General John Abazaid is a former US commander in Iraq who spent most of his time pretty much ignoring the Iranian weapons, money, and men flowing into his theater of operations. Now, he’s joined the crowd who believes that a nuclear Iran is really no big deal and that Mad Mahmoud and the Mullahs can be “contained”.
Folks, that’s flat-out crazy talk. We’ve spent the past four years trying to talk Iran out of its nuclear program. We’ve set Britain, Germany, and France to the task and have been in near-constant talks with the Islamist government there. For our efforts we have gotten Messianic delusions and a stream of threats against us and Israel and an Iran closer today to the bomb than it has ever been.
As if to put paid to Abizaid’s “contain ‘em” speech, the Jerusalem Post is reporting that a web site run by the Iranian government has assured us all that there are 600 missiles pointed at sites all around Israel and that “600 missiles will only be the first reaction” should any attack come on Iran or Syria. Oh, let’s not forget the little note in that article that plenty of Iran’s missiles are also pointed at our soldiers in Iraq.
Yeah, we can contain that. Sure. Let’s just threaten the folks who have no fear of death and no problem executing their own little girls for defending themselves from rape attacks with destruction. That’s sure to work.
Look, the problem with the realpolitik folks is that they can’t wrap their heads around Islamist ideology. Mad Mahmoud isn’t playing the usual geopolitical game that the Soviet Union and China have played. Iran’s game isn’t to build a sphere of influence and defend it against all comers. That’s an old game. Islamists are working toward a goal we’ve never quite seen before: an Islamic Caliphate that spans the entire planet. Their game is to kill or enslave everyone who is not Muslim and, right now, the biggest obstacles to that goal are the United States and Israel. I would expect General Abizaid to realize that, considering that he spent four years fighting Iran in Iraq. Perhaps he really didn’t know. If that’s true, though, his comments are all the more irrelevant.
(both stories via memeorandum)
