Even if that's what Yoshie is suggesting, it's not disingenuous: "third world" nationalism is indeed preferable over colonialist (etc) nationalism because of the same reason that affirmative action (not a principle but a tactic) for black people is preferable to affirmative action for white people.
> If we reject nationlism in principle, then US
> "imperialism" or Isareli "zionism" is no better or
> worse than Iranian nationalism, everything else being
> equal. So why defending Iranian nationalism as
> something "better" than other nationalisms?
Because though I oppose nationalism in principle, I do not oppose it in practice (i.e., tactical). Such is the nature of living in the real world!
> Of course, everything else is not being equal, and
> most rational people would agree that the US or
> Israeli nationalism offers a far better protection of
> human rights, the rule of law, and democractic
> governance than the Islamist variety. Therefore, most
> rational people would prefer to live under the US or
> Israeli nationalism than under the Islamist variety.
As I note above (regarding the real world and the differentiation it imposes between principle and practice) you are absolutely right that everything else is not equal and so one form of nationalism is (temporarily) preferable while another not. You only have the order wrong! ;-) I think I know the cause of the error: you identify human rights, rule of law, etc, to whatever extent it is present in the US, Israel, etc as a result of nationalism. Which is anything but. Nationalism runs counter, in these nations, to human rights, rule of law, etc, as we see today with the treatment (arising from nationalistic roots and responses to 9/11) of immigrants, detainees, Muslims.
As a rational person I would not at all prefer to live under US nationalism. What I have experienced of it assures me that it destroys any protection of my rights. Fortunately I do not yet live under US nationalism, today.
--ravi
P.S:
You could accuse me of bias of course, coming from a fairly recent history of semi-nationalistic "third world" struggle against colonialism. The dictionary/thesaurus provides a set of meanings for "nationalism". The below is the version used by the "third world" to deal with Western imperialism (etc) -- which, like Mahatma Gandhi (referred to as M.K.Gandhi or Mohandas Gandhi in the West), I still find problematic:
patriotic feeling, principles, or efforts.
advocacy of political independence for a particular country :
Palestinian nationalism.
What in large part is nationalism in a US/Israel context is this different definition:
an extreme form of this [patriotism], esp. marked by a feeling of superiority
over other countries.
flag-waving, xenophobia, chauvinism, jingoism.