Andrew Hagen

Bernard Lewis has a critically important op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal. (*)

A strategic analysis of conflict in the Middle East is in order. First, however, a summary.

Last month, an explosion occurred on a Gaza beach. Israel and Palestinian terrorists pointed fingers at each other. (*) An Israeli soldier was kidnapped and taken into Gaza. Israel started to move on Gaza. Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and took them to Lebanon. Israel started to move on Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel. Israel has responded with air strikes on Hezbollah and strategic positions in Lebanon, including the Beiruit airport. Hezbollah fired a UAV missile at an Israeli warship, inflicting damage. Israel has responded with more air strikes and indications it may send ground forces into southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah is entrenched without the approval of the free government of Lebanon. (†) Meanwhile, Iran continues saber rattling against Israel while continuing to delay and obstruct nuclear weapons inspectors and the UN Security Council from acting. Sectarian violence worsens in Iraq between Arab Sunnis and Arab Shias.

Let’s begin the analysis with a sketch of the motivations of the major players:

Hezbollah - Wishes to destroy Israel and dominate Lebanon to impose a Khomeini-style regime. Not incompetent. Frequently termed “the A-team of terrorists.” Possesses several thousand Katushya rockets (unguided) and a few heavier weapons. Has several thousand terrorist fighters in Lebanon who were trained in Iran. Hezbollah takes orders directly from Iran. It is funded and supplied by Iran and Syria.

Lebanon (free government) - Wishes to supplant Hezbollah in Lebanon and establish peace and rule of law in Lebanon. Not friendly with Israel, but Lebanon’s other enemies are bigger threats right now.

Syria - Seeks to restore its influence in Lebanon. Barring that, this regime of a Sunni-dominated country wishes that Israel loses influence in the region and Syria gains. The Syrian regime does not want a direct conflict with Israel because it knows it will lose. The Syrian regime is dependent on Iran for military and economic cooperation, and is heavily influenced by Iran.

Iran - The Khomeini/Khamanei/Ahmadinejad regime seeks to build nuclear bombs and missiles and then to literally destroy Israel with nuclear weapons. Subsequently, Iran will seek greater influence in the Middle East and the world, assuming that Iran has not by then triggered the end of the world as per the Khomeini regime’s religious beliefs by nuking Israel. In the meantime, Iran must delay and block the weapons inspectors and the UN.

In this scenario, Iran wants to create a widespread Middle East war that Iran is not blamed for. Iran will need support from Islamic countries as the Security Council acts on Iran’s nuclear weapons program in the next few weeks. A regional war would serve Iran’s purpoes. It would distract the world’s attention while Iran builds the bomb, and will also serve the purpose of providing a pretext, however thinly disguised, for Iran’s use of nuclear weapons to destroy Israel.

How could this scenario play out?

Hezbollah’s rockets cannot inflict great damage to Israel, but the randomness of the strikes and their increased range will keep the Israeli population in fear. The Israeli air force will not be able to stop the rocket attacks in a short enough time to keep the Israeli people safe because the rockets are mobile. Israel will have to send in ground forces to destroy Hezbollah. The specter of Israel occupying “Arab land” will again be on full display in the media.

The question is why is Hezbollah forcing Israel to invade Lebanon, when Hezbollah realizes that it will be destroyed by the superior Israeli army. The answer might be based on Hezbollah taking orders from Iran and Iran’s motivations.

An Israeli invasion of Lebanon could drag the Lebanese government into the war, either with or against Hezbollah. At this point, Iranian and Syrian forces would seek to re-establish influence over the Lebanese government and force it to side with Hezbollah, Iran’s pawn.

Iran wants an Israeli-Syrian conflict. Once nations become nervous with war occurring nearby, a subterfuge or other sleight-of-hand maneuer can light the match. If Israel does not strike Syria, it is not clear why Syria would want to engage in a war with Israel, however.

Additionally, Iran has a motive to entangle the US and a third country with a war outside of Iraq’s and Afghanistan’s borders. This would further distract the US. One possibility would be an Iranian deal with North Korea, truly an Axis of Evil. It is not impossible that North Korea’s missile tests could be part of a pact that the North Korean regime has with the Iranian regime. The missile tests could also be useful to Iran’s missile technology.

At some point, Iran would want to have the blame for a wider war shifted to Israel and/or the United States. It is not clear how that might occur, although with Israel and the US winning few world popularity contests right now, it is not inconceivable either.

In this scenario, Iran distracts the world long enough, and pins enough blame on Israel and the US, that Iran is able to become a nuclear power, nuke Israel with impunity, dominate the Middle East, and gain great global influence.

This scenario would counsel that immediate attention be applied to Iran’s nuclear weapons program. It must be put on the top of the world’s agenda by the United States. The US must not allow what happens in Lebanon to sidetrack the process. Furthermore, the UN Security Council should act immediately, not any later. Finally, the US should consider a offering single UN Security Council resolution with two purposes to irrevocably link what is occurring in Lebanon with Iran’s nuclear weapons program. For example, the same chapter 7 resolution could call for Hezbollah to lay down its arms and for Iran to open fully to inspectors within 12 hours or face war. Everyone knows Iran controls Hezbollah. A dual resolution would force Iran to either accept the resolution or oppose it utterly, with no wiggle room and no finessing the issue.

On top of that, the US should introduce a UN Security Council Chapter 7 resolution stating that Iran, North Korea, and Syria must immediately publicly divulge all secret treaties, including mutual defense pacts, that they have entered into, especially with one another. These secret treaties were made illegal by the UN Charter because secret treaties have historically helped cause many wars, including World War I.

Of course, what is likely occurring here is that in Iran’s Islamofascist regime, we have another Nazi totalitarian government hell-bent on dragging the world into another world war. With this in mind we have to realize that the only rationality to the actions and words of Iran’s regime might be, by hook or by crook, to spark all-out global war. This fits generally with the known radical Islamic scenario of destroying the United States as a stepping stone to establishing global radical Islamic supremacy.

Through it all, it should be kept in mind that nothing that the Iranian regime says should be accepted as true unless it can be independently verified.

(Note: “Hezbollah” means “Party of Allah” in Arabic. In Arabic, “Allah” of course means God. Thus, when Western reporters, commentators, and statesmen say things like “Hezbollah is a terrorist group,” or “Hezbollah needs to surrender,” it must sound suspicious when translated into Arabic for Arab-speaking people. We should refer to Hezbollah as “the group calling itself Hezbollah,” or “the group supposedly known as Hezbollah.”)

US State Department will seek “asset freezes, a Chapter 7 resolution under the U.N. charter, sanctions and travel restrictions on some members of the Iranian government.” (*)

Amir Taheri: Ahmadinejad claims he has a spiritual warrant from “the hidden imam” for a: “single task: provoking a “clash of civilisations” in which the Muslim world, led by Iran, takes on the “infidel” West, led by the United States, and defeats it in a slow but prolonged contest that, in military jargon, sounds like a low intensity, asymmetrical war.” Furthermore, it was immediately after Ahmadinejad’s announcement of uranium enrichment that Iran announced it was building 54,000 centrifuges. Iran will soon offer to suspend enrichment and sign additional protocols in an attempt to wait out Bush, and deal with the next US president, who will be weak and surrender easily to Islam and terrorism. All the while Iran will continue building the bomb. Islamic males of fighting age outnumber Western males of fighting age four to one. (*)

Blair will back a Chapter 7 resolution, but won’t contribute to a military strike. (*)

The IAEA previously found one Iranian facility described as a “250,000-acre complex containing two vast underground bomb-proof bunkers designed for enriching uranium to weapons grade. (*) Iran continues to deny that it is building a nuclear weapon.

Debka: Iran building huge “Shahid Moradian” plant with 155,000 centrifuges, operational by the end of 2007. (*)

Iranian workers striking on basis of low or no wages. “We are hungry.” (*)

Ahmadinejad: “The Zionist regime is a dried up and rotten tree which will be annihilated with one storm.” (*)

Iranian text-messages Amhadinejad, suggests he should bathe more. (*)

Shimon Peres: “The Iranian president represents Satan and not God. History has rejected these sorts of sword-brandishing lunatics.” (*)

Iranian General Yahya Rahim Safavi boasts Iran can easily defeat United States. (*)

Sunday Times: Iran will hit the US and the UK with “battalions of suicide bombers,” 40,000 in total, if it is attacked. (*)

Islamic Jihad claims it will back Iran if Iran is attacked. (*)

Richard Clarke and Steven Simon: the costs of attacking Iran would outweigh the benefits. Iranian intelligence service is too powerful. Bill Clinton took Iranian intelligence down, and easily enough, in 1996. (*) (In other words, the column is nonsensical.)

White House is committed to stopping Iran. Nevertheless, Iranian-sponsored terrorism would spike upward immediately after a strike. (*)

Rumsfeld criticized by some retired US generals in what is apparently a coordinated effort. (*) Does this somehow relate to planning on Iran?

Reuel Marc Gerecht: Iran is choosing this moment because Bush is weak and the media says the US is tied down in Iraq. Iran wants acquiescence now before the wind changes direction. Furthermore, Iran has maintained its radicalism and authoritarianism despite European free trade with Iran, tending to disprove the “free trade causes democracy” assertion. (*)

Retired US general Thomas McInerney: a feasible US military strike option exists. (*)

(Iranian nuclear crisis updates now using only asterisks for links.)

In the wake of Iran’s announcement of enrichment of uranium:

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice: it will be “time for action” when the Security Council reconvenes on April 28. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Krivtsov: “Step in the wrong direction.” IAEA chief Mohammed Elbaradei: continue negotiations. (*)

US will seek Chapter 7 Security Council resolution (military authorization). Russia and China reject a Chapter 7 resolution. Krivtsov: “There is no evidence of noncompliance with the nonproliferation [treaty].” (†)

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan: “cool down the rhetoric.” Summary paragraph written by UN staffers: “In 2003, it was discovered that Iran had carried out secret nuclear activities for 18 years in breach of its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and some countries, the United States among them, claim that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons, which Iran denies.” (‡)

Protester Cindy Sheehan: We must not believe BushCo or anything they say about Iran. . . . We must not allow him to frighten us into this one.” (§) (posted prior to enriched uranium announcement)

Nobel peace prize winner Shirin Ebadi and Muhammad Simini: “Taking Iran to the UN Security Council and imposing sanctions on it would prompt the hard-liners to leave the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and its Additional Protocol.” Instead, get Iran to improve human rights. (**) (originally published in the International Herald Tribune)

Bloomberg news: Iran could have nukes in 16 days. (††) (more likely a matter of months)

Iranfocus.com: “Iran’s radical President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a fiery sermon demanded that “Iran’s enemies”, or the West, bow down before Iran and apologize for having held back Tehran’s nuclear program for three years. He also warned the West that it would “burn” in the “fire of the nations’ fury”.” (‡‡)

Spacewar.com: Iran offering neighbors a non-aggression pact. (§§) (A fake one)

Greenpeace: “Greenpeace is opposed to any nation acquiring nuclear technology and nuclear weapons, including Iran.” Continue with what the IAEA is doing, don’t refer to Security Council. Solution is “Nuclear Free Zone in the Middle East.” (***) (Disarmament would require a basic level of trust. In the wake of 18 years of secret Iranian nuclear weapons development, and Israel’s unofficial nuclear weapons stockpile, trust and verification would be problematic or impossible. Other problems also exist. For example, Bennett Ramberg’s plan would require Israel to join NATO (†††), thereby involving every NATO member in daily cross-border raids and rocket attacks. Unworkable.)

February 2006: Iran vows to enrich uranium in response to the IAEA’s referral of Iran to the Security Council. (‡‡‡) If Iran really only wanted to generate electricity, why escalate this to an international crisis?

President Bush said:

I mentioned to you the need for international bodies to be effective. We’re working with the IAEA with Iran. And the Iranians need to feel the pressure from the world that any nuclear weapons program will be uniformly condemned. It’s essential that they hear that message. An appropriate international body to deal with them is the IAEA. They signed an additional protocol, which was a positive development. The foreign ministers of Great Britain, France and Germany have interceded on behalf of the civilized world to talk plainly to the Iranians. One of my jobs is to make sure they speak as plainly as possible to the Iranians, and make it absolutely clear that the development of a nuclear weapon in Iran is intolerable, and a program is intolerable, otherwise there would be — otherwise they will be dealt with, starting through the United Nations.

Unfortunately, that press conference was April 21, 2004. (*)

It is now two years later, and where are we? We’re still sitting on our hands, hoping the IAEA will smoke a peace pipe with Iranian spittle-flecked figurehead Ahmadinejad, and the real dictator of Iran, Supreme Leader Khamenei, no less a psychotic homicidal maniac as Ahmadinejad, only quieter and more shadowy.

So now Iran has enriched uranium. (†) Their process is not advanced enough to create a nuclear weapon, but they will gain that knowledge soon. Today, no obstacle stands in their way.

The IAEA appeaser-in-chief, Mohammed Elbaradei, waddles to Iran again. Maybe he will at last find his proof that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. Congratulations to his cheering section at the Nobel prizes. They can be very proud as their boy kowtows before the armed terror overlords of Iran and their atomic artillery almost ready to roll off the assembly line. At this point, the IAEA is at best a distraction that speeds proliferation.

The time has now passed for polite chit-chat with rabid dictators who tomorrow will be armed with the weapons of extinction.

President Bush should summon the UN Security Council for an emergency meeting to occur in 24 hours. If the Security Council fails to act immediately and decisively against Iran, ordering sanctions backed with the threat of military force, the US and allies must act. We must rapidly prepare to fight to preserve the founding principles of both our countries and the United Nations. It may be that other countries are too afraid. They may be too scared to fight for freedom, too weak to hold aloft even a small candle of hope for humanity. Sacrifice is what grown-ups do to avert a disaster from befalling the little people sometimes called the future.

Let us turn now to a relevant document. The opening lines of the Charter of the United Nations, signed in San Francisco in 1945:

WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED

to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind. . . .

(‡) Now, with Iran on the doorstep of delivering to the world an aggressive, unprovoked nuclear armageddon of Israel, is the last chance to act. There is still a chance that sanctions could shut them down before it hits critical mass.

If sanctions do not work, however, we must prepare to fight a limited war now to avoid the global nuclear catastrophe that is sure to follow the terrorist state of Iran gaining access to nuclear weapons.

I’m sure many of my readers wouldn’t shed a tear if Israel were wiped from the Earth. Nor the entire Jewish people as well. For any that think a nuclear Iran is tolerable, however, do not forget the words of Martin Niemoeller, who reminds us even today that first they come for the Jews, and then another group, then another, until finally they will come for us. Divide and conquer is the eternal way of the tyrant.

Naturally, if one country can be nuked off the map, so can any country. We human beings live interdependently in this world. We must police and protect ourselves. This is called morality.

The Doomsday Clock tells us that the world is at seven minutes until nuclear midnight. (§) With today’s knife-to-the-throat announcement by Iran’s thugocracy, we can anticipate the minute hand to move faster and faster.

Today the gravest threat to humankind is the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran. A little nuclear war here and there is likely to touch off a global nuclear war. In the emerging context, it is more than morality that we stand for; it is survival.

And two years after taking a firm stand against a nuclear-armed Iran to a room full of reporters, President Bush has hardly lifted a finger to stop this ferocious menace.

It is time for action.

Assuming sanctions do not work, what would the military option look like? First, the US is not really going to use nuclear weapons on Iran first, unless Iran already has or is about to in an imminent time frame use its nuclear weapons.

Of course, since Iran has an itchy trigger finger and ruling autocrats who firmly believe Allah wants them to kickstart Islamic Armageddon by hurtling the a-bomb hither and yon, knowing just when Iran plans to use the bomb may be difficult to estimate. For that reason, it is wise to keep our nuclear arrow in the quiver.

All this only increases the importance to hit Iran now. First, with powerful sanctions, and second, with swift preparation for a military option.

If President Bush no longer has what it takes to do what is necessary, he needs to resign.

From far away, if enough have the bravery and steadfastness to stand up to Iran and their brutal words and their brutal weaponry, it will look like a showdown between nations.

The real showdown, though, will not be along the borders of the Middle East, but in the borderlands of the human heart. Do we have the courage of our convictions? Will we, in the last instance, do what is right, even when it is very hard? Are we willing to sacrifice our selfish drives for a brighter tomorrow? Will we let the light shine, or will we succumb to darkness?

Time will tell. I know we can do what is right. I know we can stop Iran. I know the human heart can triumph over despair. But will we do what we must? Will we do what is right?

To accomplish something small, little effort is needed. To accomplish something great, little effort is needed, only many times. People want to stand for what is right, but they are afraid. That is why it is important that as many of us as possible stand for what is right, so that courage spreads, little by little, until at last we accomplish that great thing, and stop cold a brutal oppressor. We cannot make the world absolutely safe, but we can absolutely remove one threat to it.

It cannot be denied any longer. (*)

United Nations officials investigating Iran’s nuclear programme say they have found convincing evidence that the Iranians are working on a secret uranium enrichment project that has not been officially declared.

The UN must take action.

Iranian Shirin Ebadi won the Novel Peace Prize in 2003. (*)

Recently, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be wiped off the map. (†) Even the UN has derided Ahmadinejad’s comments. (‡)

To her credit, Ebadi has recently spoken out against her government in its detention of a journalist, Akbar Ganji. (§) To date, however, Ebadi has not publicly criticized Ahmadinejad’s blood-chilling genocidal statement.

In her speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, Ebadi criticized Israel for not following UN resolutions.

In the wake of publicity surrounding Iran’s poorly concealed efforts to build a stockpile of thermonuclear warheads, Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, called this week for Israel to be “wiped off the map.” The New York Times has the full text of the speech, translated from the Persian. (*)

Our dear Imam [the Ayatollah Khomeini] said that the occupying regime [Israel] must be wiped off the map and this was a very wise statement. We cannot compromise over the issue of Palestine. Is it possible to create a new front in the heart of an old front. This would be a defeat and whoever accepts the legitimacy of this regime [Israel] has in fact, signed the defeat of the Islamic world. Our dear Imam targeted the heart of the world oppressor in his struggle, meaning the occupying regime. I have no doubt that the new wave that has started in Palestine, and we witness it in the Islamic world too, will eliminate this disgraceful stain from the Islamic world. But we must be aware of tricks. . . .

The issue of Palestine is not over at all. It will be over the day a Palestinian government, which belongs to the Palestinian people, comes to power; the day that all refugees return to their homes; a democratic government elected by the people comes to power. Of course those who have come from far away to plunder this land have no right to choose for this nation.

Ahmadinejad is not the topmost authority figure in Iran. That position is held collectively by a council of mullahs. The council has backed away from Ahmadinejad’s statement, saying Iran will abide by its UN obligations. (†) Of course, their statement must be considered in the context of the Shia practice of taqiyah. Iran is a Shia-dominated country. Taqiyah is a practice of Shia Islam, and, some say, all of Islam, that commands Muslims to lie and dissemble in order to advance the goal of Islamic world domination.

Let us not play games or hide under a rock. The only sane respose to Ahmadinejad’s vow to wipe Israel off the map is to prepare for a war that would destroy the Iranian regime, allow the people of Iran to live in freedom, and protect other countries.

The Bush Administration is not giving the nuclear threats of Iran and North Korea the attention they deserve. The New York Times editorializes that we should offer positive incentives to change the ambitions of the bomb builders in the remaining spokes of the Axis of Evil. (*)

Positive incentives to those bent on malign ends tend not to have benign results.

Iran could be dealt with by attacking political targets from the air and fostering revolution from within, following the example of Serbia in 1999/2000. The weapons program can then be destroyed from the ground or left with a democratic open society that poses no threat.

Kim Jong Il’s grip on North Korea depends on the flow of Chinese energy and goodwill. Diplomatically, we need to drive a wedge between Kim and China. America’s trade ties with China should be leveraged to achieve that wedge. Economically, we need to put a heavier squeeze on North Korea. At some point, Kim can be nudged out.

David Warren sounds the pessimistic note on Iran’s nuclear weapons program. He doesn’t see a way to stop the regime from getting nukes. (*)

The Iranian regime has frequently stated it will totally destroy Israel, Europe, and the United States.

The Iranian regime currently has nuclear-capable missiles that have enough range to hit Israel. It is working on longer ranged missiles.

Daniel Drezner has the latest from Iran. The evil regime has sent in the stormtroopers against the bloggers. (*)

In solidarity.

A Pentagon-funded study suggests that bombing Iran is not the best way to stop that evil regime from building nuclear weapons. A series of other steps would put intense pressure on Iran. One of the steps must be concessions by Israel. (* PDF) The report begins:

When it comes to Iran’s nuclear program, most U.S. and allied officials are in one or another state of denial. All insist it is critical to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Yet, few understand just how late it is to attempt this. Iran is now no more than 12 to 48 months from acquiring a nuclear bomb, lacks for nothing technologically or materially to produce it, and seems dead set on securing an option to do so. As for the most popular policy options – to bomb or bribe Iran – only a handful of analysts and officials are willing to admit publicly how self-defeating these courses of action might be.

The study is Restraining a Nuclear-Ready Iran: Seven Levers, by the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. (†)

Popular Iranian reformer Mohammad Khatami has given up the fight and conceded defeat to the country’s hardline theocratic regime. (*) (†) Peaceful, incremental reform inside Iran is dead.

The strategic implication is that the future paths for Iran are reduced to three: maintenance of the Status Quo, revolution from below, or intervention from outside Iran.

Insight crows about one if its stories finally making the rounds of the wire services. (*) An Iranian defector, Hamid Reza Zaker has claimed that Iran was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Now he gets more attention thanks to his testimony in the 9/11 trials in Germany.

There is no independent corroboration for his story.

Responding to the international crisis created in 1979 when the Khomeini revolution in Iran took over the US embassy in Tehran and took scores of Americans hostage, President Carter ordered US Special Operations Forces into action. Unfortunately, disaster struck Operation Eagle Claw at a location in Iran codenamed Desert One. There an accident killed eight American troops and wounded several others. The mission came to a premature end.

The community web site Kuro5hin hosts a series of informative articles on the ill-fated mission. In light of recent events in Iran, it is useful to look back on the recent history.

Part I (*)
Part II (†)
Part III (‡)
Part IV (§)
Part V (**)

The Ayatollah Khomeini, former leader of Iran, was heavily influenced by gnosticism. (*) The anti-sex current in gnosticism apparently runs deep.

The Associated Press reports on the Iranian election process.

Iran’s Interior Ministry began screening some 8,200 prospective candidates Sunday for February legislative elections, state-run Tehran radio reported.

The list of candidates approved by the ministry must be ratified by the hard-line Guardian Council, however, and, in the past, the council has disqualified those seen as opposing the absolute rule of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Reformers, who have long sought social and political change in Iran, fear the council may disqualify many of their candidates.

(*) The very fact that candidates must be vetted by the existing government is reason enough to term these elections unfree and phony.

How would it sound if George W Bush had the power to disallow Howard Dean from running against him? Not good.

Unfortunately, the Nobel Peace Prize winner of 2003, Shirin Ebadi, chose to use her acceptance speech (*) as a platform to harangue against the United States. She said, “[I]n the past two years, some states have violated the universal principles and laws of human rights by using the events of 11 September and the war on international terrorism as a pretext.” To repeat, it was “a pretext.”

She then went on to chide the US’s detention of the Al Qaeda illegal combatants at Guantanamo for alleged human rights violations. She did not bother to condemn the terrorism they supported, or the Taliban regime they helped prop up.

The Peace Prize winner also attacked Israel for not implementing various UN resolutions while not saying one critical word about Palestinian Arab terrorism against innocent people.

Her comments on the tyrannical nature of the Iranian regime and other Middle East dictatorships were at best indirect.

Finally, Ebadi did not discuss the possibility of an Iranian nuclear bomb program. This is the sort of matter that usually interests Peace Prize winners. As she is Iranian, it would surely interest her. Currently, however, there is no firm proof that Iran is trying to build the bomb. There is, however, well-founded suspicion.

On the positive side, she said good things about women’s rights, human rights, and democracy.

It appears, however, that the 2003 Peace Prize went to someone who does not deeply believe in peace. She is very concerned with human rights, not very much with violence.

Iran is waffling on whether it is developing nuclear weapons. (*)

It is time to act as if Iran were developing nuclear weapons. A UN Security Council, Chapter 7 resolution is called for, threatening Iran with force and justifying military action against the regime unless it dismantle its program.

The beast of Al Qaeda has relocated to eastern Iran, according to Jeffrey Bell. (*) Bell notes that if the presence were confirmed of Enemy bases in Iran, an Axis of Evil rogue state that is almost certainly feverishly developing nuclear weapons, it would justify US military action against the Iranian regime under the Bush Doctrine.

Every day, more and more, it appears that the War on Terrorism may soon focus on the tyrants of Teheran.