Iran: A Simple Question...

Mr.Atos

Michelle Malkin asks it,

Do Americans understand the gravity of the situtation? I fear not. Once again, we are ill-served by a short-sighted, narcissistic, Bush-deranged news media far more interested in playing "gotcha," selling fish-wrap, and serving as Democrat Party adjuncts than keeping readers/viewers informed of the world's biggest threats.

And the Oregonian proves her point yet again this morning, with their headline story, "Thousands Protest US Airstrike. " Good luck finding the text of the story on their website, but it's primary intent is to inform readers that a great number of Pakistani's are outraged by recent airstrikes aimed at destroying Al Quaida leadership taking refuge in that country. Thousands of them marched in several cities as noted,

"In Karachi, Pakistan's most populous city, about 8,000 people attended a rally outside the main Binori mosque listening to fiery speeches condemning the United States..."

In a nation of 162,419,946 people, the Oregonian sees fit to lead the Monday headline with the activities of a handful of potbangers no larger in percentage than the cadre of 19 Friday moonbats that rally in downtown Portland every week to protest the Bush administration. The New York Times today goes so far as to publish an apparently staged propaganda photo. And so the meme continues in the mainstream US press to undermine the efforts of this nation in a very real struggle for survival at a time when it is becoming all to clear that we have slipped beyond what wretchard once called the "End of the Beginning" of the next world war.

Preceding her question, Michelle includes a tremendous rundown of recent analyses of the threat currently posed to the world by Iran's fanatical regime. Among them, Victor Davis Hanson lays out the four scenarios of western action in response... none of them particularly appealing. And wretchard of The Belmont Club makes note that,

...[D]iplomacy will continue, not because it has any prospect of success, but from want of an alternative. Iran knows better than anyone that Israeli lacks the ability and the US probably lacks the will to mount a regime change. In this context diplomacy acquires a different significance. It's playing for time, hoping that the regime in Teheran will slip up somehow and provide an opportunity for effective action. That slip-up, if it occurs, can only be induced by taking Iran to the brink.

But, it is Dr. Sanity who renders the most salient point regarding the standard Western approach at pacification of the megalomaniacly deranged,

The international community mucked around with sanctions on a blowhard like Saddam for over a decade--and what did it get them? If we thought Saddam was a lying, immoral thug with delusions of grandeur and WMDs to act on them; we can multiply that assessment by a factor of ten when dealing with a Saddam-like clone whose delusions are even more extreme and with a religious foundation to boot. And this fanatic's desire for WMD's is not in question (yet, anyway; after he is thwarted, who knows what some people will convince themselves was the case?). Ahmadinejad can't be deterred because it is his earnest desire to die gloriously and go to his maker-- and he doesn't care who he takes with him. Saddam didn't mind killing others, but he always planned to save his own neck; and I'm sure he always intended that he would come out of any confrontation alive and triumphant.

The gravity here at the center of this crisis is caused by the same fanatical mentality that butchered some 3000 innocent people on 9/11, maintained murderous regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, and buttresses other despotic villains in Syria, Egypt and Iran. It seeks to terrorize the world with violence and threat, yet demands the sanction of its victims to manifest and persist. It is a singularity of hate that periodically drags civilization into the crushing blackness of self-immolation to which its victims might gladly drift if not for the resistance of good men certain of their virtue, unwilling to relent to fear.

Stripped however, of the force of resolve and the deterrance afforded by might, Atlas tangles with a harpy in a dangerous struggle for the destiny of the globe. The Belmont Club explains it this way today,

Both the regime in Teheran and Washington are like Olympic wrestlers grappling within a narrowly bounded mat. The instant anyone should step or be forced outside the mat the buzzer will sound and a new and deadlier match will begin. Unfortunately the boundaries of the arena are invisible to both sides. How far can America push Iran? How far can Iran push America? Iran has the advantage of knowing that the US will stop short of overt military action against them -- for the time being. But it has the disadvantage of not knowing how far it can let Al Qaeda and Hezbollah go without bringing down the spectators from the stands.

The end of the beginning in Iraq and Afghanistan has been resolved to America's advantage, despite the tremendous resistance of Western Leftists with their mainstream Media wing and American political party (aka Democrats). In their own myopic grapple for political power, they could not effect its conclusion. Yet, they have managed to undermine the options that America has at its disposal, compromising those that are most politically volatile and thus subject to opportunistic eruption, distraction, and subsequent disaster regardless how effective. Indeed the world (and America's enemy) has bore witness to all manner of self-flagellation on the part of Democrats over the last 5 years. Clearly, on the brink of new holocaust, there are two struggles taking place. While engaged in a war for civilization in the East, a civil war rages within the West. The Left has chosen this as their time to subvert national resolve and international trust for the sake of their own political fortunes, in fact waging war against their own common interests to do so. And so a third wrestler grapples within the narrowly bounded mat. How long can the Left pin America in a state of suicidal paralysis, even as Tehran pushes it over the threshold of armageddon?

The simple question most certainly is, do Americans understand the gravity of the situation?

If we do not, civilization will surely perish... Right, Left & wrong.