God taking revenge and other nonsense

I wonder how many of my readers have heard of Ahar? Or Varzaqan? Or Haris? Not the Harris with two "r"s in the Hebrides.

I pride myself upon my knowledge of international political geography, and yet until this evening these names were unknown to me.

They are towns in Iran - North-West Iran to be precise. This afternoon local time three earthquakes struck the area. At least 87 people at the last count were dead in those three locations alone. Apparently four villages in the region have been flattened - completely - while 60 have been badly damaged, so that figure of 87 will eventually be only a proportion of the fatalities involved.

A tragedy by any standards for the people who live there. For many of us the humanitarian requirements will be a priority. Anyone who saw the news coverage from, say, Italy or Chile, Haiti or New Zealand following earthquakes in recent years can understand the sheer awfulness of the event, and the impact upon the survivors who have lost loved ones, and have nowhere to go where they feel safe.

At least that is how I hope people will respond.

This being Iran, though, and given the public image in the world of their ruling political regime  .... And do not expect more help than normal from the Arab world (they are Persians, not Arabs), nor from much of the rest of the Muslim world either (they are primarily Shia, not Sunni).

And then of course there will be those in the Israeli lobby who will not see this as a natural disaster which could happen anywhere (see above) but rather as God taking revenge upon the Iranians for daring to challenge his chosen people. Thankfully we do not have many idiots left in Europe who think like this, but there are a startling number of people elsewhere who do. Sadly and stupidly (well, for starters there is no God to take revenge upon anyone, and there is no such thing as a "chosen people" either!).

Anyway, when this disaster in Iran has finally been cleared up, in a couple of years time the Iranian people can brace themselves for a disaster that is man-made rather than natural, as they will have the war to end all wars on their hands when the future President Romney and the equally awful future Vice-President Ryan decide to invade to find more non-existent WMDs .... That figure of 87 fatalities will seem small in comparison.

Postscript - anyone who wants my impression of the wretched regime in Teheran can read the rest of this blog and find articles where I am extremely critical of them, and why, and why I still oppose any war against them!

Update (December 1st, 2021 - I never was a good pundit, and so, of course, I was mistaken about Romney and Ryan winning the US election in 2012 - thankfully!).