December 18, 2006

Iran Menace Grows; Truman Would Be Appalled

Global catastrophes – those of the man-made variety – usually start when common sense and the lessons of history are ignored. They require troublesome behavior on the part of those who wreak the havoc and, equally, those who neglect to prevent it.

Last week, the two ends of this spectrum were plying their wares in Tehran and, ironically, in Independence, Missouri – home of the man who finally ended the last such bit of evil.

In Tehran, the Iranian government and its maniacal leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, were hosting a conference organized for the purpose of insisting that Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime never slaughtered six million Jews. Perhaps this is why Ahmadinejad is openly vowing the destruction of Israel – home of six million Jews. Unfinished business.

Meanwhile, at the Truman Presidential Library and Museum, outgoing United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan was issuing a “farewell” address – gosh, leaving so soon? – whose primary theme was to skewer George W. Bush – one of the few global leaders willing to call Ahmadinejad what he is. A global menace.

But menaces come in different shapes and sizes. Annan is a case in point. The man who oversaw the corrupt Oil-for-Food Program in the waning years of Saddam Hussein’s stranglehold on Iraq, the man who oversaw the sexual abuse of innocents in Rwanda by blue-helmet-clad predators, the man who oversaw a “Human Rights Commission” once chaired by Mohmmar Khadafy’s Libya, which never criticized any nation for so-called human rights abuses – save for the United States and Israel – is quite the global menace in his own right.

For every Hitler, there must be a Chamberlain, feigning action while in fact facilitating the rise of the evil that eventually must be dealt with – inevitably at the cost of far more blood as a result of the frightened world’s initial dithering.

Hitler comparisons are not to be made lightly. Hitler was a unique combination of evil and the opportunity to use it on a broad scale. Not many figures come along who can replicate Hitler’s footprint on history. Ahmadinejad has a real shot. Consider:

He is, at least in a certain sense, popularly elected, and can claim the backing of his people. The mad mullahs who have the official authority in Iran don’t necessarily have the influence Ahmedinejad wields. This is not to say the vast majority of Iranians embrace their president’s murderous intentions. Most Germans weren’t looking to gas the Jews. But they were willing to be sufficiently manipulated by Hitler’s scapegoating such that, in the end, the limits of their indignation didn’t matter.

What do you say when your malevolent regime is in the world’s crosshairs and facing economic consequences as a result? Blame the Jews, along with the United States and its allies. Ahmadinejad knows the game. Iran has lots of oil, but can’t sell it to the world’s biggest consumer of oil because of its past and present transgressions. Just like Germany was economically bludgeoned by the obligation to pay post-World War I reparations, Iran has faced economic isolation as a result of its radicalism, support of global terrorism and pursuit of nuclear weapons. Must be the fault of the Jews, particularly those in Israel and their protectors in America.

Speaking of those nuclear weapons, does anyone recall that Germany was supposed have kept its armed forces disbanded after WWI? What did the world do while Hitler thumbed his nose and built them anyway? Pretty much the same thing the world is doing now in response to Iran’s nuclear program. UN Security Council resolutions scare Ahmadinejad about as much as they scared Hussein, and for good reason.They are utterly feckless and meaningless. It took an American president who didn’t feel the need for the UN’s blessing to deal with Hussein.

Speaking of America, we sat on our hands for two years after World War II began because war-weariness and isolationism ruled the day. Conventional wisdom was that we would only hurt ourselves by escalating our involvement in foreign entanglements. Sound familiar? Ahmadinejad’s opportunity to make mischief is heightened by America’s lack of political will to continue battling Islamic radicalism.

If Ahmadinejad, who has vowed to wipe Israel from the map, obtains the means to do so, what rational argument exists for simply assuming he won’t? The likes of Kofi Annan, whose South Korean successor will surely be every bit as weak and ineffectual, prefer to voice high-minded platitudes, denounce the United States and pretend that diplomatic niceties can prevent the kind of carnage everyone should see coming.

That Annan would make such pronouncements at Harry Truman’s library is the ultimate sick irony. If Truman were alive today, he would bitchslap Annan for being the useful idiot to Ahmadinejad’s rising menace – a menace someone had better stop, and quickly.