Psalm 17:8-10:
8 Keep me as the apple of your eye;
hide me in the shadow of your wings
9 from the wicked who assail me,
from my mortal enemies who surround me.
10 They close up their callous hearts,
and their mouths speak with arrogance.
Nothing good will come of this.
There is no purpose for an Iranian nuclear program other than to kill the Jews. This is more or less from the horse's mouth. As Mark Steyn said in a recent piece, one parallel between the threats the mullahs have been making for the past several years and Mein Kampf is clear. A war-weary world does not want to believe that the threats are serious. Yes, they do mean it; they just can't do it. Yet.
So now the United Nations is readying sanctions. Big whoop, even if they don't get torpedoed by Russia, China, or France. The Europeans will never get tough with Iran, since their own restive Muslim minority populations have proven very willing to cause trouble all out of proportion to their numbers. We can expect no help or support from the transnational Left either, the way they've been fist-pumping over Palestinian suicide bombing attacks on Israeli civilians these past five years.
No matter what happens to Israel, and thereafter to us, the Left, the Europeans, and the Ummah will be of the same opinion, with greater or lesser equivocation:
You deserved it.
So let us not lean on any weak reeds, in the trials to come.
The military option for us is dauntingly...daunting. It'll take more than shooting a few JDAMS down the chimney to solve this. I don't think the Israelis can take out the sites by themselves. The 1981 Osirak reactor strike was a marvel of planning and daring, but the IAF was operating right at the limits of its capabilities on that mission. I once met an American soldier who was later sent to Israel to help train them on their new, improved Patriot missile system. I hope that thing is now a viable anti-ballistic missile weapon. (You'll recall that it was a flop in that role, in the first war with Iraq, since it was intended to be an anti-aircraft battery.)
(As for thinking of the Iraq war as a distraction, ask yourself: Which country is more likely to be an asset in a future confrontation with Iran: A democratic Iraq, or a Saddam-dominated Iraq?)
The civilized West has so much to lose if Iran succeeds in nuking Israel. The role of the Jews as the canary in the coalmine of civilization is an idea that resonates deeply with me. The looming horror of this escalation of The Jihad is turning my stomach to icewater--yet it has to be faced, and faced down.
Have another Psalm, while I go dry-heave:
Psalms 9:13-14
13 O LORD, see how my enemies persecute me!
Have mercy and lift me up from the gates of death,
14 that I may declare your praises
in the gates of the Daughter of Zion
and there rejoice in your salvation.
To answer one of your questions, Patriot (and Block IV Standard SAMS on Aegis cruisers and Burke destroyers) have had several upgrades in the past few years and are now quite capable in the "theater ballistic missile interception" role. Still no good for ABM duties against an ICBM (their seeker heads/proximity fuses just aren't up to it) unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteO'Neill
(As for thinking of the Iraq war as a distraction, ask yourself: Which country is more likely to be an asset in a future confrontation with Iran: A democratic Iraq, or a Saddam-dominated Iraq?)
ReplyDeleteWell, most people don't realize what "democracy" really means.
I addressed this matter, with respect to foreign nations, here and elsewhere... as have other conservatives and patriotic citizens.
Our Founding Fathers recognized the threat that true democracy would pose to individual liberties, which is why the Bill of Rights was created. Our government officials since then have recognized the dangers that an actual democratic form of government would pose towards the people of our nation (and towards the people of those nations as well). If Iraq were to become an actual democracy, and Islamic fundamentalists took over control, then groups such as the Christians and women of that country could actually end up with fewer rights than they had under Ba'athist rule.
As for the issue of Iran and nukes, some of us on the Right who opposed the Iraq war from the start had cautioned that such a pre-emptive action would would lead to WMD proliferation. That is what has appeared to have happened with the Republic of Iran.