[Rhodes22-list] Wally - Re: Fred Thompson

[Brad Haslett]

Wally,

You said you were waiting for Fred Thompson's stand on Iraq and Iran - here
it is.  The word in blogsphere is he's running.  This was posted yesterday.

Brad

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The Pirates of Tehran  By Fred Thompson Posted in Foreign
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Oil prices fell. The stock market rose. Video images of smiling British
soldiers with Iranian President Ahmadinejad were everywhere. So were
pictures of the 15 freed hostages embracing family members back home. The
relief over the return of the Brits was so tremendous; you could almost hear
birds singing.

Maybe it's because military action won't be needed or maybe it's just
because the ordeal won't drag on and on, but the world is breathing easier
now. A lot of folks are happy. The problem, as I see it, is that Ahmadinejad
seems to be the happiest.

And why shouldn't he be? He has shown the world that his forces can kidnap
British citizens, subject them to brutal psychological tactics to coerce
phony confessions, finagle the release of a high-ranking Iranian terror
coordinator in Iraq, utterly trash the Geneva conventions and suffer
absolutely no consequences.

The UN Security Council summoned its vaunted multilateral greatness to issue
a swift statement of sincere uneasiness. The EU, which has pressured Britain
to rely on Europeans for mutual defense instead of the US, wouldn't even
discuss economic sanctions that might disrupt their holidays. Even NATO was
AWOL.

*Please do keep reading . . .*

Tony Blair doesn't appear to be in much of a mood for celebrating. I don't
know how he could be, given the troubling spectacle of British soldiers
shake the hand of their kidnapper as a condition of release. In the old
days, they would have kissed his ring -- but wearing Iranian suits and
carrying swag more appropriate to a Hollywood awards ceremony may have been
as embarrassing. Ironically, Blair's options are fewer by the day as his own
party moves to mothball the British fleet, once the fear of pirates and
tyrants the world over.

Some in the West seem part of Iran's propaganda war; claiming that the
release of the hostages was a victory that proves the Iranian dictatorship
can be reasoned with. To misrepresent unpunished piracy as a victory is as
Orwellian as the congressional mandate banning use of the term "the global
war on terror." What are we — Reuters?

Ahmadinejad must be particularly pleased to see "deep thinking" journalists
making the case that American actions in Iraq were the true cause of the
kidnappings. To believe this, all you have to do is ignore the history of
the Iranian Revolution, which has been in the extortion business ever since
it took power. Between the 1979 American embassy crisis in Tehran and the
seizure of Israeli soldiers last year by Iran's Hezbollah proxies, there
have been more than a hundred other examples.

If you include the imprisonment of pro-Democracy dissidents and non-Shi'a
Muslim minorities within Iran, the number reaches easily into the tens of
thousands. The dwindling and persecuted Christian population of Iran, I
suspect, found little joy in Ahmadinejad's explanation that he was freeing
his victims as an "Easter gift."

It is critical that we see this incident as part of a long pattern of
behavior -- that will continue as long as the current leadership is in
power. More importantly, it will escalate unimaginably if Iran achieves
nuclear status, and with it the ability to hold millions rather than
individuals hostage.

I have no idea if Ahmadinejad and those who put him in power really believe
the Shi'a Twelver doctrine that they can spur the messiah to return by
triggering Armageddon. You have to admit, though, that the possibility that
they look forward to entering paradise as martyrs would make them a whole
lot scarier as a nuclear power than the USSR ever was.

There is hope, though. The Iranian people are not an anti-Western horde.
They're an educated and freedom-loving people for the most part, and
reformers there have been begging us for support and sanctions that would
weaken the ruling theocracy. Instead, they've just seen the Iranian
dictatorship successfully bully the West into impotent submission. This is
not a good thing.

We need to understand this and use every means at our disposal, starting
with serious and painful international sanctions, to prevent Iran's rulers
from becoming the nuclear-armed blackmailers they want to be. Unfortunately,
we are hearing demands that we abandon the people of the Middle East who
have stood up to Islamo-fascism because they believed us when we said we
would support them.

If we retreat precipitously, the price for that betrayal will be paid first
in blood and freedom by the Iranian people, the Kurds, the Afghanis, the
secular Lebanese, the moderates in Pakistan and the Iraqis themselves. And
America's word may never be trusted again.

Right now, the pirate Ahmadinejad is clearly more confident about the
outcome of the Global War on Terror than we are. That ought to give us
pause.