Friday, April 11, 2008

STAND AGAINST THE DARKNESS

Yes, 'pierre', I am on a LOTR kick today. I consider it the story for our times.

Frodo: I can't do this, Sam.
Sam: I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.
Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?
Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for.

-The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers


The Dark is rising. You can feel it as clearly as the elves of Tolkien's Middle Earth felt the rise of Sauron. Thuggish world leaders openly declare their intent to anhilate America and all who stand in the way of world domination; and the world yawns:
On Tuesday Iran announced it was installing 6,000 more centrifuges -- they produce enriched uranium, the key ingredient of a nuclear weapon -- in addition to the 3,000 already operating. The world yawned.

It is time to admit the truth: The Bush administration's attempt to halt Iran's nuclear program has failed. Utterly. The latest round of U.N. Security Council sanctions, which took a year to achieve, is comically weak. It represents the end of the sanctions road.

At home, the president's efforts to stop Iran's nuclear program were irreparably undermined by November's National Intelligence Estimate, whose "moderate confidence" that Iran has not restarted nuclear weaponization -- the least important of three elements of any nuclear program -- has promoted the illusion that Iran has given up the pursuit of nuclear weapons. Yet uranium enrichment, the most difficult step, proceeds apace, as does the development of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles.

The president is out of options. He is going to hand over to his successor an Iran on the verge of going nuclear. This will deeply destabilize the Middle East, threaten the moderate Arabs with Iranian hegemony and leave Israel on hair-trigger alert.


Krauthammer proposes a "Holocaust Declaration", which says:
"It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear attack upon Israel by Iran, or originating in Iran, as an attack by Iran on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon Iran."

This should be followed with a simple explanation: "As a beacon of tolerance and as leader of the free world, the United States will not permit a second Holocaust to be perpetrated upon the Jewish people."


But it is clear from every piece of evidence at our disposal, that Ahmadinejad is a fanatic's fanatic who will not deter his genocidal vision because of a few million piddly human deaths or worldwide destruction, even if people in his own country suffer for it. He is completely irrational and would like nothing better than to be the Islamic 'hero' who ushers in the apocalypse for the 12th Imam.

It is true that behind this fruitcake, there are the Iranian mullahs, who may be religious, but are not stupid. They use Ahmadinejad to jab at the West and draw blood, then pull him back. Their goal is power, and they realize that you can't have power if you are dead. Ahmadinejad may think he calls the shots, but the mullahs, however immoderate and provocative are the ones with real power.

The question is, how far will the mullahs let the madman go? Would they let him "wipe Israel off the map", if they thought the world, i.e., the U.S., would do nothing? I think they would, simply because if they could get away with it, then it would completely consolidate their power as the real "leaders" of Islam--the ones who elimated the hated Jewish State, the poisonous thorn in the side of the Islamic world.

Can we base our security and that of Israel's on the hope that the mullahs may be immoderate, but perhaps not irrational?

God help us if we rely solely on such a vain hope--particularly if the Democrats get back into power.

Because, you see, Iran and the rest of the terrorists are patiently waiting. They are waiting for the Democrats--with all their inherent moral weakness and confusion; the Iranians are waiting because they perceive fear, appeasement, defeat, and surrender in the Democratic rhetoric and behavior. They know that as soon as an Obama gets elected, they will be home free and will not have to suffer any consequences for wiping Israel off the map--from the U.S., anyway. They will be able to do as they like without interference.

The dithering Democrats will excuse, rationalize and basically look for any reason to exculpate any atrocity Iran initiates, because they are 'the party of peace' and they just know they can talk to lunatics and trust them.

They Iranians know that today's Democrats will not stand against the darkness; instead they will simply turn off the lights and dwell in the dark without protest--then say it is a good thing.

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