Bernard Lewis On The Mideast, Nukes & The End of Days

A recent Glenn Beck program, about which I wrote here, was brought to mind as I read the last paragraphs of this past weekend's Wall Street Journal interview with Bernard Lewis. Lewis is described as among the most authoritative Western scholars on the Arab world.

Writing about nuclear weapons in Islamist hands, the article stated,

"But the mullahs "are religious fanatics with an apocalyptic mindset. In Islam, as in Christianity and Judaism, there is an end-of-times scenario- and they think it's beginning or has already begun." So "mutually assured destruction is not a deterrent- it's an inducement." "

Scary stuff, isn't it? It completely reinforces Beck's contentions regarding what the Iranians see in the current turbulence in the Mideast.

Impeachable New Start Behavior By Reid & Wonderboy?

I'm beginning to think that Harry Reid, Wonderboy and all the Senators voting to rush the flawed New Start nuclear weapons treaty through a vote in this lame duck session should be impeached.

After all, are they not violating their oaths to uphold the Constitution, meaning  "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States," including, one supposes, the part about "provide for the common defense."

By rushing this treaty through a lame duck session and denying it appropriate time for debate, these office-holders are effectively abdicating their responsibilities.

And what about China? Why is such a treaty only with Russia? Is equal effort being expended on similar efforts with the Chinese? If not, isn't it nutty to only deal with Russia, possibly dealing away our rights to missile defense systems by virtue of an agreement with only one other nation?

So much about this thing smells that it just seems wrong to ratify it. Certainly not in a lame duck session when so many Senators won't be around in two weeks. And with insufficient time for debate and public reaction.

I can't really believe our nation has come to the point of twisting Congressional rules to ram a bloated, unaffordable healthcare bill through, then add insult to injury by doing the same with a treaty that helps to strip away our defenses.

The Chinese must be laughing themselves silly, believing Christmas is especially fruitful this year.

Subsequent Congresses may be capable of reversing the health care fiasco, but I don't know that they will be able to undo the damage done by ill-considered ratification of this treaty.

Iran, Brazil, Turkey, Hillary & Nukes

Tuesday's Wall Street Journal had a scathing lead staff editorial regarding the recent coup by Iran involving nuclear material, Turkey and Brazil.

By far the best single line of the piece, and maybe any editorial in that space in months, was,

"In her first game of high-stakes diplomatic poker, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is leaving the table wearing a barrel."

Thanks to Wonderboy leaving America toothless and completely unnecessary to be feared by any rogue nation, or (former) friendly nation, Iran has found confederates among once US-friendly nations.

Good job, guys. In less than four years, this administration has put a nuclear weapon within reach of Muslim radicals in Iran. Meanwhile, Clinton is baldfacedly assuring Congress that the recent START treaty with Russia is a good deal- really.

With Hillary's recent failure fresh in our minds, let's hope nobody on the Hill believes her in that testimony, either.

Charles Krauthammer On Wonderboy's New Nuclear Weapons Policies

Earlier this week, on Fox News' evening program normally hosted by Brett Baier, Charles Krauthammer declared Wonderboy's new nuclear policy "either insane or ridiculous- I can't decide."

And a lot more. Here's the video.



As Krauthammer said, "you decide."

An Overview of Democratic US Presidents' Arms Control Failures

Stephen Rademaker, a State Department official from the Bush administration, wrote an insightful piece in the Wall Street Journal last month entitled, "Why Democrats Fail at Arms Control."



Mr. Rademaker wrote a fairly long editorial filled with references to a multitude of non-proliferation and arms control treaties, e.g., CTBT, SALT, ABM, START, SORT and SALT II.



But what caught my eye was this passage,



"The principal reason that recent Democratic presidents have failed with Russia has been their excessive enthusiasm and ambition, which perversely encourages the Russians to overreach, dooming prospects for agreement. This was a problem for Messrs. Carter and Clinton. And it promises to be an even bigger problem for Mr. Obama, who comes to office with an arms-control agenda- the abolition of nuclear weapons- far more ambitious than that of any previous administration."



One of the so-called "advisers" that Wonderboy has cited, in his quest to appear bi- and post-partisan, is Republican Senator Dick Lugar of Indiana. Here's what Rademaker has to say about Lugar's views,



"Early on, Sen. Richard Lugar (R., Ind.) admonished the administration to "resist calls to load the negotiations agenda with objectives that, while desirable, would slow down the talks and threaten the tight timetable" for avoiding a lapse in arms-control verification."



So much for that adviser. Rademaker notes that our First Rookie summarily ignored Lugar's recommendations, and did exactly the opposite, attempting to install a completely new vehicle to begin ridding the world of all nuclear weapons in place of the planned, much simpler extension of verification procedures.



Mr. Rademaker goes on to note,



"Today, the administration finds itself in the unhappy position of negotiating against a firm deadline, with very ambitious objectives and a negotiating partner that does not share its political needs to reach agreement. Come December, Russia can be expected to present Mr. Obama with two choices: Sign an agreement on terms disadvantageous to the U.S. (thereby risking defeat of the treaty in the Senate), or allow the START treaty to expire with nothing to replace it."



Yet another example of why it's unwise to allow to run, be nominated and elected, a person with no substantial life experience or prior government experience at a significant level.



Being a multi-term state legislator, then serving less than two years in the US Senate, has resulted in Wonderboy being totally unfit to actually govern the United States and, thus, fulfill his oath of office. This arms control issue is a perfect illustration of how that is occurring in one crucial area after another in the nation's affairs.

Wonderboy's UN Nuclear Whitewash

Tuesday's Wall Street Journal contained an eye-opening account of what was supposed to happen when Wonderboy chaired the UN Security Council meeting last week. According to the Journal,

"But now we hear that the French and British leaders were quietly seething on stage, annoyed by America's handling of the announcement.

Both countries wanted to confront Iran a day earlier at the United Nations. Mr. Obama was, after all, chairing a Security Council session devoted to nonproliferation. The latest evidence of Iran's illegal moves toward acquiring a nuclear weapon was in hand. With the world's leaders gathered in New York, the timing and venue would be a dramatic way to rally international opinion.

President Sarkozy in particular pushed hard. He had been "frustrated" for months about Mr. Obama's reluctance to confront Iran, a senior French government official told us, and saw an opportunity to change momentum. But the Administration told the French that it didn't want to "spoil the image of success" for Mr. Obama's debut at the U.N. and his homily calling for a world without nuclear weapons, according to the Paris daily Le Monde."

Wow. In order to protect the image of success, Wonderboy's handlers forbid Britain and France to actually address real nuclear weapon proliferation concerns at the UN, which would be the logical place to do so.

The editorial continues, referring to Sarkozy's modified UN address,

"The address takes on added meaning now that we know the backroom discussions.

"We are right to talk about the future," Mr. Sarkozy said, referring to the U.S. resolution on strengthening arms control treaties. "But the present comes before the future, and the present includes two major nuclear crises," i.e., Iran and North Korea. "We live in the real world, not in a virtual one." No prize for guessing into which world the Frenchman puts Mr. Obama.

"We say that we must reduce," he went on. "President Obama himself has said that he dreams of a world without nuclear weapons. Before our very eyes, two countries are doing exactly the opposite at this very moment. Since 2005, Iran has violated five Security Council Resolutions."

You can't criticize Sarkozy for avoiding reality or being in denial. Like our president. The French PM continued,

"And last but not least, it has resulted in a statement by Iranian leaders calling for wiping off the map a Member of the United Nations. What are we to do? What conclusions are we to draw? At a certain moment hard facts will force us to make decisions.""

Sarkozy pulls no punches about the threat a nuclear Iran will pose to Israel. How's that for irony? A French Prime Minister arguing on Israel's behalf?

Unfortunately, our own leader can't muster the courage to confront the Iranians at the UN, preferring, instead, to continue his imaginary global victory lap undisturbed by the reality of nuclear weapons proliferation in one of the most dangerous reasons on Earth.

Iran's Nuclear Weapon Development

The recent disclosure of Iran's additional reactor site brings to the forefront an unbelievable state of affairs in the ineptitude of the Western world's management of this situation for over a decade.


As I sit writing this post, I find myself thinking that this must be what it felt like to read newspapers in the late 1930s, seeing war coming and watching the West's leaders fumble any chance to pre-emptively contain it.

Iran is a regional bully. It's a poorly-run theocracy that crushes its own citizens' dissent. Properly economically embargoed, the current regime might collapse in a year or so. Certainly, the lack of refined petroleum products and hard currency would make ordinary life and the continued progress of its nuclear weapons ambitions very difficult to sustain.

Instead, eight years of accommodation and lack of response by the Bush administration let Iran make substantial progress on both uranium enrichment and missile delivery systems. By turning a blind eye to Iran's single-minded pursuit of nuclear weapons, President Bush missed a golden opportunity to take the program out when it was still in its infancy.

Apparently, Bush's infatuation with Vladimir Putin prevented him from unilaterally halting Iran's nuclear weapons program. Further, inexplicably, when Iran was proven to be aiding those in Iraq attacking US forces, Bush, again, failed to take advantage of the opportunity to destroy substantial parts of Iran's nuclear capability.

With the 1930s as a reasonable example from which to learn, it should be obvious that rogue nations like Iran, now, and Germany, then, are secretly scared of being stopped via military force during their arming phase. But they treat every diplomatic threat as a signal to proceed.

Using major powers' values and diplomatic processes against them, these rogue nations merrily put on a show of diplomacy while racing ahead with rearmament. While everyone watches their clear displays of duplicity, leaders of the major powers continue to behave as if what everyone knows is, in fact, not true.

In the 1930s, it resulted in world war of epic proportions and loss of millions of lives.

Now, we are talking nuclear weapons with missile delivery systems. In the face of this, Wonderboy has just backed down on deploying the Bush-planned theater anti-missile defenses in Eastern Europe.

How can this be happening? How can we actually be watching our own elected president, and the heads of the major European powers, and Russia, simply sit and watch a renegade state approach the point of capability of launching a nuclear weapon at Israel or southern Europe?

Are these elected leaders mad? Insane? Or merely so pompous and egotistical that because they, or, in our own case, he, believes in his rhetorical skills, he is willing to bet several million lives and the use of land in several Mediterranean or European countries for thousands of years on them?

I read this past weekend's two-page piece on Israel's options for destroying Iran's nuclear weapons program. Two things struck me as I read the article.

First, we have a cold-blooded, analytical piece concerning how Israel, a regional power, might take out Iran's nuclear threat, when the world's most effective and strongest military power, the US, stands nearer Iran, with greater assets. Yet I was reading a serious piece about how Israel would have to contemplate doing the job itself in order to avoid nuclear annihilation.

Second, with such a serious, world-changing possibility in the offing, i.e., Iran acquiring and launching nuclear weapons that will, for all practical purposes, change the face of the world for decades to come, the US isn't even considered in the running to stop it.

It's now a foregone conclusion that our own government will not use our considerable military advantage to simply attack and destroy anything necessary inside Iran, until it has no hope of recreating a nuclear weapons program for the next four or five decades.

Instead, we have the UN, NATO, and the US all behaving as if Iran already has active nuclear weapons in a deliverable state.

Whatever political and human costs a pre-emptive attack on Iran's nuclear weapons facilities would entail, in hindsight, after the detonation of the first Iranian nuclear weapon on another country's soil, those costs will seem laughably small and affordable.

But, then, it will be far too late.