The 'Cold War', or WWIII, saw a corrupt tyranny eventually collapse attempting to face down the American Republic. For all the frightening moments the morally bankrupt strategy of "MAD", or Mutually Assured Destruction, seemed to keep both sides in check until that unexpected, although in hindsight inevitable, collapse.
But I have a rhetorical question for you. Is a militant theological tyranny, such as that ruling Iran, rational enough to be held in check by MAD or are their pronouncements not rhetoric and indicators they will in fact continue to pursue an ever escalating proxy war against their perceived enemies?
This... is funny:
Strangers on my flightWhy?
Will it be 'funny' when Iran's Hezbollah drives a nuclear weapon into East Jerusalem and levels that city making a fallout poisoned wasteland out of a city holy to Christians and Jews for thousands of years?
Because of the UN's
IAEA enablement Iran is in fact only months away from deploying that first nuclear weapon:
Decision time for US over Iran threat
Iran has installed 3,000 centrifuges for enriching uranium - enough to begin industrial-scale production of nuclear fuel and build a warhead within a year...
How hard does the UN's
IAEA and it's Egyptian head
Mohamed ElBaradei work to enable Iran's nuclear weapons program?
The IAEA says the uranium being produced is only fuel grade (enriched to 4%)...
"only fuel grade"? Which UN's
IAEA "knows" about a plant they are not allowed to inspect because the Iranians tell them so... even as the Iranians hand over plans for nuclear warheads they purchased from Pakistan's nuclear proliferator:
AQKhan?
A nuclear weapon is the only sort of warhead Iran's multiple-warhead rockets can usefully deliver.
I'm always annoyed when the MainStreamMedia propagates the lies of the terror supporting Mullahs by insisting on parroting the fraud that the Iranians are enriching Uranium for "peaceful purposes". Why? Why is it so obvious Iran is lying?
Iran has no generators, for converting nuclear plants energy to electricity, and no plans to buy any.
No transmission lines are being laid... past the anti-Aircraft emplacements.
Iran actually has no nuclear reactors to consume the fuel. Zero.
The Russian ones under construction obligate the Iranians to buy fuel from Russia.
Iran also doesn't have the technical capacity to clad the fuel rods, for use in a nuclear reactor, even if they could enrich fuel.
So only a liar would tell you that Iran isn't enriching uranium for the same reason Saddam Hussein was... which is why we removed almost 400 tons of Yellowcake Uranium and a couple of tons of partially enriched uranium from Iraq.
But that misleading statement isn't the only "BigLie" advanced by the UN's
IAEA. They also invent excuses to delay action:
Against the fraught backdrop, a meeting of senior officials from the UN security council's five permanent members and Germany to decide on sanctions, planned for Monday, was put off after the Chinese delegation said it could not attend.
The critical meeting has been pushed back to later this month, giving time for the six-nation group's negotiator, Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, to hold last-ditch talks with Iranian officials.
...
David Albright, a former UN inspector and now an independent nuclear expert in Washington, said ElBaradei appeared to be trying to put "a happy face" on a worsening situation. "The main issue is that Iran now has 3,000 centrifuges," he said. "The report doesn't even judge the quality of the information being offered, but it's clear it is giving minimal answers."
Micheal Goldfarb mocks the UN
Iran "Generally Truthful" on Nukes
Now the IAEA's report is out, and they find the Iranians to be "generally truthful." The Iranians had "accidentally" received blueprints for a nuclear warhead (as part of an illegal transfer of nuclear know-how), which were "accidentally" discovered by the IAEA, and we are still supposed to believe that (a) they aren't working towards a nuclear weapon, (b) they don't have other blueprints with which they weren't quite so careless, and (c) the IAEA's standard for compliance has always been "generally truthful." This wishful thinking can only lead to one conclusion--a nuclear Iran. And, while the use of force to prevent such an outcome is certain to be painful for all parties involved, diplomacy just isn't going to work, because the IAEA is all trust, and no verify.
Stanley Kurtz notes the MSM's complicity
Iran's 3000 Centrifuges
If you thought the press was burying news about the surge, look at what they’re doing to the nuclear news from Iran.
...
The New York Times has buried its story on page 12, while The Washington Post has gone deeper still, at page 22.
...
This confirmation of 3,000 Iranian centrifuges is a front-page story. There is simply no excuse for burying it, or for playing down its significance.
It isn't just the UN & the MainStreamMedia that enables Iran's proxy war criminals:
Video: Palestinian Terrorists Take Classes from the Red CrossWow. Talk about a mind-bending video. This slice of propaganda comes from the sanitized, slicked-up English version of Al Jazeera, as masked Palestinian terrorists attend International Humanitarian Law and First Aid training classes run by the International Committee of the Red Cross, and Al Jazeera tries to show us the human side of a gang of remorseless murderers. Without taking off the masks, of course.
But the lowest of the low... the most inexcusable element of the apeasement-enablement of Islamofascist terror has to be America's (D)emocrats. As KLo illustrates
From Pete Hoekstra
“Today’s vote is another unnecessary political stunt by Democrats in the House. Congress should focus on continuing to support America’s military and intelligence professionals as they work to improve security and stability, not micromanaging for political gain a very real struggle against radical jihadists.
“I want to bring the courageous men and women of our military home quickly and safely as much as anybody, but just as we are beginning to see tangible improvements in security in Iraq, now is not the time to burden the effort with the same old political maneuvers of the past—maneuvers that have already failed 40 times.”
Duane R. Patterson
Go Ahead, Democrats. I Dare You. Cut The Money For The Military.
The House of Representatives, in classic mob rule style, passed the "cut the money and run away" bill late last night, sending it along to Reid and the Democrats this morning.
But cutting the funds, by vote or delay, is only part of the strategy to force an American defeat to Iran's proxy warriors in Iraq:
US Democrats slam Iraqi government
"Every place you go you hear about no progress being made in Iraq," said Senate Democratic majority leader Harry Reid.
"The government is stalemated today, as it was six months ago, as it was two years ago," Reid told reporters, warning US soldiers were caught in the middle of a civil war.
"It is not getting better, it is getting worse," he said.
"worse'? Again... another "BigLie"...
Sweetness & Light notes the (D)efeaticrats are cutting funding by running:
Senate Dems Refuse To Fund Troops This Year
Once again Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer and the rest of the Democrats who are trying to force this issue are showing themselves to be traitors to this country, plain and simple.
They are so desperate to try to make us lose a war that we clearly winning that they will do anything, even stab our soldiers in the back by denying them funding while they are on the battlefield.
These are Senators?
These are Americans?
James W. Ceaser
The Democrats' dilemma.
WILL ANY OF the Democratic candidates be able to summon the courage to concede an American victory in Iraq?
...
..."facts on the ground" now at least admit a trend leading to what might reasonably be called victory: a suppression of the insurgency; a steep reduction in the level of domestic, sectarian violence; the existence of a constitutional government not unfriendly to America; a gradual reduction of American force presence with diminishing American casualties; and the assurance for a period of a continued base of operations from which to handle other possible contingencies in the region.
But if this outcome "on the ground" can be called victory--and why should it not be?--there is a huge potential problem looming in our ability to acknowledge it.
Charles Krauthammer blasts another "BigLie" of the (D)efeaticrats:
Someone better tell DemocratsWASHINGTON - When the Democratic presidential candidates pause from beating Hillary with a stick, they join in unison to pronounce the Democratic pieties, chief among which is that George Bush has left our alliances in ruins. As Clinton puts it, we have “alienated our friends,” must “rebuild our alliances” and “restore our standing in the world.” That’s mild. The others describe Bush as having a scorched-earth foreign policy that has left us reviled and isolated in the world.
The Democrats are living in what Bob Woodward would call a state of denial. Do they not notice anything?
France has a new president who is breaking not just with the anti-Americanism of the Chirac era but with 50 years of Fifth Republic orthodoxy that defined French greatness as operating in counterpoise to America. Nicolas Sarkozy’s trip last week to the United States was marked by a highly successful White House visit and a rousing speech to Congress in which he not only called America “the greatest nation in the world” but pledged solidarity with the U.S. on Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon, the Middle East and nuclear nonproliferation. This just a few months after he sent his foreign minister to Iraq to signal an openness to cooperation and an end to Chirac’s obstructionism.
...
...new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who noted “the great change that is taking place,” namely “that France and Germany and the European Union are also moving more closely with America.”
...
...relations with Australia are very close, and Canada has shown remarkable steadfastness in taking disproportionate casualties in supporting the NATO mission in Afghanistan. Eastern European nations, traditionally friendly, are taking considerable risks on behalf of their U.S. alliance. And ties with Japan have never been stronger.
A-J-Strata thinks
Tide Turning Against Democrats On Iraq
Calling for defeat in the face of victory is NEVER going to be a popular position.
And finally there is some puchback:
SecDef Gates cowboys up against the surrendercrat Congress
... it’s telling that Congress apparently doesn’t even understand how the DoD’s budget even works. Just what exactly is this Congress good for if it doesn’t even understand its most basic Constitutional role?
We need much more of this:
Video: Gen. Casey pwns Ted KennedyEveryone’s probably watching the Democrat debate, but here’s a clip that’s worth preserving. During budget testimony today, Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey faced off against Sen. Ted Kennedy. Kennedy snarked about the state of the military and asked sarcastically which enemy that it has faced has put the Army in the state that it’s in. Gen. Casey’s answer, more or less, is the Democrats who cut the military’s budget in the 1990s have put the Army in the state that it’s in.
NRO editors
Democratic Fantasyland
What was it that Hillary Clinton once said about the willing suspension of disbelief? For congressional Democrats, that line has gone from a put-down (of Gen. David Petraeus’s testimony before Congress) to a way of life. On Iraq, Democrats now live in a fantasy world. That’s why they can ignore the surge’s success and — after all we’ve learned over the last year — persist in trying to condition funding of the Iraq war on a drawdown of troops by the end of 2008.
...
As the political tide in Congress has ebbed away from the hard antiwar Democrats over the last year, their Iraq proposals have gone from dangerous, to contemptible, to — now — simply pathetic.
VDH on the (D)efeaticrats
Very Useful Idiots
Iraqis associate cynicism, even anti-Arabism not with hard-nosed Republicans, but with liberal, supposedly idealistic Democratic liberals, whose serial trashing of them is constantly aired in Iraq...
The New Iraqi Debate
Now that the Democrats suspect that the U.S. is not only not losing Iraq, but may well “win”—victory being defined by stabilizing the country with a radical cessation of violence—expect the critique suddenly to morph as well.
Moving the goalposts... again...
Also expect Democrats to find ways to exaggerate the aggregate costs (like counting the rise from 20-100 dollars a barrel for oil entirely due to the Iraqi war without notice of the new Chinese/Indian demand, unrest in Africa, and declining production from the UK to the US)...
No 'War for No Oil'?
...the US military has eliminated a large number of terrorists, insurgents and general terrorists since 2003. Given the noxious fumes of Vietnam-era “body-counts” we don’t mention this. But many of the sheiks suffered horrendous losses among their tribes to the US in the past four years that led to some demoralization and the simple absence of their more skilled and veteran fighters. So, when they weighed the odds—increasing oil-generated wealth on the one hand versus being mowed down by the US on the other—the choice was to join us.
In other words... America is winning and the American military is getting a lot better in spite of the (D)emocrat's claims and efforts.
But those distractions enabled Iran to develop nuclear weapons.
Cross Posted at
DANEgerus
