Israel Matzav

Why not to learn to live with the Iranian bomb appease Iran

New York Senator Hillary Clinton, the front runner for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination in the United States, announced yesterday that she is co-sponsoring a measure introduced by Senator Jim Webb (D-Va.) that would prohibit "the use of funds for military operations against Iran without explicit Congressional authorization (S. 759)." It's the wrong message to be sending the Mad Mullahs at the wrong time. Its consequences are reminiscent of then-British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain holding up his piece of paper "signed by Herr Hitler" and assuring the world that there won't be a war.

But sometimes there need to be wars. Not because we want wars - most rational people don't want wars - but because the alternative to war is even worse. For example, if there had been no World War II, eighteen million Jews might have been exterminated in Europe rather than six million. And if the western powers had acknowledged the necessity for war sooner, rather than trying to appease 'Herr Hitler' and avoid war, perhaps the number of Jews and others murdered by the 'Third Reich' would have been much lower.

In a lengthy and well-done blog post this past weekend, Dr. Sanity explained the consequences of appeasing uncivilized dictators:

Shrink is absolutely correct in asserting that by denying our own aggressive natures we end up enabling and supporting the aggression of others. And, the most blatant example is the appeasement of terrorism and terrorists by the political left and the Democrats; or any who are totally invested in seeing themselves as "antiwar" as they cozy up to enemies whose explicit goal is to destroy our civilization.

The actual track record of so-called "peace" movements is abysmal. Look at how the same sort of "peace" movement in the 1930's allowed the rise to power and the subsequent aggression of the most dangerous evil ever to confront the world.

Once again we are faced with a loud contingent of the clueless, who would rather deny their own aggressive impulses and embrace the delusion that they are saintly, compassionate people--proudly standing against the horrible evils of war--rather than confront reality.

Thomas Sowell once commented that, "If cease-fires actually promoted peace, the Middle East would be the most peaceful region on the face of the earth instead of the most violent. "

Clearly it is not. And there is an important psychological reason for this reality. Every aggressor today has been recast by the political left as a victim of the imperialist West; and thus those aggressors know that the full force of the left's postmodern rhetoric and its antiwar fervor will provide a protective umbrella shielding them from any consequences for their aggression. No matter how egregious their behavior is; or how many innocents they slaughter, they can count on endless demands for cease fires, negotiations and concessions; and that the left will blame the West.

Antiwar protestors always make a point of asking rhetorically what war is good for? You have heard them chanting this query at almost every one of their peace marches.

The truth is that no sane person wants war, but aggression may be the only possible response to evil.

And in human history, there have been many evils far worse than war.

But, Senator Clinton might ask, why would you believe that Ahmadinejad would bring a nuclear Holocaust on the world. He knows (or believes) that Israel has a second strike capability. Surely he must understand that if even if he manages to blow Israel off the map, it will only be at great sacrifice to his own population.

Moreover, although Americans love Israel, is it really worth risking American lives to stop Ahmadinejad? He is thousands of miles from the United States! Why should the American people fight this battle?

There are several answers to these questions. First, Ahmadinejad is clearly targeting the United States for which he regards Israel as a proxy. Just yesterday, Israel Radio reported that Ahmadinejad threatened to target 170 American installations in the Middle East if Iran is attacked by Israel or the United States.

Second, part of Senator Clinton's apparent motivation for her position is a nagging doubt as to whether Ahmadinejad means what he says. But as Sigmund, Carl & Alfred point out in a post linked by Dr. Sanity, one must take Ahmadinejad's words seriously:

There is a very big difference between the Israelis and the Iranians and the Arab world when comes to nuclear weapons. For the Israelis, they are real deterrent. For the Iranians, nuclear weapons are hammer, to be used to blackmail the west- or worse.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize Mahmoud Ahmadenijad’s pronouncement of his affection for Jews is suspect when his best friends are proud supporters of racism and genocide. The Iranians are the major political, economic and military backers of Hassan Nasrallah and Hizbollah. Nasrallah, never shy refers to Jews as ’sons of monkeys and pigs’ and has expressed his delight that there are so many Jews in Israel- ‘It will save us the trouble of rounding them up.’ Given the Iranian penchant for supporting Hizbollah, et al, do we really want to take the chance that the Iranians might supply that terrorist organization with a small nuke, to be deployed inside Israel?

Siggy is also very cognizant of the historical parallels and the devastating consequences of this sort of psychological denial:

Imagine being a black person in a neighborhood where you are surrounded by KKK members who for decades have promised to lynch you. They have no problem stating what is they have in store for you and they teach those lessons to their kids in neighborhood schools and in summer camps and and even in churches. Parents display their pride as their children play games like ’slaughter the nigger!’ and express their desire from a young age to participate in the killing of blacks.

One can only imagine the scenario if the Iranian and Arab world nuclear ‘imbalance’ and ‘inequality’ of nuclear programs were allowed to be addressed. If history tends to repeat itself, we have plenty to consider.

Prior to WWII, Hitler broke the Treaty of Versailles, rearmed Germany to the extreme, beat the drums of war and put that nation on a war footing. The Europeans, loathe to fight another war, recalling the horrors of WWI, did everything they could to avoid another conflagration, even turning a blind eye after Hitler waltzed into Czechoslovakia and took the Sudetenland. They believed him when he said ‘that was all he wanted, to correct past injustices suffered by the German ethnic minority.’

(Does that ring a bell yet?)

Chamberlain, the gold medal champion of European denial and psychopathy, went to Berlin and met with ‘civilized’ Hitler to much newsreel fanfare. He returned home to an adoring crowd, waving a piece of paper ’signed by Herr Hitler.’ There was to be no war, Chamberlain assured a nervous nation and continent. In fact, he soothed European fears and declared, ‘There will be peace in our time.’

"Peace" in Chamberlain's time translated into millions of Jews exterminated before the West finally woke up and confronted the unbelievable evil that they had "learned" to stop worrying about as they indulged their psychological denial.

In fact, we can translate "learning to live with a nuclear Iran" into "learning to live without Israel and the Jews". Because that is what the practical consequence of this leftist line of reasoning amounts to.

Will we wait for the equivalent of more than 2000 WTC's when (not if) a nuclear Iran inevitably pursues it's religious destiny--the one that Ahmadinejad and the Mullahs have repeatedly emphasized over the years? You must admit that would be a strange sort of "love" and "compassion", wouldn't it?

Read the whole thing.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:59 PM