Dozens of terrorism suspects among refugees who entered Germany

(Hat tip: KimR) - German authorities are investigating 40 cases in which Islamic militants are suspected of having entered the country with the recent flood of refugees from the Middle East, the federal police said on Wednesday. That represents a doubling of such cases since January and is likely to deepen concerns about the threat level in Germany, which has not suffered a large-scale Islamist attack like those that have rocked neighbours France and Belgium in recent months. Read more at Yahoo News Read More......

Court Requires NYPD to Purge Docs on Terrorists Inside U.S.

The New York Police Department has been directed by a U.S. court to remove from its online records an investigation pertaining to the rise of Islamic extremists in the West and the threats these individuals pose to American safety, according to legal documents.

Read more at the Washington Free Beacon
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

College students taught most U.S. terrorists ‘conservative’ white men

"Ninety percent (of U.S. terrorist attacks) are from these white Caucasian men," Avilla told his class. "And by the way I am not saying white men are evil - but that is what we should be thinking about. Usually they are people who are religiously motivated and politically conservative."

Read more at The College Fix
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

Politically Correct France Quarrels Over Revoking Citizenship of Terrorists

If you thought that the horrific terrorist attacks in Paris last year finally forced the entire Left in France to get rid of political correctness, you're sorely -- and sadly -- mistaken:     The push by France's Socialist government to revoke the citizenship of convicted terrorists with dual nationality after the Paris attacks has turned into a harsh political dispute, with the far right applauding the move while some on the left express indignation at what they call a divisive measure.

Read more at PJ Media
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

Dems to worship at mosque with ties to terrorists

A handful of House Democrats will meet early Friday afternoon at the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center, a Northern Virginia mosque that has controversial ties to terrorists who have engaged in terrorist acts against the United States. For example, it was widely reported that some of the Sept. 11, 2001 hijackers attended the mosque, and that Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan worshipped there.

Read more at the Washington Examiner
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

The Regime Admits It Has Let Terrorists Into the Country as It Pushes Congress to Strip Americans of Guns

Rush: (Excerpt) The White House on Monday opened up a new fight with Republicans in Congress, challenging them to pass laws to prevent suspected terrorists from purchasing firearms. While at the same time they're telling us they've got this vetting process and for us not to worry about terrorists being among the refugees entering the country, say, from Syria. They're telling us they've got it handled. They're telling us there's nothing to worry about. Nothing to fret over. Don't be xenophobic, don't be bigoted, don't be racist. We got it handled. --Now all of a sudden there's political pressure on Republicans to pass a new gun control law.

Read more at Rush Limbaugh Read More......

Two Paris Terrorists Lived in Supposedly Mythical 'No-Go Zone' Neighborhood in Brussels

Shortly after the Charlie Hebdo Islamic terrorist murders in Paris in January, the establishment press attacked those who dared to state something quite obvious about "no-go zones" in parts of Europe, i.e., that they exist. The media summarily and unilaterally declared that "no-go zones" were a myth propagated by the likes of Fox News, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, longtime terror expert Steven Emerson, and others — despite several direct references to them in media accounts, including the New York Times, going back as far as 2002.

Read more at NewsBusters
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

Obama Admin Granted Asylum to 1,519 Foreigners Tied to Terrorism

A disturbing new report obtained by Judicial Watch shows that the Obama administration has granted residency or asylum to 1,519 foreigners who supported terrorism at one time. Apparently, Obama’s Homeland Security chief determined that the recently admitted Islamists only participated in terrorist activities “while under duress.” --The Obama administration unilaterally eased restrictions on asylum seekers with loose or incidental ties to terror and insurgent groups in 2014. Prior to that, the foreign nationals would have been banned from the country for supporting terrorist causes.

Read more at PJ Media
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

Carr: More dead Americans, cue killer sob stories

Meet the new tousle-haired terrorist, same as the old tousle-haired terrorist. It had to happen, right? Can the cover of Rolling Stone be far behind 
for Mohammod Youssuf 
Abdulazeez, the latest pot-smoking foreign-born Muslim terrorist to murder Americans in cold blood? --“This guy actually 
reminds me of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev,” chirped CNN anchor Carol Costello. “Good-looking guy. Everybody liked him. He was popular in high school. Very well-educated. Both of them were wrestlers, and then something happened.”

Read more at the Boston Herald
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

Hillary Clinton’s Top Aides Knew from First Minutes that Benghazi Was a Terrorist Attack, E-mails Disclose

From the very first moments of the terrorist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her top aides were advised that the compound was under a terrorist attack. In fact, less than two hours into the attack, they were told that the al-Qaeda affiliate in Libya, Ansar al-Sharia, had claimed responsibility. ✧ These revelations and others are disclosed by a trove of e-mails and other documents pried from the State Department by Judicial Watch in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

Read more at The Corner Read More......

Administration eases restrictions on asylum seekers with loose terror ties

The Obama administration has unilaterally eased restrictions on asylum seekers with loose or incidental ties to terror and insurgent groups, in a move one senator called "deeply alarming."

 

The change, approved by Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Secretary of State John Kerry, was announced Wednesday in the Federal Register. It would allow some individuals who provided "limited material support" to terror groups to be considered for entry into the U.S.

Read more at Fox News
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

Rasmussen: 29% Say Tea Party Members Are Terrorists, 55% Disagree

8/8/2011 - Several prominent Democrats and their media friends have charged the Tea Party with being economic terrorists during the congressional budget debates, but most voters don’t see it that way. Read more at Rasmussen Reports...

Also at Rasmussen Reports, 8/7/2011 - New Low: 17% Say U.S. Government Has Consent of the Governed Read More......

Ray Stevens - God Save Arizona

(Hat tip: Lou Copes) Read More......

Terror Alert on Texas Border

FOX News, 5/31/2010

Read More......

GOP lawmakers to try to block federal funds for 9/11 prosecutions

NEWS FROM THE HILL, 01/30/2010 by Jordy Yager - Amid fears that the White House may move the terrorist trials connected with September 11, 2001, to the Washington, D.C., region, GOP lawmakers are planning to introduce legislation that would bar the use [of] federal funds for their prosecution in any U.S. civilian court. Read more at The Hill... Read More......

Is China Supplying Terrorists?

Power Line, June 15, 2007, Posted by John - Intelligence: China Supplying Terrorists In Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan

Bill Gertz, writing in the Washington Times, said today that China is supplying large quantities of weapons to both Iraq and Afghanistan, through Iran:

New intelligence reveals China is covertly supplying large quantities of small arms and weapons to insurgents in Iraq and the Taliban militia in Afghanistan, through Iran.

Some arms were sent by aircraft directly from Chinese factories to Afghanistan and included large-caliber sniper rifles, millions of rounds of ammunition, rocket-propelled grenades and components for roadside bombs, as well as other small arms.

According to the officials, the Iranians, in buying the arms, asked Chinese state-run suppliers to expedite the transfers and to remove serial numbers to prevent tracing their origin. China, for its part, offered to transport the weapons in order to prevent the weapons from being interdicted.

U.S. Army specialists suspect the weapons were transferred within the past three months. Continued at Power Line...

Read More......

The eye-roll

Has anyone noticed that Democrats and pundits advocating pulling out of Iraq have started rolling their eyes back and saying, "Oh, that old thing," in response to "... they'll follow us home if we leave."? This seems amazing, since the terrorists have told us that that is exactly what they will do. They want to destroy Western philosophical values. The jihadists' want to kill us. Was 9/11 not enough to make this understanding clear? We weren't in Iraq on 9/11. Read More......

The battle for Baghdad

World Magazine, April 7, 2007 by Jill Nelson
Fighting the insurgency has Commander John Campbell manning two offices, two new brigades, an outsized dose of optimism, and one plea: more time.

His update book and coffee greet him each morning in an office situated in a heavily guarded complex in western Baghdad, but U.S. Army Brig. Gen. John F. Campbell, deputy commanding general for operations in Baghdad, likes to think of the streets as his real office. And from his vantage point, that office is starting to show signs of improvement.

Prior to the influx of forces and new counterinsurgency efforts announced by President Bush in January, Campbell encountered ghost-like stares and empty streets in areas where militias ruled. Now, he says, "The streets are bustling with people, markets are opening, the kids are waving at you, and people are welcoming you into their homes."

Campbell says it's not unusual to be invited in for tea on his now regular street walks. "They're welcoming not only Iraqi security forces but also coalition forces."

The street savvy of commanding officers like Campbell, who once hunkered behind the concrete barriers delineating the Green Zone in downtown Baghdad, is one sign that U.S. forces are serious about the new strategy.

In an interview with WORLD from Baghdad, Campbell is cautious but optimistic: He believes U.S. forces can and should succeed in Iraq—but he stresses that it won't happen unless U.S. forces can "be here for the long haul."

As the Democratic leadership pushes separate bills in the House and Senate—with both binding and non-binding troop withdrawal deadlines— Campbell and his Iraqi counterparts pound pavement. Already he can attest to promising tactical adjustments, a change in attitude among Iraqi military leaders, and a growing trust among civilians. The biggest obstacle to success in Iraq, he says, is not insurgents. It is that the United States won't stay long enough to see if the new plan works.

For a war-weary American public, there are numerous reasons to leave. Now entering its fifth year, the conflict has claimed the lives of more than 3,000 American soldiers. And seemingly endless sectarian violence is the primary factor behind an estimated 59,000 to 65,000 Iraqi deaths. The power struggle between Sunni and Shiite militias—funded by neighboring countries—has drifted into what some call civil war. At the very least, this is not what the Bush administration—or top brass like Campbell—planned.

But as the surge of forces, which began in February, unfolds, military leaders are changing tactics and laying a foundation for continuing stability. Past strategy entailed bursts of activity by U.S. forces that would then pass the baton to the Iraqis, only to have the insurgents move back in and set up camp again. The new mantra is "clear, control, and retain" by moving U.S. battalions into the neighborhoods and pairing them with Iraqi units.

"The control piece is what's different. That means we're in the cities, we're living with Iraqi counterparts, and we're a 24/7 presence every single day out there so the people in the neighborhoods see the coalition forces working with the Iraqi security forces," Campbell said.

Iraqis see a difference, too. Blogger Omar Fadhil attests to Baghdad's recent transformation not reported in most U.S. news outlets: "A lot more troops, Iraqi and American, are available and visible in Baghdad than there were a couple months ago. Checkpoints are more abundant and security measures are by far stricter than before. And yes, civilian activity is much better now than before."

The new offensive includes sending 21,500 troops and 7,000 support units to Baghdad and the Anbar Province, eventually bringing the U.S. troop presence in Iraq to 160,000. Two of the five brigades committed are already in place, and by June all should be in place. "If you visited Baghdad in December," Fadhil, reached by email, noted wryly, "and come again now for another visit, you'll see an obvious difference."

The surge into the Baghdad area includes Iraqi troops and police. Campbell says the government of Iraq has "gotten serious"—sending army battalions into Baghdad for 90-day rotations and taking ownership of the new strategy. The Iraqi police also have stepped up, addressing a rampant problem of mistrust apparent not only in the streets but at the national level.

Campbell now meets daily with National Police Maj. Gen. Hussein Jassim Al-Awadi, who took the reins last November. Campbell claims the Iraqi general has personally changed out "about 75 percent of the leadership in the last four or five months"—firing those suspected of militia involvement.

In addition, every national police brigade is being sent to a four-week retraining program with coalition advisors that emphasizes values, ethical treatment, and tactical skills. Close to half of the units have been through the program thus far, but Campbell acknowledges that it will take time to build trust among wary Iraqi civilians. Creating a joint presence in the neighborhoods is the first step. Baghdad has been divided into 10 security districts with an Iraqi brigade commander in charge of each one. The commanders are paired with a coalition unit, typically a battalion.

Prior to his transfer from Afghanistan to Iraq last August, Campbell was planning to work on his Arabic skills. But a sooner-than-expected call to Iraq meant the Arabic CDs and phrase book (revised and expanded edition) remain unopened on his desk. So when he walks the streets of his "other office," he greets Iraqis with the standard salaam alaykum, and a linguist translates the rest.

But Campbell says it doesn't take much Arabic to observe the transformation that has taken place among the senior Iraqi leadership since the new offensive began to take shape: "They've taken this on as their own, and I didn't see that during the first piece of this." Campbell said improved attitude and commitment are evident on his regular street patrols. "They're engaged and they're leading from the front."

Trickles of civilians are also showing signs of a psychological shift since Operation Imposing Law commenced in Baghdad on Feb 14. Fadhil, a Sunni Arab and a Baghdad dentist who began his blog "Iraq the Model" with his brother at the beginning of the war "not for any purpose, but to relieve the pressure in my chest," says he's seeing families returning to their homes and shops reopening.

But he too is cautious in his optimism. "The commanders didn't claim [the results would be magical] when the operation began. Still these latest results are certainly promising. And let's not forget what has been achieved so far was achieved when many thousands of the new troops assigned to Baghdad are yet to arrive," Fadhil wrote last month.

At the beginning of March Iraqi police and coalition forces embarked on their first concerted effort in Sadr City, plagued with squalid conditions and the influence of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi army. Pressured, al-Sadr went into hiding in February, and his army has maintained a low profile. Joint security stations have now been established in the city and execution-style killings have dropped dramatically. Deaths in Sadr City fell from more than 200 in December and January to less than 20 during the first 30 days of the Baghdad surge.

With an increased sense of security, Campbell now witnesses flocks of children surrounding his soldiers as they patrol the streets and a noticeable shift in attitude among Sadr City civilians. Residents are offering security tips, leading to hidden caches of weapons and insurgent hideouts. One such tip led to a March 24 raid in Sadr City where soldiers found 470 anti-tank mines. A raid the day prior in a region south of Baghdad produced a separate cache and the detention of 31 insurgents.

But Islamic extremists have countered the new offensive with high-profile bombings. More than 20 Iraqi civilians died when a March 5 car bomb struck Baghdad's historic "book market," a haven for Iraqi intellectuals. And in an apparent stepped-up offensive of insurgents attacking fellow Sunnis seen as collaborating with U.S. forces, a suicide bomber attacked a Baghdad police station March 24, killing 33 police officers and putting the day's casualty total at 87.

And while the focus is primarily on Baghdad, violence has escalated in the Diyala Province just east of the capital. Col. David Sutherland says Sunni insurgents and al-Qaeda remain vigilant in their attempts to overturn counterinsurgency attempts in the area. "I can kill and kill all day long and it won't do anything other than create more terrorists," Sutherland said. "The Iraqi government in Baghdad needs to start providing for these people." In some parts of Diyala, U.S. troop strength has dropped by half over the course of the war, and the surge plan to combat violence in central Iraq does not address those pockets.

The day Campbell spoke with WORLD, he had two memorials to attend for three soldiers killed by IEDs, or improvised explosive devices. Mourning the loss of fallen soldiers renews his commitment to make sure these soldiers have not died in vain: "We have less than half of what is coming over on the surge. We have 10 brigades on the ground, and as we apply these additional forces, I think it's only going to get better."

With pressure mounting back home, there may be a time squeeze to demonstrate that things can improve in Iraq. U.S. House members, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), on March 23 narrowly approved the first legislation calling for an end to the war. The bill mandates a withdrawal from Iraq by Aug. 31, 2008, regardless of what takes place during the next 17 months. The Senate planned to pass a less sweeping measure to end the war, with legislation calling for troop withdrawal to begin within 120 days of passage and a non-binding deadline of March 31, 2008, for complete withdrawal. President Bush has threatened to veto both measures.

"We've got to have time," Campbell said. "Our concept of time and the culture's sense of time here are two different things. We're from a society that's about fast food and getting it done. Over here it's much slower." Campbell points out that rebuilding Germany and Japan took 10 years, and they were not rebuilt while fighting a war.

Campbell doesn't watch the news every day, but many of his soldiers do and are troubled by the negative focus of the American media. "What I don't think people are seeing are all the great things that are happening each day and all the victories that are happening." Campbell rattles off a list of accomplishments: schools opening, businesses created, employment on the rise, and neighborhood advisory councils growing across the region. "All they see is the bad stuff," Campbell said. "For every explosive device that goes off, there are four or five that are stopped. For every person you find murdered, you don't hear about the four or five kidnap victims that were recovered."

Campbell has missed four of the past five Christmas holidays with his family. With a wife of 23 years and two kids—ages 18 and 20—back home in Ft. Hood, Texas, he longs to return like other soldiers and their families—just not the easy way.

Copyright © 2007 WORLD Magazine
April 07, 2007, Vol. 22, No. 12 Read More......

VDH: Nuclear Iran?

The following is adapted from a speech delivered on February 13, 2007, in Fort Myers, Florida, at a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar on the topic, “National Security: Short- and Long-Term Assessments.”

Imprimis, April 2007
“Nuclear Iran?”
Victor Davis Hanson
Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution

“The skirmishes in the occupied land are part of a war of destiny. The outcome of hundreds of years of war will be defined in Palestinian land. As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map.” So rants Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

It is understandable why Ahmadinejad might want an arsenal of nuclear missiles. It would allow him to shake down a constant stream of rich European emissaries, pressure the Arab Gulf states to lower oil production, pose as the Persian and Shiite messianic leader of Islamic terrorists, neutralize the influence of the United States in the region—and, of course, destroy Israel. Let no one doubt that a nuclear Iran would end the entire notion of peaceful global adjudication of nuclear proliferation and pose an unending threat to civilization itself.

In all his crazed pronouncements, Ahmadinejad reflects an end-of-days view: History is coming to its grand finale under his aegis. In his mind, he entrances even foreign audiences into stupor with his rhetoric. Of his recent United Nations speech he boasted, “I felt that all of a sudden the atmosphere changed there. And for 27-28 minutes all the leaders did not blink.” The name of Ahmadinejad, he supposes, will live for the ages if he takes out the “crusader” interloper in Jerusalem. As the Great Mahdi come back to life, he can do something for the devout not seen since the days of Saladin.

For now, however, Ahmadinejad faces two hurdles: He must get the bomb, and he must create the psychological landscape whereby the world will shrug at Israel’s demise.

Oddly, the first obstacle may not be the hardest. An impoverished Pakistan and North Korea pulled it off. China and Russia will likely sell Tehran anything it cannot get from rogue regimes. The European Union is Iran’s largest trading partner and ships it everything from sophisticated machine tools to sniper rifles, while impotent European diplomats continue “ruling out force” to stop the Iranian nuclear industry. Meanwhile, Moscow and Beijing, for all their expressed concern, will probably veto any serious punitive action by the United Nations.

As for the United States, it has 180,000 troops attempting to establish some sort of democratic stability in Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention a growing anti-war movement at home. An unpredictable President Bush has less than two years left in the White House, with a majority opposition in Congress that is calling for direct talks with Ahmadinejad and urging congressional restraints on the possible use of force against Iran. It is no surprise that so many in Iran see no barrier to obtaining the bomb.

But the second obstacle—preparing the world for the end of the Jewish state—is trickier.

Ahmadinejad and the Holocaust

True, the Middle East’s secular gospel is anti-Semitism. State-run media in Syria, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan broadcast endless ugly sermons about Jews as “pigs and apes.” Nor do Russia and China much care what happens to Israel, as long as its demise does not affect business. But the West is a different matter. There the history of anti-Semitism looms large, framed by the Holocaust that nearly destroyed European Jewry. Thus the Holocaust is now Ahmadinejad’s target just as much as downtown Tel Aviv.

Holocaust denial is a tired game, but Ahmadinejad’s approach is slightly new and different. He has studied the Western postmodern mind and has devised a strategy based on its unholy trinity of multiculturalism, moral equivalence and cultural relativism. As a third world populist, he expects that his own fascism will escape proper scrutiny if he can recite often enough the past sins of the West. He also understands the appeal of victimology in the West these days. So he knows that to destroy the Israelis, he, not they, must become the victim, and Westerners the aggressors who forced his hand. “So we ask you,” he said recently, “if you indeed committed this great crime, why should the oppressed people of Palestine be punished for it? If you committed a crime, you yourselves should pay for it.”

Ahmadinejad also grasps that there are millions of highly educated but cynical Westerners who see nothing exceptional about their own culture. So if democratic America has nuclear weapons, he asks, why not theocratic Iran? “Your arsenals are full to the brim, yet when it’s the turn of a nation such as mine to develop peaceful nuclear technology, you object and resort to threats.”
Moreover, he knows how Western relativism works. Who is to say what are facts or what is true, given the tendency of the powerful to “construct” their own narratives and call the result “history”? So he says that the Holocaust was exaggerated, or perhaps even fabricated, as mere jails became “death camps” through a trick of language in order to persecute the poor Palestinians. We laugh at all this as absurd. We should not.

Money, oil and threats have gotten the Iranian theocrats to the very threshold of a nuclear arsenal. Their uncanny diagnosis of Western malaise has now convinced them that they can carefully fabricate a Holocaust-free reality in which Muslims are the victims and Jews the aggressors, setting the stage for Ahmadinejad’s “righteously” aggrieved Iran, after “hundreds of years of war,” to set things right.

In the midst of all this passive-aggressive noisemaking, the Iranian government pushes insidiously forward with nuclear development—perhaps pausing when it has gone too far in order to allow some negotiations, but then getting right back at it. Nuclear acquisition for Ahmadinejad is a win/win proposition. If he obtains nuclear weapons and restores lost Persian grandeur, it will remind a restless Iranian populace how the theocrats are nationalists after all, not just pan-Islamic provocateurs. And a nuclear Iran could create all sorts of mini-crises in the region in order to spike oil prices, given world demand for oil.

The Islamic world and the front line enemies of Israel lost their Middle Eastern nuclear deterrent with the collapse of the Soviet Union; no surprise, then, that we have not seen a multilateral conventional attack on Israel ever since. But with a nuclear Iran, the mullahs can puff themselves up with a guarantee that a new coalition against Israel would not be humiliated or annihilated when it lost—since the Iranians could always, Soviet-like, threaten to go nuclear. And there are always enough crazies in Arab capitals to imagine that at last the combined armies of the Middle East could defeat Israel, with the knowledge that in case of failure, they could recede safely back under an Islamic nuclear umbrella.

Reasons for Action

How many times have we heard the following arguments?

• “Israel has nuclear weapons, so why single out Iran?”
• “Pakistan got nukes and we lived with it.”
• “Who is to say the United States or Russia should have the bomb and not other countries?”
• “Iran has promised to use its reactors for peaceful purposes, so why demonize the regime?”

In fact, the United States has at least six reasons for singling out Iran to halt its nuclear development program—and it is past time that we spell them out to the world at large.
First, any country that seeks “peaceful” nuclear power at the same time it is completely self-sufficient in energy production is de facto suspect. Iran has enough natural gas to meet its clean electrical generation needs for two centuries. The only rationale for its multi-billion-dollar program of building nuclear reactors—and for its spending billions more to hide and decentralize them—is to obtain weapons.

Second, we cannot excuse Iran by acknowledging that the Soviet Union, communist China, North Korea and Pakistan obtained nuclear weapons. In each of these cases, anti-liberal regimes gained stature and advantage by the ability to destroy Western cities. But past moral failures are not corrected by allowing history to repeat itself.

The logic of this excuse would lead to a nuclearized globe in which wars from Darfur to the Middle East would all assume the potential to go nuclear. In contrast, the fewer the nuclear players, the more likely deterrence can play some role. And if Iran were to go nuclear, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt and other Arab autocracies would follow suit in order to preserve the prestige and security of largely Arab Sunni nations. That would ensure, again, that almost any Middle East dispute involving Shiite-Sunni tension, from Lebanon to Iraq, might escalate to a nuclear confrontation.

Third, it is simply a fact that full-fledged democracies are less likely to attack one another. Although they are prone to frequent fighting—imperial Athens and republican Venice, for instance, were in some sort of war about three out of every four years during the 5th century B.C. and the 16th century, respectively—consensual governments are not so ready to fight each other. Thus today there is no chance whatsoever that an anti-American France and an increasingly anti-French America would, as nuclear democracies, go to war. Likewise Russia, following the fall of communism and its partial evolution to an elected government, poses less of a threat to the United States than before.

It would be regrettable should Taiwan, Japan, South Korea or Germany go nuclear—but not nearly as catastrophic as when Pakistan did so, which is what allows it today to give sanctuary to bin Laden and the planners of 9/11 with impunity. The former governments operate with a free press, open elections and free speech, and thus their warmaking is subject to a series of checks and balances. Pakistan is a strongman’s heartbeat away from becoming an Islamic theocracy. And while democratic India is often volatile in relations with its Islamic neighbor, the world is not nearly as worried about its nuclear arsenal as it is about autocratic Pakistan’s.

Fourth, there are a number of rogue regimes that belong in a special category: North Korea, Iran, Syria and Cuba. These are tyrannies whose leaders have sought global attention and stature through sponsoring insurrection and terrorism beyond their borders. If it is frightening that Russia, China and Pakistan are now nuclear, it is terrifying that Kim Jong Il has the bomb, and that Ahmadinejad might soon. Islamic fundamentalism and North Korean Stalinism might be antithetical to scientific advancement, but they are actually conducive to nuclear politics. When such renegade regimes go nuclear, they have an added edge. In nuclear poker, the appearance of derangement is an advantage.

Fifth, Iran presents a uniquely fourfold danger: It has enough cash to buy influence and exemption from sanctions; it possesses oil reserves to blackmail a petroleum-hungry world; it sponsors terrorists who might soon be enabled to find sanctuary under a nuclear umbrella and to be armed with dirty bombs; and it has a leader who talks as if he were willing to take his entire country into paradise—or at least back to the 7th century amid the ashes of the Middle East. Just imagine the recent controversy over Danish cartoons in the context of Ahmadinejad with his finger on a half-dozen nuclear missiles pointed at Copenhagen.

Sixth, the West is right to take on a certain responsibility to discourage nuclear proliferation. The existence of such weapons grew entirely out of Western science and technology. In fact, the story of global nuclear proliferation is exclusively one of espionage, stealthy commerce, or American-and European-trained native engineers using their foreign-acquired expertise. Pakistan, North Korea or Iran have no ability themselves to create such weapons, any more than Russia, China or India did. And any country that cannot itself create such weapons is probably less likely to ensure the necessary protocols to guard against their misuse or theft.

What Is To Be Done?

We can argue all we want over the solution. Would it be wrong to use military force? Are air strikes feasible? Will Iranian dissidents rise up, or have most of them already been killed or exiled? Will Russia and China help us or sit back and enjoy our dilemma? Is Europe our ally in this matter, or is it simply triangulating? Will the UN ever step in, or is it more likely to condemn the United States than Tehran?

Clearly a poker-faced United States seems hesitant to act until moments before the missiles are armed. It is certainly not behaving like the hegemon or imperialist power so caricatured by Michael Moore and his ilk. Until there is firm evidence that Iran has the warheads ready, no administration will wish to relive the nightmare of the past three years, with its endless hysterical accusations of arrogant unilateralism, preemption, inaccurate or falsified intelligence, imperialism, and purported hostility towards Islam.

What, then, should the United States do, other than keep offering meaningless platitudes about “dialogue”? There are actually several measures that, taken together, might work to exploit Iran’s weaknesses and maintain a nuclear-free Gulf.

First, keep pushing international accords and doggedly work to ratchet up the watered-down United Nations sanctions. Even if they don’t do much to Iran in any significant way, the resolutions seem to enrage Ahmadinejad. And when he rages at the politically correct United Nations, he only loses further support.

Second, keep prodding the European Union, presently Iran’s chief trading partner, to apply pressure. The so-called EU3—Britain, France and Germany—failed completely in its recent attempt to stop Ahmadinejad’s nuclear plans. But out of that setback came a growing realization in Europe that a nuclear-tipped missile from theocratic Iran could hit Europe just as easily as Israel. Next, Europeans should adopt a complete trade embargo to prevent all Iranian access to precision machinery and high technology.

Third, keep encouraging Iranian dissidents. We need not ask them to go into the streets where they would be shot. Instead we should offer them media help and access to the West. Also highlight the plight of women, minorities and liberals in Iran—the groups that traditionally appeal to the Western left.

Fourth, we should announce in advance that we don’t want any bases in Iran; don’t want its oil; and won’t send American infantry there. That would preempt the tired charges of imperialism and colonialism.

Fifth, and crucially, we must complete the stabilization of Iraq and Afghanistan. The last thing Iran wants is a democratic and prosperous Middle East surrounding its borders. The sight of Afghans, Iraqis, Kurds, Lebanese and Turks voting and speaking freely could form a critical mass of democratic reform to overwhelm the Khomeinists.

Sixth, keep reminding the Gulf monarchies that a nuclear Shiite theocracy is far more dangerous to them than to the United States or Israel—and that America’s efforts to contain Iran depend on their own to rein in Wahhabis in Iraq.

Seventh, say nothing much about the presence of two or three carrier groups in the Persian Gulf and Mediterranean. Iran will soon grasp on its own that the build-up of such forces might presage air strikes, at which the United States excels.

Eighth, make it clear that Israel, as a sovereign nation, has a perfect right to protect itself. The United States should keep reminding Iran that 60 years after the real Holocaust, no Israeli Prime Minister will sit by idly while 7th century theocrats grandstand about wiping out the state of Israel and obtain the nuclear means to do it.

Ninth, keep the rhetoric down. Avoid threats to bomb many who could be our friends—while at the same time ignoring therapeutic pleas to talk with those who we know are our enemies.
Finally, Americans must gasify coal, diversify fuels, drill for more petroleum and invent new energy sources. Only that can collapse the world price of petroleum. At $60 a barrel for oil, Ahmadinejad is a charismatic third world benefactor who throws cash at every thug who wants a roadside bomb or shoulder-fired missile—and has plenty of money to buy Pakistani, North Korean or Russian nuclear components. But at $30 a barrel, he will be despised by his own people, who will become enraged as state-subsidized food and gas prices skyrocket, and as scarce Iranian petrodollars are wasted on Hezbollah and Hamas.

In conclusion, let me offer a more ominous note of warning. Israel is not free from its own passions, and there will be no second Holocaust. It is past time for Iranian leaders to snap out of their pseudo-trances and recognize that some Western countries are not only far more powerful than Iran, but in certain situations and under particular circumstances can be just as driven by memory, history—and, yes, a certain craziness as well.

The same goes for the United States. The Iranians, like bin Laden, imagine an antithetical caricature—which, like all caricatures, has some truth in it—whereby we materialistic Westerners love life too much to die, while the pious Islamic youths they send to kill us with suicide bombs love death too much to live. But what the Iranian theocrats, like the al-Qaedists, never fully fathom is that if the American people conclude that their freedom and existence are at stake, they are capable of conjuring up things far more frightening than anything in the 7th-century brain of Mr. Ahmadinejad. The barbarity of the nightmares at Antietam, Verdun, Dresden and Hiroshima prove that well enough. In short, there are consequences to the rhetoric of Armageddon.

So far the Iranian leader has posed as someone 90 percent crazy and ten percent sane, hoping that in response we would fear his overt madness, grant concessions, and delicately appeal to his small reservoir of reason. But he should understand that if his Western enemies appear 90 percent of the time as children of the Enlightenment, they are still suffused with vestigial traces of the emotional and unpredictable. And military history shows that the irrational ten percent of the Western mind is a lot scarier in the end than anything Islamic fanaticism has to offer.

Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, the national speech digest of Hillsdale College, www.hillsdale.edu.

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McCain on Iraq

Austin Bay writes, “And Senator McCain continues to soldier. Thank you, Senator.”

McCain at ABC News: “The judgment of history should be the approval we seek,” the GOP presidential hopeful said, “not the temporary favor of the latest public opinion poll.”
[...]
McCain asserted that if U.S. troops withdraw prematurely, the Iraqi government will collapse, drawing in Iraq’s neighbors — Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey.

“This uncertain swirl of events could cause the region to explode and foreclose the opportunity for millions of Muslims and their children to achieve freedom,” McCain said.

“We could face a terrible choice: Watch the region burn, the price of oil escalate dramatically and our economy decline, watch the terrorists establish new base camps or send American troops back to Iraq, with the odds against our success much worse than they are today,” McCain concluded.

He added that “the potential for genocide and ethnic cleansing in Iraq is even worse” than in Rwanda if troops leave too soon, “and the potential consequence of allowing terrorists sanctuary in Iraq is another 9/11 — or worse.”

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