The President of Iran explaining to the UN that Israel launched 9/11.
As Con Coughlin makes explicitly clear in his Daily Telegraph column today, the latest International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report due out soon is going to explode once and for all the ridiculous fiction that the Iranians are developing nuclear power for purely peaceful purposes.
It seems that Iran is
1. Seeking to engineer and test components that are only used in the production of nuclear weapons.
2. Experimenting with triggers that are only used for detonating nuclear weapons.
3. Devoting considerable energy to developing a ballistic missile warhead that can carry a nuclear payload.
4. Designing simulation programmes whose sole purpose is to test nuclear weapons systems.
The older ones among us remember Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko lying his head off about having any aggressive intentions by building bases in Cuba….until U-2 spy planes proved the existence of medium range ballistic missiles at two of the sites. But the difference now is that, while Andrei Gromyko had no choice but to squirm uncomfortably as this evidence was shown to the UN, the folks in charge of Iran won’t even blanche at these revelations. They will, almost certainly, begin by (a) condemning the IAEA as a front for Zionist propaganda, and then (b) shift the ground of the argument to one of needing the weapons for self-defence against Israel….which, as you will recall from previous Slogs, has had nuclear weapons for decades, but never employed them.
When I raised this last point previously, it was shot down as being illogical, and ‘not proving anything’. It wasn’t meant to show anything more than Israel’s restraint….and point out that its neighbours had been somewhat less restrained in their aggression since 1947. But doubtless my reporting of this now will be more evidence of ‘the Slog’s thing about being an apologist for Israel’. Well guys, I had the same arguments in the 1960s with Maoist and pro-Moscow student colleagues at University. The difference then was that the Soviet Union (while clearly holding highly aggressive intentions) was run by people who, in the final analysis, were sane atheists. This time, the liars are religious maniacs.
We are nearing the end of yet another phase of disgraceful Western appeasement. In the late 1930s, Hitler was able to use entirely bogus charges of Czech harassment of Sudeten Germans. The Times dutifully took his point, while upper class anti-Semites continued to believe that Adolf was good news. In 1962, the USSR lied from beginning to end of the Cuban Missiles Crisis. But Europe’s Left continue to insist to this day that the Kennedy brothers engineered the whole thing. After the fall of the Soviet regime, East German Stasi copies of Warsaw Pact battle plans provided all the evidence a sane mind would need to prove that, the minute the US lost interest in defending Europe, the Russians would’ve been in like Flynn. Indeed, as Gorbachev testified years later, it was the colossal cost of maintaining this huge invasion force that eventually brought the regime to ruin, and fall. The British Left’s answer to the size of this force? “Russia feels encircled”. Russia is an enormous country, with one whole north side of it frozen solid for seven months of the year: who was encircling them, polar bears?
So it has been under the Presidency of Barack Obama. He simply doesn’t want to see the evidence that means he has to get off his backside and do something. And as for all those Peace Convoys engineered, delivered and protected by a range of Leftist and Islamist factions, will we now see them sailing towards Iran in a vain attempt to persuade Ahmadinnejhad to stop his insane hatred of all Jews? Probably not.
Which means that, once again, it will be down to Israel to do something unilaterally…or face annihilation. The entire surface area of Israel is a mere 22,000 square kilometres. A couple of reasonably-sized ICBMs would turn it into a nuclear pancake. So Israel will have to bomb the Iranian sites at some time in the very near future…unless the UN does something concrete. At which point, the Israelis will face the predictable hail of sanctimonious hypocrisy from the Arab/Islamist/Left complex.
Yet even in these circumstances, we know from opinion polls (Israel being a free democracy) that only a small majority of Israelis support a strike against the Iranian installations…the Jews being so innately aggressive, an’ all. There are no opinion polls in Iran – only bent elections, and then the murderous repression of any protests against such rigging. What’s more, Netanyahu is also having trouble persuading a majority of his Cabinet to prepare for a strike against the nuclear centres.
On other fronts, the Arab Spring is – entirely predictably – turning into the Islamist Winter of discontent. Tunisia already has an Islamist government, the Egyptians are working towards it, and most of the Libyan factions are of the same mind. The only regime not as yet toppled is the fascist, terrorist dictatorship of Syria…another Arab regime where their innate desire for liberty, equality and democracy is demonstrated by shooting anyone who would, as it were, like to see change of any kind. Turkey meanwhile – since the ‘completely harmless’ Erdogun took power – has initiated a tirade of threats against Israel, and greeted the Iranian regime as its best friend on Earth.
Such are the friendly, advanced and peace-loving neighbours Israel enjoys. It seems to me that to continue to support the innocence of Iran and the good intentions of Arab States towards Israel requires anyone to employ a remarkably think Force Shield against any semblance of reality and truth getting through. But then: that’s only my opinion based on experience, observation, historical track-record, and having correctly predicted every development to date. So what do I know, eh?
The Slog last February: Why the Arab spring will soon turn chilly
The Slog last June: Iran’s dash for peaceful nuclear capacity
Believe it or not, there is a light side at The Big Top.
The Slog 