Why Iran Will Never Stop Seeking The Bomb

In addition to denying the Holocaust and calling for the end of the state of Israel, it appears that the Iranian leadership is dead set on building "The Bomb."

So how serious a situation is this? Should we be worried? Is Iran seeking a nuclear weapon to turn Israel into a stained glass mosaic or are they merely jonesing for an international trade fix and a bump on the world stage?

Both, apparently.

And considering that the three major powers of Europe have finally relented and - with U.S. prodding (no doubt John Bolton had his hands on his hips, and possibly an actual cattle prod...) - have drafted their resolution for the IAEA to recommend Iran to the U.N. Security Council, that Israeli fighter pilots and IDF troops are prepared to strike, and that Iran is shifting revenues from it's oil sales back into the country - at huge losses - in preparation for any foreign seizure of assets, I'd say we have reason to be very, very concerned.

Though sadly, having reached this point, any sense of relief is essentially moot, because the solution being crafted, one of international rebuke and sanctions, will most likely fail.

As Michael Rubin points out - "Europe's engagement with Iran has failed."

...while Mr. Bush and his European allies may agree to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council, traditional diplomacy will not work for a simple reason: Iran's quest for nuclear weapons has nothing to do with the U.S. or Europe. The crisis with Tehran is ideological, not political.

So many commentators and hand-wringers have fretted over the Iranian quest for nukes, asking themselves why Iran would be so blatant, so obvious, so belligerent, so politically helpful to President Bush (yes, they are saying it), and yet for lack of understanding they tepidly conclude that it must really be some big mistake, that President Ahmadinejad is a harmless nut, and that Iran - while certainly crafty and probably supporting extremists - really does need electricity for it's population. Why risk sanctions? Why would they want to provoke international rebuke? Why would they invite a military strike? Why would they ever wish for a nuclear standoff? MAD worked against the Soviets, didn't it?

It did, but only against the Soviets.

MAD was a system designed to play off fear, or to tempt the other side into a desire to want to live. And then we waited each other out - though Reagan decided to end it and just spent them into bankruptcy. Yet therein lies the fallacy when applying the nuclear standoff scenario to Iran. Iran is in this for the endgame, for a religious goal, not a standoff, and as such they will use the standoff only as a means of lulling us into complacency (and into using the standoff playbook). They are going to cut off the world, destroy their internal opposition, and enshrine their vision of religious fulfillment as a cultural paradise. And death plays a large role in this vision.

The Iranian religious leadership recognizes that demography is against them. Reform is a slippery slope, democracy a theocrat's hemlock. For the Ayatollahs, there can be no Orange, Rose, or Cedar Revolutions. Popular will is irrelevant. Legitimacy comes not from the people, but from God as channeled through a cabal of religious leaders.
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Only with a nuclear deterrent can the ayatollahs launch the Cultural Revolution that will ensure their survival without fear of outside interference. The Revolutionary Guards are preparing for not one, but dozens of Tiananmen Squares.

As they cleanse their home front, the theocrats may use their nuclear capability to act upon their ideological imperative to destroy Israel. The West once ignored Saddam Hussein's threats against Kuwait. But dictators often mean what they say. Even if Iran does not use its bomb, a nuclear deterrent will enable it to lash out conventionally without fear of consequence...Diplomacy can only work when both sides are sincere.

Exactly. And when it comes to attaining nuclear weapons, Iran is anything but sincere. Yet knowing that we know this, how can Iran hope to prevail? Is there a method to their madness? As it turns out, perhaps yes.

What is the West facing in the government of Iran? I read in yesterday's Times that President Ahmadinejad is a "naive extremist". It is an assumption of Western foreign policy elites that extremists are, by definition, naive, but is it so?

The point about Iran since 1979 is that it has been governed by revolutionaries; and the history of revolutionaries - successful ones, anyway - is that they are often mad and bad and incredibly skilful all at the same time.

Thus Hitler could genuinely believe in crazed racial theory and outmanoeuvre the chancelleries of Europe. Thus Chairman Mao could promote deranged, famine-inducing economics, while at the same time keeping a grip on power for a quarter of a century.
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The Bomb, blessed by God, will make Iran proud. It will force the West to let Iran dictate terms in the region, give Mr Ahmadinejad the prestige to crush dissent in his own country and help him grab world Muslim leadership, taking over Iraq. Mad, perhaps, terrifying, certainly, but perfectly sane as a way of staying on top.

Madness knows no defeat; and it never will. For madness defines where reason fails. The Soviets were not mad, nor were they radicals. Yet combine madness with the radical mind, and such a person, or group, knows no shame from criticism, ostracism, threats or violence. Such a person or group can only be stopped through a total suppression of will (cut Iran off from the world), annihilation of reach (take out their nuclear capability), or complete destruction (regime change).

But such enemies are not stupid or silly, or given to easily exploited mistakes. They are cold and methodical, and in this case committed to the death. And that is why it is imperative that we deal with this threat now, before Iran has a few nuclear weapons to play with, because even with a united Europe our diplomatic options will have limited effect. As John Keegan explains:

Iran, moreover, does not seek such weapons for psychological reasons. It wants them for practical purposes, including, according to a statement by its new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a former revolutionary guard, to "wipe Israel from the map".
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The pressing question is, indeed, what is to be done when a report to the Security Council fails to bring Iran to desist from nuclear enrichment? Economic and other sanctions are widely cited as a means to restrain Iran; and it is certainly true that the interruption of trade and the supply of technical equipment would cause its government serious inconvenience.

It is much more doubtful whether sanctions would make Iran change its policy. The ayatollahs do not suppose they are popular abroad, nor do they much care. Sanctions would interfere with the Western lifestyle of Iran's educated young people. The ayatollahs, however, have little interest in supporting that lifestyle, indeed, rather the opposite, while Iran's educated youth have given heavy proofs that their national pride weighs heavier than their access to Western luxuries.
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Moreover, Iran, as the possessor of the second largest oil reserves in the world and occupier of a strategic position athwart the sea routes delivering oil to most of the consuming world, has its own means of retaliation ready to hand.
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Nevertheless, the West cannot simply let things drift. Military action by whatever agency cannot be written out, but will be a last resort. In the meantime, all means short of military action, including economic and political ostracism and economic sanctions, must be tried, together with the building of alternative oil pipelines to bypass the current routes of oil supply down the Gulf. And, of course, the intensification of anti-terrorist measures.

For if the West is considering military action, so are the ayatollahs...This is a bad and worrying time in world affairs.

Indeed. And to make matters even worse, it appears that Iran is not standing alone. Analysts, internationalists, Democrats, Hollywood, and even network anchors, have heaped continued criticism upon the President for outlining the "Axis of Evil" during his 2002 State of the Union Address. How dare he suggest that the rogues of the world even think about one another, let alone calling them out for being evil! For shame!

So much effort was thrown into political memes in order to discredit the President politically that the denial of reality has frozen the left's brains against common sense. Will the enemies of freedom not band together? - not aide one another? - not fight to their greatest advantage? - or to the death if necessary? This is their last stand, after all. But yet the hordes of special interest groups, races, atheists, Catholic Democrats, homosexuals, heterosexuals, media personalities, Hollywood elites, poor advocates and a good deal of Canadians and Europeans have joined forces to say "no," people who are not the same will never join forces.

Right, and Iraq would never deal with terrorists either.

Of course, for anyone who can read, apparently reality says "yes," the rogue nations of the world are still banding together. And now that Iraq has gone down, it seems a new contender is angling for a spot on the Axis.

With Iranian nuclear aspirations gaining notice, it's worth directing attention to the growing relationship between Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez. The Reagan administration repulsed Soviet efforts to set up camp in Central America. Iranian designs on Venezuela perhaps deserve similar U.S. attention.

The warmth and moral support between Ahmadinejad and Chavez is very public. The two tyrants are a lot more than just pen pals. Venezuela has made it clear that it backs Iran's nuclear ambitions and embraces the mullahs' hateful anti-Semitism. What remains more speculative is just how far along Iran is in putting down roots in Venezuela.
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The Iranian news agency MEHR said last year that the two countries have signed contracts valued at more than $1 billion. In sum, Iranians, presiding over an economy that is itself crumbling into disrepair, are going to build Venezuela 10,000 residential units and a batch of manufacturing plants, if MEHR can be believed. Chavez reportedly says these deals--presumably financed with revenues that might be better employed repairing the vital bridge--include the transfer of "technology" from Iran and the importation of Iranian "professionals" to support the efforts.

Details on the Iranian "factories"--beyond a high-profile tractor producer and a widely publicized cement factory--remain sketchy. But what is clear is that the importation of state agents from Hugo-friendly dictatorships hasn't been a positive experience for Venezuelans. Imported Cubans are now applying their "skills" in intelligence and state security networks to the detriment of Venezuelan liberty. It is doubtful that the growing presence of Iranians in "factories" across Venezuela is about boosting plastic widget output. The U.S. intelligence agencies would do well to make a greater effort to find out exactly what projects the Chavez-Ahmadinejad duo really have in mind. Almost certainly, they are up to no good.

Unfortunately we can't manage such mischief with the wave of a wand. Though it may be time for those anti-war protestors to dust off their "No Blood For Oil" placards, because we may soon have a real war for oil in our midst - and one not started by the U.S. Sanctions against Iran may rob them of goods and gasoline, but a retaliatory strike where the top oil producing nations shut off the oil supply, especially if the situation in Nigeria intensifies, could bring us to the 1970s all over again.

Yet even as the U.S. and Europe face the grim reality of shouldering such a burden, the plotting Axis has not gone unnoticed by the other powers on the Security Council. Though again, unfortunately for us, China and Russia more often fall onto the Iranian side of the equation. As Victor Davis Hanson explains:

Its [Iran's] theocracy poses a danger to civilization even greater than a nuclear North Korea for a variety of peculiar circumstances. Iran is free of a patron like China that might in theory exert moderate influence or even insist on occasional restraint. North Korea, for an increasingly wealthy and capitalist China, is as much a headache and an economic liability as a socialist comrade.

In contrast, Iran is a cash cow for Russia (and China) and apparently a source of opportunistic delight in its tweaking of the West. Iranian petro-wealth has probably already earned Tehran at least one, and probably two, favorable votes at the Security Council.

Of course, Tehran'’s oil revenues allow it access to weapons markets, and overt blackmail, both of which are impossible for a starving North Korea. And Iran'’s nuclear facilities are located at the heart of the world'’s petroleum reserves, where even the semblance of instability can drive up global oil prices, costing the importing world billions in revenues.

No one is flocking to Communism, much less Pyongyang's unrepentant, ossified Stalinist brand. Islamic radicalism, on the other hand, has declared war on Western society and tens of thousands of jihdadists, whether Shiia or Sunnis, count on Iran for money, sanctuary, and support. Al Qaeda members travel the country that is the spiritual godhead of Hezbollah, and a donor of arms and money to radical Palestinian terrorists.

North Korea can threaten Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and the western United States, and so poses a real danger. But the opportunities for havoc are even richer for a nuclear Iran. With nukes and an earned reputation for madness, it can dictate to the surrounding Arab world the proper policy of petroleum exportation; it can shakedown Europeans whose capitals are in easy missile range; it can take out Israel with a nuke or two; or it can bully the nascent democracies of the Middle East while targeting tens of thousands of US soldiers based from Afghanistan to the Persian Gulf.

And Iran can threaten to do all this under the aegis of a crazed Islamist regime more eager for the paradise of the next world than for the material present so dear to the affluent and decadent West. If Iran can play brinkmanship now on just the promise of nuclear weapons, imagine its roguery to come when it is replete with them.

Not the kind of imagining that John Lennon had in mind. Yet ironically it was his type of imagining that helped foster the idea that harmony and peace were there for the taking, that evil only existed to further the hallucinations of the warmonger, and that you could live in peace with anyone so long as you sought to truly understand them and make no war against them.

But the absence of conflict is not the guarantor of peace, but cool acquiescence, subservient to the whims of the greater will. Hitler took half of Europe before firing a shot, not because he was crazy, or prepared, or powerful, or peaceful, or crafty - but because the rest of the world gave in.

The truth of it is, Iran is not going to stop. Why should they? They have no reason to stop, no fear of Europe, the U.N., Israel, the U.S., or apparently even CNN, and yet every incentive to keep going.

So what do we do? Sanctions? War? All of the above?

The Europeans and the Americans right now must accelerate their efforts and bring the crisis to a climax at the Security Council to force China and Russia publicly to take sides. India, Pakistan, and the Arab League should all be brought in and briefed on the dilemma, and asked to go on record supporting U.N. action.

The public relations war is critical. Zen-like, the United States must assure the Europeans, Russians, and Arabs that the credit for a peaceful solution would be theirs. The lunacy of the Iranian president should provide the narrative of events, and thus be quoted hourly -— as we remain largely silent.

Economically, we should factor in the real possibility that Iranian oil might be off the global market, and prepare - we have been here before with the Iranian embargo of 1979 -— for colossal gasoline price hikes. This should also be a reminder that Ahmadinejad, Saddam, Hugo Chavez, and an ascendant and increasingly undemocratic Putin all had in common both petrodollar largess and desperate Western, Chinese, and Indian importers willing to overlook almost anything to slake their thirst. Unless we develop an energy policy that collapses the global oil price, for the next half-century expect every few years something far creepier than the Saudi Royals and Col. Moammar Gadhafi to threaten the world order.

The Democratic leadership should step up to the plate and, in Truman-esque fashion, forge a bipartisan front to confront Iran and make the most of their multilateral moment. If the Democrats feel they have lost the public'’s confidence in their stewardship of national security, then the threat of Iran offers a Hillary Clinton, Howard Dean, or John Kerry an opportunity to get out front now and pledge support for a united effort -— attacking Bush from the right about too tepid a stance rather from the predictable left that we are "“hegemonic"” and "“imperialistic"” every time we use force abroad.

Finally, the public must be warned that dealing with a nuclear Iran is not a matter of a good versus a bad choice, but between a very bad one now and something far, far worse to come.

Far worse? Try nightmarish.