fuck you.” The Turkish siktir means “fuck you” but it does not have an accompanying hand gesture (may be it does not need it). My favorite of these digital insults is the Russian fig or better dulya (notice the proximity of it to the Persian dool, penis). To make a dulya gesture, one closes one’s fist and then gently pushes through one’s thumb in-between the middle finger and the index finger so that the tip of the thumb protrudes in the direction of the intended target. It means “you get nothing” but also it could indicate the phallus, in which case one may accompany it with the expression c moslom (with oil), perhaps to ease the pain of the conjured penetration.      

Why am I giving the bilakh to the IAEA and the 5+1? Well, because last time Iran bent down to the will of these people it got shafted. Every Iranian boy knows that when in the company of rogues and slyboots one does not bend down. The same people that the Rahbar’s advisor wants to negotiate with now are the same who shafted Iran before.

One day I asked my dear friend the late Afshin Amirzadeh, who was a producer with BBC/Persian if he had gotten remarried. “Khar keh do tabagheh nemisheh,” he replied. That was his way of saying why repeat a mistake. That is exactly what the IRI will do if it subjects its nuclear program to Western and Russian strictures, it will be committing foolishness for the second time. But then, maybe the regime’s survival may depend on capitulation to the wants of the United States and its so-called “international community” cohorts.

In October 5, 2005, I published a fantasy essay titled “Things you don't want to hear – Fantasy speech at the UN on the nuclear crisis,” on Iranian.com – https://iranian.com/GuiveMirfendereski/2005/October/Nuclear/index.html . In it, I argued that Iranian must develop a nuclear deterrence, because it was and even more so is in its national interest – that is, the preservation of its territorial integrity and political independence, regardless of who rules the country. In light of recent events in the Middle East, the need for an Iranian nuclear deterrence is all the more pronounced. The abject failure of Iranian missiles to penetrate to any degree of significance Israel’s air-defenses and the country’s vulnerability to Israeli at-will strikes means Iran cannot rely on conventional offensive or defensive missilery.

Who knows, maybe Iran is already in the throes of developing nuclear weapons. Can anyone one say with certainty that it is not? Israelis think that it is and perhaps that is what informs their decisions to strike at Iranian nuclear capabilities, infrastructural as well as human assets. If Israel has its doctrine of strategic ambiguity – not admitting or denying that it has nuclear weapons, IRI has the Shi-eh jurisprudential doctrine that is taghieh. The term means dissimulation, especially in religious matters, which allows one to engage in non-truths, or denials, in order to protect oneself from harm if truth be told. Its origin in Shi-eh is rooted in the victimhood suffered by the believers who followed Imam Ali and his descendents at the hands of those who regarded them as heretics. The outward manifestation of this doctrine in terms of the nuclear file is the oft-cited fatwa that has declared nuclear weaponry as an abomination (it is not clear having them is an abomination or using them). Fatwas can be revoked. Maybe the time has come to do so.