North Korea, John The Prognosticator, & Reinventing The Wheel

How many times must a wheel be reinvented? There is not a person in the West who should not understand that, if you wish to stop rogue nations and organizations from pursuing their policies, then you have to react forcefully to provocations. Underreact and you merely invite further rogue acts. That is the lesson of WWII. It is the lesson of 9-11. It has long been the lesson of theocratic Iran. So why is this lesson, one so clearly written into recent history as well as current events, so seemingly difficult for the left in Western society to fathom.

Case in point - we were promised "aggressive diplomacy" to solve all foreign policy conflicts by Obama. Yet, Obama's almost non-existant responce to North Korea's provocation in April and, as John Bolton told us in the WSJ a few days ago, endless committment to talks has led to yet another, larger provocation from North Korea. As Mr. Bolton predictated just a few days ago, North Korea has conducted a nuclear test. Obviously, 'aggressive diplomacy' is off to a rocky start.

In April, even as Obama spoke in Prague of unilateral nuclear disarmament - since moral suasion is, as Obama sees it, the most effective form of foreign policy - Kim Jong Il fired off an ICBM from somewhere north of the Han River. The response of the Obama administration was feckless at best. No threat was even made to break off the six party talks, nor any other substantive action. Thus it is no surprise that, on May 24, Kim Jong Il thumbed his nose at Obama and the U.S. yet again, this time conducting a test of its nuclear arseanl.

One of the more interesting aspects of this test was that, while it surprised our intelligence community (isn't that worrisome), it was predicted on May 20 by John Bolton, writing in the WSJ. As to the timing and impetus, Bolton wrote:

What the North has lacked thus far is the political opportunity to test without fatally jeopardizing its access to the six-party talks and the legitimacy they provide. . . .

So far, the North faces no such threat from the Obama administration. Despite Pyongyang's aggression, Mr. Bosworth has reiterated that the U.S. is "committed to dialogue" and is "obviously interested in returning to a negotiating table as soon as we can." This is precisely what the North wants: America in a conciliatory mode, eager to bargain, . . .

And thus, as Obama disarms us and makes of himself a shining paragon of toothless virtue for all to ponder, we continue to move ever faster into a nighmare world of nuclear proliferation. Obama's response to the latest provocation -

“North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs pose a grave threat to the peace and security of the world, and I strongly condemn their reckless action.”

The President goes on to favor an international response from the U.N. Somehow I don't think Kim Jong Il is too impressed.

As to Mr. Bolton, for having the temerity to forecast the likely consequence of Obama foreign policy, he has been subject to another round of ad hominem attacks from the left, with a particularly scathing one from Allison Kilkenny, a talk show host, writing at HufPo. Ms. Kilkenny is nearly apoplectic that Bolton was given space by the WSJ to suggest such a fantasy as another nuclear test by North Korea. Indeed, according to Ms. Kilkenny, North Korea is "not a threat to the United States" and, further, that anyone who would react strongly to provocations from North Korea or Iran is a fool. Talk about reinventing the wheel, indeed.

(H/T Powerline and Legal Insurrection)

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Obama & Lessons From Sir Winston

Obama turns to Winston Churchill to support his policies. He would be better advised to turn to Sir Winston for guidance on what policies to follow in the first instance.
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"The British, during World War II, when London was being bombed to smithereens, had 200 or so detainees. And Churchill said, we don’t torture—when the entire British—all of the British people were being subjected to unimaginable risk and threat. And the reason was that Churchill understood you start taking shortcuts, and over time that corrodes what’s best in a people. It corrodes the character of a country."

- President Obama at his 100 Days Press Conference

That was Obama's attempt to justify his decision to, as Michael Sheuer described it, elevate "his personal beliefs" to a position of greater importance than "protecting [our] country, . . . homes and . . . families." Except that Obama - whose knowledge of western history, at least outside of Marx and Engels, appears to be paper thin - got it wrong. It seems that he lifted these lines from not Churchill, but excitable Andy Sullivan. Churchill never said that, and by all accounts, Churchill was willing to do whatever he thought necessary to win at war, including fire bombing entire German cities and arguing for the summary execution of Nazi officers.

That said, at least Obama is at last turning for inspiration to one of the towering icons of Western Civilization.

And that is indeed what Sir Winston Churchill is. He was a unique man of amazing intellect, prescient vision and brutal wit. He appeared on history's stage just as three major threats to Western Civilzation were forming. He saw each clearly and urged action before they could metasticize. As I wrote some time ago:

In 1919, Churchill wanted to fully invest the White Revolution and end Boshevism before it took hold and became the communist state of the Soviet Union. In 1933, Churchill argued strongly in favor of threatening military force against Nazi Germany to stop their rearmanent, [thereby aborting WWII]. In between, he argued against backing Ibn Saud and the Wahhabis to take over Arabia, seeing in them and their poisonous Wahhabi Islam a threat to the entire Western World. Amazing, that this one man clearly saw the three greatest threats to Western Civilization of the past century, and had we but listened to him at any of those junctures, how many tens of millions of lives would have been spared?

Indeed, if Obama is to look for inspiration anywhere, he could do no better than Sir Winston. For example, Churchill could hold the key to explaining to Obama that his Marxian view of capitalism is supremely misguided. As Churchill once said,

Some regard private enterprise as if it were a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look upon it as a cow that they can milk. Only a handful see it for what it really is - the strong horse that pulls the whole cart.

And Obama would do well to understand that his populist rhetoric damning capitalism and "obscene profit" is utterly backward. Churchill once stated, after listening to another damn the profit motive:

The substance of the eminent Socialist gentleman's speech is that making a profit is a sin, but it is my belief that the real sin is taking a loss.

And as to Obama's plans to tax the wealthy in order to fund his world record out of control spending - and to tax all of us indirectly to bring us into his vision of a new era of green prosperity - Churchill would no doubt tell Obama that such an effort is nothing if not counterproductive:

. . . [F]or a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.

Indeed, Chuchill would undoubtedly tell Obama that the socialism he seeks to impose on us in America has already been tried and that it failed at every turn. As Churchill pointed out, it is a utopian ideology, doomed to failure in all but two locales:

There are only two places where socialism will ever work - in Heaven, where it is not needed, and in Hell, where it is already in practice.

Further, there is little doubt that Churchill would have harsh words for Obama and his handling of the growing threat to the West by Iran's mad mullahs. He would no doubt explain the inevitable outcome of attempting to placate an aggressive menace rather than standing up to it early on.

Britain and France had to choose between war and dishonor. They chose dishonor. They will have war.

But alas, I think Obama's brief foray into an examination of the life and wisdom of Winston Churchill is not to be. Other then his superficial look at Sir Winston through the deeply distorting lens of Andy Sullivan, it would appear that Obama lacks any interest in Churchill. We can gather that from, if not else, his decision to have the White House's bust of Winston Churchill returned to Britain.

Nonetheless, the rest of us can take heart from the words of Churchill as we contemplate the fact that we elected Obama and now must live through his attempts to radically change our country. As Churchill observed of our forebearers:

The Americans will always do the right thing . . . after they've exhausted all the alternatives."

Given the current alternative we have chosen, I do hope that Churchill's words still ring true.

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Bernard Lewis

Professor Bernard Lewis, the West's premier Orientalist, is interviewed in the Jerusalem Post on a number of topics dealing with the Islamic world, including his thoughts on the effect and desirability of adopting a tactic of negotiation with Islamists.

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Bernard Lewis is interviewed in the Jerusalem Post. Some excerpts include:

Lewis: . . . What we are seeing now in much of the Islamic world could only be described as a monstrous perversion of Islam. The things that are now being done in the name of Islam are totally anti-Islamic. Take suicide, for example. The whole Islamic theology and law is totally opposed to suicide. Even if one has led a totally virtuous life, if he dies by his own hand he forfeits paradise and is condemned to eternal damnation. The eternal punishment for suicide is the endless repetition of the act of suicide. That's what it says in the books. So these people who blow themselves up, according to their own religion - which they don't seem to be well-acquainted with - are condemning themselves to an eternity of exploding bombs.

Another example is jihad. Jihad has a number of meanings. Jihad, in the sense of war, is a religious obligation, which means that it is elaborately regulated. Indeed, the laws relating to jihad are quite specific. One should not attack women, children or the elderly, for instance, unless they attack you first. Weapons of mass destruction are also generally disapproved. This is discussed in medieval texts. For instance, poisoning the water supply of an enemy under siege was disapproved, as was the mistreatment of prisoners. In other words, these people are totally disregarding their own tradition.

. . . .

Q: What about the Muslims in the West? In free countries, there are networks spreading radicalism throughout Europe and America, after all.

Lewis: Yes, if you are a Muslim in America or Europe, of course, you would want to give your children some kind of education in their own religion and culture - the way Jews do. And you look around to see what there is, and you find after-school classes and camps, etc. The difference is that these now are overwhelmingly Wahhabi - Saudi-funded - and the version of Islam that they teach is the most fanatical and uncompromising. This has had more of an impact on the immigrant populations in the West than within Muslim countries, because Arab governments have some experience in controlling these things. The European governments have no experience in controlling them, and in any case are far too politically correct and multiculturalist to make the effort.

Q: Is this not cause for despair? On the one hand, there is an attempt to moderate the Arab world, while within free societies radical Islam is allowed to flourish and spread.

Lewis: This is an ongoing struggle. In the West, there are also many Muslims who take the other view, and who work for democracy, peace and understanding.

Q: Isn't the attempt to eradicate the radical elements while encouraging the moderates like finding a needle in a haystack in a country like the US?

Lewis: It is difficult, yes.

Q: Then how is it that you seem and speak like an optimist?

Lewis: I describe my optimism as very cautious and very limited. There is much to worry about, and I don't know where it's going. What I'm trying to say is that the picture is not entirely bad. There are some glimmers of hope within the Muslim and Arab world. A lot will depend on what the Western governments do about it. To quote the wonderful phrase of retired University of Wisconsin professor J.B. Kelly, a great authority on the Arabian Peninsula and a strong critic of the diplomatic approach to Middle Eastern issues, the "diplomacy of the preemptive cringe" is not the way to go.

People of my generation have not forgotten Neville Chamberlain's Munich Agreement with Hitler. That was a perfect example of "preemptive cringe" diplomacy. It was the sort of thing which gave the previously innocent word "appeasement" a bad name.

What we are facing now is the third major threat to the world. The first was Nazism, the second Bolshevism and now this. There are parallels. Germany is a great nation, and German patriotism is a perfectly legitimate expression of the pride and loyalty Germans have for their country. But Nazism was a monstrous perversion of that and a curse to the Germans, as well as a threat to the rest of the world.

The aspiration for social betterment and social justice is very noble. But Bolshevism was a monstrous perversion of that, as well as a curse to Russia and a threat to the rest of the world.

Now we have a third similar situation. Islam is one of the great religions that sponsored one of the greatest civilizations in human history. But it has fallen into the hands of a group of people who are the equivalent of the Nazis and the Bolsheviks. They are a curse to their own people, as well as a threat to the rest of the world.

In all three cases, defeat means liberation.

Read the entire article.

(H/T Joshua Pundit)

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Amir Taheri, The NIE On Iran's Nuclear Program, And "The Usual Suspects"

Amir Taheri, an Iranian born columnist, is frustrated with the NIE and how it is being used by the "usual suspects" to justify calls for unilateral talks with Iran. As he sees it, such talks with the Iran's theocracy would be every bit as counterproductive as were Chamberlin's attempt to buy "peace in our time" by his talks with Hitler in the 1930's:

Until a few days ago, Iran's nuclear ambitions appeared destined to become the hottest issue in the current American presidential campaign. A consensus, cutting across partisan divides, appeared to be taking shape that the Islamic Republic should be confronted forcefully, contained, and in time, forced to scale down its ambitions.

However, with the publication of the new American National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) claiming that Tehran had stopped the military aspect of its nuclear programme in 2003, most presidential candidates find it hard to sustain a tough position on the Islamic Republic.

This has enabled the usual suspects of appeasement to return from the woodworks to urge "a negotiated settlement."

In the past few days, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has broken her silence to call for negotiations with Tehran. One wonders why the administration to which she belonged failed to secure any concession s from Tehran through negotiations.

We have also had former United Nations' Secretary General Kofi Annan coming out of the purdah to call for negotiations.

In this, Annan has echoed former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Bzrezinski, who has called for a "grand bargain" with the Islamic Republic.

This new wave of negotiationism, to coin a phrase, is based on a mixture of false assumptions and bad faith.

The first false assumption is that the new NIE proves that the Islamic Republic has stopped the military aspect of its nuclear programme once and for all. . . .

The only visible sign of the decision to stop the programme was the suspension of uranium enrichment. That decision was reversed by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad soon after he was sworn in, and uranium enrichment was resumed at a faster pace.

In other words, even if we accept the NIE's claim that the programme was stopped in 2003, something that we have no reason to do, there is no evidence that it has not been resumed.

There is, in fact, quite a bit of evidence to the contrary.

As already noted, the uranium enrichment project has been resumed and continues at much faster pace.

•According to official estimates in Tehran, allocations for the nuclear programme have risen by almost 40 per cent.

•The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports that all of Iran's known nuclear sites remain in full operation.

•The IAEA also reports that it has no access to a number of other industrial sites in Iran that may well be linked to the nuclear programme. In other words, we know what we don't know but don't know what we don't know.

The negotiationists forget that the EU3, Britain, Germany and France have been negotiating with the Islamic Republic on this issue for almost a decade. During his term as British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw visited Tehran more than any other capital outside Europe. Javier Solana, the EU's chief foreign policy official, has spent more time talking to envoys from Tehran than diplomats from any other nation. Tehran has also been engaged in negotiations with the five permanent members of the United Nations' Security Council plus Germany.

Not only do they ignore the history of negotiations with Tehran, the appeasers also refuse to state clearly what it is that should be negotiated. In other words, they put process in place of policy. Talking about what to do becomes a substitute for doing what needs to be done.

The Islamic Republic, of course, would love to talk to anybody for as long as it is not required to do anything it does not wish to do.

. . . The negotiationists do not say what it is that one should negotiate with President Ahmadinejad.

More than four years ago, the IAEA discovered that the Islamic Republic had been violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) for almost 18 years. Such a violation should have led to sanctions spelled out in the NPT itself. Instead, the IAEA decided to "negotiate" to prevent future violations. When those negotiations failed, the matter was taken to the UN Security Council which passed two resolutions demanding that the Islamic Republic stop uranium enrichment.

The Islamic Republic has ignored those resolutions and repeatedly stated that it would never abide by their key demand. In other words, the Islamic Republic is ready to negotiate, in fact would love to negotiate, provided the talks are about everything except the one thing that could be the object of credible negotiations.

The appeasers are indirectly calling on the UN Security Council to drop its one demand and enter into "unconditional negotiations" with the Islamic Republic. This means surrendering to Tehran and may or may not be a good option.

In that case the appeasers should shed their lexicon of obfuscation and admit that they are recommending unconditional surrender to the Islamic Republic.

Once they do that, they may have an even stronger point. They would be able to say that, since the major democracies have no stomach for a fight with a power, described by Mrs. Albright as " rogue regime" before her conversion to appeasement, it is better to surrender to it in the hope that it moderates its radical temperament.

Today's appeasers, however, appear to be less courageous or more disingenuous than their predecessors in the late 1930s. This is why they are giving appeasement a bad name while increasing the possibility of war by confirming Ahmadinejad's illusion that he can do whatever he likes without risking the survival of his regime.

Read the entire article here. Our intelligence agencies have done our nation a tremendous disservice. It will, inn the long run, likely cost us bitterly since it puts off any reckoning with the single most destabilizing force in this world. Every day that reckoning is put off will increase the cost we will pay and gold and blood. And if Iran achieves a nuclear arsenal, that cost we will pay will rise exponentially.

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