Posted on 01/20/2006 10:01:15 PM PST by pickrell
In a recent AP piece by Victor Simpson, the Italians are cast as drawing a clear line in the sand, in regards to Iran. "Iran's nuclear program is testing the resolve of the international community, and the world needs a unified approach to the escalating diplomatic standoff," Italy's foreign minister said Friday. "The international community must have a defined, very precise, very united strategy," Gianfranco Fini told The Associated Press.
Iran is facing possible referral to the U.N. Security Council for its refusal to give up its uranium enrichment program. The council has the power to impose economic and political sanctions.
Yet, true to form, Fini then also warned that any pre-emptive strike by Israel, [or any other rogue, cowboy nations...], on Iranian nuclear facilities would have potentially disastrous consequences for the Middle East and the world. "The international community must absolutely do everything in its power to avert an even bigger conflict," he told the AP. "With the same firmness with which I say that Iran represents a danger and therefore we need to be very firm and very decisive ... I tell Israel that you cannot and must not think of launching a pre-emptive attack because it would set the whole Middle East and the whole world on fire for who knows how many decades."
At the same time as the Italians are warning that their "firm resolve" in regards to Iran extends to everything except any actual action to enforce that resolve, the French have decided that- unlike Iraq, which sadly represented a tremendous cash cow and opportunity lost to those European countries willing to stoop low enough to make underhanded deals with murderous Bathists- Iran represents a growing nuclear threat to French territory... recognizable even to the French.
Rather than reflexively pushing button 9, the one apparently preprogrammed on all French government telephones to warn the Israelis that their solving of yet another of the world's problems will bring yet another tired round of immediate French condemnation of everything Israeli, Chirac remarkably chose instead the novel approach of threatening the use of nuclear weapons. Even the Brits must have peered over the tops of their glasses and wondered whether the French President ate American beef for lunch. Especially since the French pronouncement is as hollow, and meaningless as the Italian one.
Americans, meanwhile, cannot help but hold the two situations side by side, and marvel at the comparison.
George Bush warned of the Iraqis' development of NBC, (nuclear, biological or chemical weapons), lately styled as WMD, and the threat of them being produced by a barbaric Middle Eastern country, and either clandestinely funneled to terrorists for use against infidel targets, or being used overtly intimidate any who would think to restrain the mad intentions of the death-obsessed.
He watched the Russians, Chinese, and remarkably, though not surprisingly, quite a few European countries, subverting and profiting from the sanctions meant to force the Iraqis to cease their mad quest. He reluctantly accepted that unless we were suicidal enough to follow the mad European custom of threatening escalating negotiation as a war-fighting technique... we had to act.
He did this because the world is basically divided into two types of organisms; those who accept the grinding and thankless task of removing threats to civilization at tremendous cost in lives and treasure... and those who hide in the tall grass and plot schemes to profit from the bloodletting.
He was widely and loudly excoriated by the liberals at home, and around the world, as "overreacting, and acting unilaterally". Liberal comedians ignored Iraqi children, starving and dying from compromised and corrupted sanctions, and concocted really amusing jokes. Congressmen announced to the world the crimes of the Commander in Chief, and the futility of trying to win the war against madness.
He simply refused to wait more than the paltry 12 years already passed for the subverted sanctions to somehow miraculously take effect.
He had warned years ago, in a State of the Nation address that two other nations completed the roster of the "axis of evil". Perplexing all of the elitists, he left the management of the other two problems, North Korea and Iran, to the Pacific Rim powers and the Europeans, respectively. It was the essence of Americanism- the side-by-side comparison of competing philosophies. It was also all that we could do since even America has her limits while her "dissenters" bite furiously at her ankles to try to hobble her.
While we madly, and in typical reckless American fashion, went ahead at the cost of young heroes' blood, removed the Bathists by force, and began the excavation of the bodies of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians buried in the mass graves in the sand, the Europeans and the Chinese approached their legs of the axis of evil with Continental sophistication and maturity, instead.
They negotiated, warned, pleaded, inveigled, dangled promises of reward, and hinted that recalcitrance on the parts of the wrongdoers would invoke... ever escalating negotiation.
They invoked the good graces of the Iranians, by their fierce denunciation of the American President's "coalition of the coerced and the bribed", in his "unilateral" imperialism in Iraq. They stood shoulder to shoulder in a plea to the Islamic madmen that "We didn't approve of Dubya- so don't target us!".
On those days when things went wrong in Iraq, as things have always gone wrong in every conflict since Og picked up the first tree branch to adjust Urg's notion about who now owned the mastodon meat, they quickly pointed out the futility of military force. Only childish Americans draw lines in the sand, and then act on the choices made by the bullies. The sensible choice would have been to examine the notion of lines in the first place, and declaim how bullies enjoy the same moral equivalence as their victims.
Now, several years later, Iraqis, as they are carving out the first chance their children have ever had to enjoy the same human freedom that Europeans have cynically sneered at for decades, find themselves wondering why it is always only the Americans, together with their steadfast Australian, Polish and British allies, who slay the dragons. They wonder how the French, Germans and countless others can look themselves in their children's eyes and explain their willingness to trade the hundreds of thousands dead at the hands of the Baathists... merely for oil kickback money. Has shame finally died entirely in Europe? Is this why the continent is growing old and falling apart?
In Iran, meanwhile- the target of years of European guile-, the mad mullahs have turned away from the Europeans and toward the Chinese. Tiennamen Square demonstrated conclusively to the Islamofascists who the big dogs are, as far as Stalin's replacements in the world. Only the Chinese have the ruthless will, and the growing military might, (financed ironically by the Americans' insatiable appetite for cheap clothing and consumer goods), as well as the brutal reliability to become allies of convenience with the Mad Mullahs of Mordor.
Putin, Russia's last hope for the return of glory days of the "worker's paradise", is being elbowed aside, in spite of his virulent efforts to demonstrate anti-American machinations. The Iranians know that a spurned lover, properly managed, is a valuable asset, and the Russians will prove useful later- when it is time to deal with the Chinese...
And so the Europeans find themselves left with the sad tatters of national honor, and facing a rising tide of unassimilating, violent, contemptuous immigrant populations, just waiting for the final fatwah. Just when Parisians' previous sins could not return with more virulence to extract their price, the bridal shower for the Iranians is abruptly turning into a sneering lesson, as the Iranians step up to the oil valves, and remind the Europeans of the reason why prostitutes need a pimp.
Suddenly all of the anti-Americanism and all of the "statesmanship" of the Europeans has become merely yesterday's appeasement. Like the insatiable thugs that they are, the Iranians slam the European head against the table and demand payment for the latest oil, in advance. They needn't even raise their voices to "adjust" the European attitude to the new reality. Their teeth show as the addicts pathetically allude to a possible boycott of their supplier, sanctions against the thug, even as he delights in grinding the European head harder against the table.
"Oil can be shut off... Your Arab sub-populations can arise and burn... And your pathetic attempts to 'stand shoulder-to-shoulder with all European and world-wide powers...' rings ludicrous- when those same powers who assisted you in subverting the previous sanctions against Iraq... now wait in eager anticipation of your announcement of new sanctions against Iran. Go ahead... make my day."
When the Iranians have completed drawing the last of their money from European banks back to Teheran, and the drawbridges are then all drawn up, the Europeans will sit frozen, staring in horror at the moat.
It is then that they will understand the price of treachery toward the best hope they had, America, and realize that if you are going to sell your national honor, forget traveler's checks, and insist on oil, paid in advance. An IOU is a poor substitute.
Will Americans die to protect France's ability to continue to manipulate the third world? Will Americans who spent so much treasure, for so long, protecting the Germans from Soviet tanks pouring through the Fulda Gap, risk nuclear retaliation after the actions of Schroeder collapsed the rock hard deterrent of NATO, that very organization which protected them, and civilization, for 5 decades?
What We Will Do... if we wish to see our grandchildren live to agonize over what we have done to them with the Social Security ponzi scheme... is to finally steel ourselves, whether we wish to or not, and speak with one uniform voice of utter finality, to absolutely convince the Iranian high command that if they really want the return of the 12th Imam, and the end of the world,(for them at least), that any attack upon us, traceable in any way to them, will result in that very valhalla which they profess to seek. At that point, those Iranians who wish for a continued existence for their loved ones will face a choice which will brook no delay whatsoever. And they will make that choice, by their action or inaction.
For it to deter madmen, the French among us here at home, must be silenced.
And yet the problem remains for the French, the Germans and the rest of Europe. Given their appeasement of the recent past, will any self-respecting madman suppress a grin as they finally try to draw a line in the sand at, say, the Riveria, the Rhine, and the canals of Venice, and warn with trembling voice, "Now this time we really, really, really mean it... but those Israelis better not start reacting to threats or... we'll denounce them."
Life and death... is a life and death business for a nation. The inability, or unwillingness, of milksops to understand the consequences of any nation's refusal to "Pay any price- bear any burden- in the unflagging defense of liberty", desecrates all of those lives given in the past which our present liberty rests upon. Those heroes of Guadalcanal, and countless other arenas of violence, who bought freedom from totalitarian slavery for Americans, and countless other people in nations throughout the world, are gathered together now in a vigil, standing unseen around a table of modern young Marines.
They need to know whether the people they died to buy a future for...
.... are ready to decide.
As for the Europeans; their table has been unoccupied for generations.
Powerfull...
Damn, this article brought a tear to my eye. I'm so proud to be an American. Excellent article. Thanks for posting it.
The president will draw a line during the State Of The Union.
Europe. Europe. Has a familiar ring, but I can't place it.
"Europe. Europe. Has a familiar ring, but I can't place it."
That was the old name for Frankastan and the Islamic Republic of the Rhine.
Ah, yes. I recall it now. ;)
"The president will draw a line during the State Of The Union."
I agree.
If he doesn't it will be sadly missed opportunity.
Bush needs to come out strong too; when he talks tough everybody listens. His approval ratings will go ski high.
My favorite part is where he describes Bush's actions since 9-11. As I have always seen it, Bush looked at the world on 9-11 and thought, "I see where this is going. We can sit back and wait until we HAVE to attack Iraq, and the millions upon millions who will have to die between now and that day. Or we can act."
From what I've read since then, it looks like Bush said "Screw it, we HAVE to do this, let's bite the damned bullet and do it now, so we can get on with the reshaping that MUST happen."
THAT, friends, is a textbook illustration of leadership.
It SHOULD be an article.
bttt
powerful. And one of the scariest things I've read on FR. History is upon us my friends...
they won't until they are convinced we won't do it for them.
I like it.
"powerful. And one of the scariest things I've read on FR. History is upon us my friends..."
I was thinking the same thing when I read it. There could be a lot of $%^# hitting the fan very soon.
I have a daughter signing up to go to the Airforce or Marines in 1 year. I too am thinking of joining now that they raised the age to 40. I told my husband that he did his part by serving, and now it's time the women of the family did too.
Great article....sure doesn't bode well for Europe. Anyone know where Iran is going to invest these funds they are withdrawing from Europe?
I certainly wouldn't be investing in Iran these days.
I think if there is another terrorist attack or major confrontation, I will join also. I'm 33, but still spry enuf...
"Russians will prove useful later- when it is time to deal with the Chinese..."
I wouldn't be so sure about that one. Commies are commies. Muslim nations are bolstered by the tacit support of the sleeping dragon but in the grand scheme, they are just useful idiots to the Chinese. A chance to observe us running our plays a week before the big game. Don't leave Chavez out either. A million man army in the making and development of an airforce and a navy can't mean anything good for the US. Probably a way to ensure that the Panama Canal remains impassible in the event of a skirmish with China.
Great article though...very well written.
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