Posted by
on Friday, April 06, 2007 12:05:27 PM
The British hostages are free. What about the rest of us? Not so much. No, obviously we are not being held captive, paraded in front of cameras in a hostile country, being forced to wear silly headwear and say silly things. (Nancy Pelosi doesn’t count because she does all those things voluntarily). We are captive in our economic vulnerability. If we were not energy dependent this could not have happened.
This whole episode is a perfect microcosm of the relationship between the West and the Mideast. The only reason significant parts of Iran are not smoldering piles of rubble is because Western leadership decided it prudent to keep the supply line to 20% of the worlds oil in tact - - this time.
That begs the ever more troubling question; what about next time? Good question, and nowhere posited more eloquently than by Dr. Victor David Hanson, to paraphrase; “if the west is so easily manipulated now, what’s it going to be like once Iran goes nuclear?”
A little fascist in a leisure suit has just showed us he has the nutsack of the global economy in his hand, and he gave it a squeeze. This was only a test. Is there any doubt that with atomic backup this twerp won’t squeeze until the whole planet turns purple in the face?
They keep marching to their goal of worldwide Sharia law or nuclear Armageddon, indifferent to which comes first. We, bless our well-intentioned, economy-preserving, humanitarian hearts, believe they can be dissuaded from their goals through appeasement disguised as diplomacy. We dawdle in this approach, at most only delaying their march, when we should be getting about the business of destroying their path.
If we’ve learned nothing else, we have learned every aggression not responded to in kind is seen as a sign of weakness and virtually guarantees more aggression.
So long as our addiction to oil goes untreated we remain vulnerable and can only expect more squeezing. We are left to trust the good faith of a holocaust denier to handle the global family jewels with care. Call me squeamish, but somehow I am not altogether comfortable with this arrangement. How long before the sleeping giant, only dreaming those jewels are being coddled, wakes to find them missing altogether?
Sadly most of Europe and far too many here consider this fate deserved. That truculence translates into total indifference to the fate of democracy in the Mideast, you know the little “d” democracy that is allegedly the philosophical foundation of big “D” Democrats. It’s no wonder why so many of us think so many of them are crazy. But hey, I’m open-minded; maybe I’m the crazy one, I keep expecting coherence from Democrats.