Posted by
DC Musgrove on Friday, September 01, 2006 4:11:28 PM
The world markets and many of our liberal friends are nervous about confronting Iran with sanctions, or worse, over their threat of developing nukes. They worry the UN is playing a dangerous game of chicken with Teheran. Nothing could be further from the truth.
In all matters of foreign affairs, there is a time for the pen as well as the sword in hostile negotiations. With democratic countries you rarely even have to show up to the bargaining table with a sword in your scabbard. You're usually there on matters of commercial interests and often the most contentious topic is trade deficits. Still, even the friendliest meeting of foreign leaders proceed more smoothly when it is understood that you are dangerous if crossed. And that you can handily wield either instrument of persuasion.
With countries such as Iran, the sword has to be on the table, unsheathed and within easy reach. The pen is only visible when the concessions required by the majority interests are met and verified. They are not afforded a trusted status in negotiations because they historically break any and all agreements when and where it suits them. They are not allowed to operate behind their borders unsupervised, because they sponsor terrorism, seek regional domination by force and have demonstrated they prefer confrontation to cooperative relations within the world community of free nations. They are an imminent danger to their neighbors and a persistent economic threat outside their neighborhood. They do not play fair in our sandbox and should not be invited in without reparation.
Why is the UN failing to effectively remedy the Iranian threat of nuclear weapons? Isn't the UN supposed to act as the world's referee and hold rogue countries to civility for the rest of us? In an idyllic world yes. But Iran is not in the game with the rest of us. If someone threatened to disrupt your hockey game, you wouldn't sic the refs on them would you? You'd call the cops and they lay some wood on their heads - not just blow whistles and point to the penalty box. You don't scare criminals with whistles.
That's the problem with the UN. They are committed to the philosophy that any negotiation must be resolved with the pen. Like all liberally motivated organizations, they abhor violence and see it as an organizational failure if they cannot resolve any issue with diplomacy. Consequently, they remove all motivation for renegade leaders to take UN actions seriously. They are not dangerous and dangerous regimes would ignore them completely if it were not for member countries like the United States, Britain and on rare occasions, others who provide the teeth for the mouth of the UN. The UN is further castrated by the commercial interests of other countries doing business with Iran and who are all too happy to allow talks to drag on indefinitely. They paralyze the Security Council, stall momentum toward any conflict resolution and reenforce the deserved mockery of UN effectiveness. It should be obvious that many of these countries are not only happy to see the US and Britain drain financial/military resources by committing to force, but it enhances their own agenda to devalue these superpowers' stature in the world community for their own commercial gain. They point them out to be bullies and imperialists in the liberal press - who of course already agree in principal that the world would be better off if the US were put in it's place, probably Britain too and you may as well throw Israel in there with them. By siding with these accusations, they offer their sympathies to Iran along with all the other "underdogs" and improve their potential gain by offering them a market (and all too often a weapons store) alternative. A recent example is Venezuela and Hugo Chavez's pathetic grandstanding to Cuba and now Syria. He is smart enough to see an opportunity to insert himself into world affairs, well above his pay grade, by taking advantage of the current climate of America bashing and fear of "the great Satan" in the Muslim world. He is dumb enough not to realize he is betting his country's economic future on the wrong horse.
Iran needs to be privately taken out to the woodshed and disciplined. Forget finger wagging, idle threats, offers of candy if they will only listen to reason and behave themselves. Corporal punishment and demonstration that there is plenty more where that came from, is the only action Teheran will take seriously. The longer we delay the inevitable, the more we endanger ourselves, embolden their leaders, and coincidentally, other little dogs who think they can wedge in when the big dogs are tied up elsewhere.