Our "Partners for Peace" in the middle east and a nation we are told we can trust to live up to its agreements demonstrated anew the wisdom of President Obama in relying on Iran to be a decent, civilized, country.

The Iranian government just ordered that a man's eye be gouged out as retribtuion for an acid attack that left another man blind and disfigured.

An "eye for an eye" - literally. How right. How proper. How civilized - if we were living in the 8th century.

Alas, we are not. And the prospect of this theocracy - existing out of time and place - getting a nuclear weapon should chill the souls of any rational man anywhere.

It would be like giving a caveman an AK-47. He's not sure what to do with it at first, but give him time, he'll figure it out.

The Guardian:

The convicted acid attacker, who has not been identified, was rendered unconscious in Rajai-Shahr prison in the city of Karaj on Tuesday as medics gouged out his left eye, according to the state-owned Hamshahri newspaper.

Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, from Iran Human Rights (IHR), an independent NGO based in Norway, condemned the blinding as barbaric. “Medical staff who cooperate with the Iranian authorities in this act have broken the Hippocratic oath and cannot call themselves doctors,” he said.

The man had been found guilty of throwing acid in the face of his unnamed victim five years ago in the city of Qom, blinding and disfiguring him for life. He was subsequently sentenced to be blinded in both eyes, paying a fine and 10 years imprisonment.

Although the convict was sentenced to lose sight in both eyes on Tuesday, the victim – who, under Iranian law, has the final say in the punishment – decided at the last minute to postpone the blinding of his right eye for six months. The attacker will be able to plead with the plaintiff to spare him from being blinded fully.

Acid attacks have been rife in Iran in recent years, usually driven by family feuds. Hamshahri reported that the man in this case had been hired by the relatives of his victim’s wife to take revenge on their behalf. It was not clear if he had carried out the attack for financial gain or whether he was related to the wife’s family.

Iranian officials, worried about the increase in the rate of acid attacks, have endorsed retribution, but human rights activists condemn it as inhumane.

Amnesty International was very helpful, weighing in on the blinding:

Raha Bahreini, a researcher with Amnesty International’s Iran team, said that punishing someone by deliberately blinding them is “an unspeakably cruel and shocking act”.

She told the Guardian: “Blinding is totally prohibited under international law, along with stoning, flogging, amputation and other forms of corporal punishment provided in Iran’s Islamic penal code and must not be carried out under any circumstances.”

Those international busy bodies want to spoil all the fun. Does she mean we can't even throw a few rocks at an adultress? And how else can you punish a thief except by cutting off his hand?

Amnesty had some recommendations for Iran:

Instead of meting out such macabre punishments, Bahreini said Iranian authorities “should raise awareness about violence including root causes, ensure that perpetrators of acid attacks are punished with appropriate and proportionate penalties consistent with international human rights norms, and survivors are provided with effective remedies, including compensation and psychosocial and medical rehabilitation.”

Ah yes, the "root causes" canard. The "root cause" of acid attacks and eye gouging is that we are dealing with a bunch of barbarians whose dysfunctional society is based on 1400 year old book that governed nomads and peasants. But Iran will never update their society because you can't update the Koran. Hence, we will have more eye gouging, hand lopping, stonings, and probably worse before this regime disappears into history.

Hopefully, sooner rather than later.