Monday, November 30, 2009

America on Iran: Where do we stand?

As of November 30th, 2009, the Iranian parliament has approved earmarking $20 million to fund anti-Western terrorists. (1) This money will inevitably supply weapons and bombs for the likes of Al Qaeda and Hamas, compensate the families of suicide bombers, and provide recruitment propaganda for terrorist units. The fruit of these earmarks will undoubtedly be vicious attacks upon the United States and its allies.

But this is only one instance of Iranian rebelliousness aimed at challenging the resolution and grit of Western culture. Recently, we witnessed the surfacing of one particular Iranian enrichment facility, in construction, that had been meant to remain shrouded from the international eye. In response to their blatant deception, the UN has demanded that they halt its production. Displaying staunch defiance, Iran has now announced the plans to construct ten more of these facilities rather than comply. (2)

Why would they do this? Don’t they want to grasp the olive branch that America has coaxed the Western powers to extend?

Absolutely not, nor have they ever. Iran has simply deemed Obama’s elegant political candor impotent, and his resolve empty. Therefore, they no longer feel they should pay lip-service to the international community, whose idle threats do not impede their goal of nuclear proliferation. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has bluntly told the world what he thinks of the international sanctions by proclaiming, “If they want to continue with that path of sanctions, we will not be harmed. They can issue resolutions for 100 years.” (3)

Apparently, Iran does not respect sanctions or UN resolutions. So it is rather suspect that every trip to the international drawing board yields the same feeble offerings for policies to engage Iran: resolutions, and possibly more sanctions.

This would not be so dangerous if we could say that Iran is nothing more than a rogue nation, but that would imply isolation and a lack of concerted efforts with other enemies of America. Quite the contrary, their unchecked insolence has spurred enemies of the United States to publicly announce support for the rabid nation. (4) This gives the Iranian powder keg a global blast radius.

And there is more than sufficient evidence of Iranian intent to spark a detonation. Given that international political posturing has drawn lines in the conflict, along with the heralded intent of the Iranian regime, it does not take clairvoyance to understand that current events portend the ominous signals of a global conflict.

The most horrifying of these signals lies in the simple fact that the rhetoric of Iranian leaders is in the very vein of Adolf Hitler. Take, for example, a 2005 decree by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: “There is no doubt that the new wave in Palestine will soon wipe off this disgraceful blot from the face of the Islamic world.” (5) This is one of his many calls to reference genocide as an acceptable solution to destroy the Jewish nation. If one correlates these statements with both their nuclear endeavors and the fact that a nuclear Holocaust would be the most efficient means to dispatch Israel’s existence, Iran’s aims should not be ambiguous. Yet, in a recurrence of the historical mistakes committed by those who failed to recognize the evil suggestion of Mein Kampf, our vigilant media refuses to see the genocidal overtones. Rather, most often one finds politically correct terms for the language, like “anti-Zionist rhetoric.”

Ahmadinejad spouts this hateful dogma regularly. So we must ask ourselves why this government and the UN believe that somehow Iran is vying for peace, and that its nuclear production is meant for peaceful ends. It is a tremendous stretch when the entire world is privy to the infallible source of the horse’s mouth, which screams to the contrary. Yet somehow, Obama’s soothing tenor convinces America that Iran, like the rest of the world, wants peace. Pure naiveté, but it sounds pleasing to American sensibilities, nonetheless.

Despite the diplomatic façade, it is impossible to conclude that Iran wants peace with Israel, and highly unlikely to perceive their nuclear program is a peaceful enterprise. So this leaves America with a harrowing question regarding America’s insistence on dialogue with Iran: on which side of the conflict do Barack Obama’s interests lie?

Either willfully conniving or idealistically incorrect, I fear that the answer to that question becomes more apparent with each day that Obama ignores the security of Israel in favor of forging a diplomatic relationship with a genocidal despot.

William Sullivan

1) http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091129/D9C95AJ00.html

2) http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20091129/twl-iran-to-build-ten-new-nuclear-facili-41f21e0.html

3) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7261040.stm

4) http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/4953

5) http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1510017/posts

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Election Eye Opener

As every media outlet and political website and blog have headlined, the GOP won two very telling victories on November 3rd. Bob McDonnell won the governors race in Virginia by 18% and Chris Christie won the New Jersey governors race by 5%*. The Christie victory, while still surprising, is not as cut and dry as it might appear. Christie is a moderate Republican, and Corzine was extremely unpopular in New Jersey. Nevertheless, both victories are sending shock waves through the political community and, hopefully, a message to all incumbents.

The reason that these two races have received so much attention is due to the fact that Obama carried both states in the 2008 election and had campaigned for both Democratic candidates. This could easily be viewed as a direct showing of disapproval of the Obama administration and democratic congressional policies. The sway Obama and the democrats seemed to have over both states appears to have faltered but the GOP should only look at this as a small stepping stone going into the 2010 elections and even Republican incumbents should be paying attention.

When the Democrats took control of both the House and the Senate in 2006, a Democratic political adviser warned on CNN that the majority of the country still leans fiscally conservative, and that the newly elected Democrats would be wise to keep this in mind if they want to remain in office. He went on to say, that prior to 2006, the Republicans in power had drifted away fiscally conservative principles. Their constituents were unhappy and it showed at the polls. This remains true today and the two governors races might just be a warning to all incumbents that listening to the electorate is job one.

The current congress has one of the lowest approval rating in history. The amazing thing about this statistic is that their approval rating is about the same now as it was in 2005. So despite the Democrats winning the majority in 2006 and taking even more seats and the presidency in 2008, Americans are still unhappy with the job that congress is doing. This has always been a hard concept to grasp considering that Americans can simply "vote out" who they are unhappy with. Apparently the overwhelming belief held by citizens has been one of being somewhat satisfied with their personal representative and not as pleased with those from other districts or states. This unfortunate trend seems to be fading. As of right now, both the senate majority leader and the Speaker of the House are experiencing problems on the home front. Pelosi's approval ratings have dropped significantly as have Harry Reid's. And although Pelosi's district may be a lost cause to conservatives, Reid's position could very well be up for grabs in 2010.

The American political system is supposed to be a relatively simple concept. A given district or state elects an individual to speak on their behalf. Now, as seen in the stimulus, health care and cap and trade bills, this does not always occur. When the so called "blue dog democrats" were holding out on the health care vote, due to discourse from their respective constituencies, Pelosi and Reid held closed door meetings with the holdouts. In these meetings the "blue dogs" were basically told that if they wanted any kind of future in the democratic party, including appointments to any important committees, then they should drop their objections. This is by no means a new trick, nor is it one that is party exculsive, and it worked at the time. However, on November 4th, not even 24 hours after the election, Reid himself stated that he did not believe that health care would be passed this year like the president had wanted. Before the election, some thought that a vote could come as early as November 5th. Many politicians are rethinking being linked to a bill that, so far, is wildly unpopular with the majority of people. This is also the reason that cap and trade has floundered thusfar. Not many people in congress want to explain to their electorate why they voted for a bill that is guaranteed to raise their energy costs, especially in a recession. Being guaranteed a future in any party by party leaders is worthless if you are bound to lose the next election. Hopefully this election has shown politicians on both sides of the aisle that their sole purpose is to do as their constituents would have them do. Otherwise, these constituents have shown that they will find someone who will.

*According to the AP

Calvin Parker