"As I have said time and time again, a negotiated settlement is the best solution."  -- Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations

The American ambassador to that non-august body calls the Iran problem one of the great dangers facing the West, and indeed the world.  China and Russia have both said they will veto any attempt to create sanctions in the Security Council -- which may be taken to signify that to them Iranian terrorists with their own stock of nukes are less a threat to world peace than was South African apartheid. 

Events are shaping the situation like a funnel.  Iran is daily reducing Bush's options. Watching, one is left wondering about the forces working on the mullahs.   

The scenario under discussion here, as seen from these drippy fern temperate rain forested regions will play out as follows.  Before mid-summer, the U.S. will send stealth bombers to slide improved bunker buster bombs down the vent pipes of underground buildings in about a dozen locations in the Dictatorship of Iran.  The U.S. will do it for two reasons.  First, if we don't, Israel will.  Second, if Israel does, the cards in the geopolitical deck will reshuffle in a way that cannot be predicted, except to this extent: it seems almost certain that all bloody hell will break loose.  The genie will be freed from his bottle.

Iran is run by Islamo-fascists.  Centuries ago, they exploded out of their deserts and made converts with the crescent sword all the way to Spain.  They were driven back eventually, in part by the Crusades, and then went dormant for a while.  They aren't dormant these days. Kofi Annan is a child if he believes one can negotiate with such people.  

Motivation is made of carrots and sticks.  The problem is knowing which to use in any given situation.  Those judgements come from understanding two things.  The fundamentals and the tensions in the mix.

1. Basement Civics

There are only two kinds of governments.  In our kind, the people can during an election choose their leaders.  In the other kind, the people have no power to do that, or much of anything else.. 

2. The theocracy 

Islamic theocracies have offical government churches. In the worst of them, it is not that other faiths are unwelcome, but rather that adherents of other faiths are killed. 

3. The lay of the land

Israel is not surrounded by governments like ours.  Not even Egypt may, as of this writing, be considered to have what we think of as a government of, by and for the people.  These are all one party dictatorships, Hashemite kingdoms, desert principalities, theocratic dictatorships or client states which live under the thumb of a nearby Islamic tyranny. If Israel defends herself by wiping out Iran's nuclear facilities the nations with the first kind of government (the type which allows the people to choose and remove their leaders by peaceful means) will understand.  They may not stand with her, and may even condemn her for self-serving internal political reasons.  But, they won't attack her, or her citizens.  Unfortunately, there isn't one of these on her borders.

Israel is flanked on all sides except the Mediterranean, by the second type of governments. Islamic tyrannies, Islamic monarchies and Islamic client states.  Surrounding Israel and within the range of very uncomplicated misssles, you find Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and some smaller states.  With the exception of Lebanon, which once had a substantial Christian population, some of whom may have survived the recent decades of ethnic cleansing by the sons of Allah, and Jordan, whose king was educated in America, in the most exclusive of private universities, the chosen people live in a walled compound located at the center of literally millions upon millions of openly-declared enemies. 

I do not know what Iraqis think of Israel these days.  What they will say or do if Israel drops the hammer on Iran, a recent Iraqi opponent in a war, is an almost complete mystery.  My best guess is that our invasion of Iraq, and introduction of citizen government, while it continues, offers a window of, I'll call it, "distraction."

Motivation? It's one of the oldest continuous disputes on Earth

Talk about the Hatfields and the McCoys.  Jews and Arabs are both semites.  Brothers, like Cain and Abel.  One claims descent directly from Isaac, the other from Ismael.  Both were sons of the prophet, Abraham.  The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, presently an Islamic holy place was once a synagogue. The Jewish temple was torn down by one of the Islamic armies to win the city.  The Moslems believe the stone inside that dome is where Mohammed ascended to heaven.  The Jews, and some Christians, believe that stone marks the location of the actual Garden of Eden.  That's right, the place described in Genesis. 

So, there sits Jerusalem, first occupied by Jews during the Bronze Age, many centuries before the birth of Christ, and even longer before the birth of Mohammed.  Of all the nations, city states and tribes of Canaan which existed when they moved to what was then called Uru Shalem (the city of the god, Shalem), only the Hebrews remain, pretty much unchanged.  Minus animal sacrifices, one supposes.. Around these most ancient of peoples is now arrayed the legions of their enemies, openly threatening to end their existence.  And now that threat includes the future certainty of nuclear missles if Iran is allowed to continue with their developments in this area.

It's coming down to basics

Israel has the bomb, already.  Even when attacked by all the nearby nations they didn't use it.  Except when faced with total destruction, they will never use it.  There is no truthful soul on the planet who would be surprised if certain Arabs used atomics.    They strap explosives to their own children, and send them to detonate themselves in civilian gatherings.  Any culture which would do this is insane.    

Israel is surrounded by this insanity.   The choice now rising like the morning sun is simple.  If we won't take the facilities out, Israel must take the facilities out..  If that happens it will do what it did the last time they took out a Moslem reactor site --  set half the world aflame with Arabic resentment.  The difference between this time and the last is the rise of Islamic extremism.  

So, the United States must do it, and using the shortest estimates to weapons grade material provided by the experts, must do it soon.  With England or without England.  With other allies or not.  It must be done, and we must do it before the Israelis are forced to do it.

This can be avoided only if the Iranians, like the management of Libya, grasp that the cowboy doesn't bluff.  They must not play games of chess with him. They will not be allowed to use negotiations to stall their way to completion of a bomb. They must understand that this man will not stand for that. He already has a date in his head.  He will listen and discuss and hope for peace up to the last hour.  But, come the deadline, they must understand that he will take action.  

Bush is the classic western American man.  He was given the star to wear on his vest, and will defend the town, even if he stands alone.  

(LL)

© 2006 Oregon Magazine