"Duck and Cover" or "How I Learned to Love the Bomb Shelter"

Iran will get its nukes unless Israel decides to intervene, the US public will not get behind another war given that we don’t have the backbone to see the current war in Iraq to a successful conclusion. Given that Olmert didn't have the backbone to finish off Hezbollah I don't see Israel saving the day either. If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gains real power as he seems to be doing then when he becomes Supreme Ruler we may see those nukes used. I don’t think American society can withstand the loss of several major cities including Washington D.C. and NYC. I will become a survivalist, country boy will survive, but I fear for the rest of the world. If the Twelfth Imam really comes maybe we will be alright, otherwise the rest of the world will have it far worse than the U.S.

I’d like to see a blockade of Iran regardless of what that would mean to oil prices but that doesn’t seem likely. I am certain any stronger action is more unlikely. UN sanctions are a joke, Saddam showed us that, and either China or Russia will veto any action on Iran anyway. Time has run out, you may not have noticed but Iran is blocking IAEA inspections of its uranium enrichment facility. Mario Loyola at NRO calls this the point of no return in the Iranian nuclear crises. It’s now time to consider the ramifications of an Iranian nuclear power.

In Our Fallout-Shelter Future Stanley Kurtz makes a few sobering observations.

Once Iran gets the bomb, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are likely to develop their own nuclear weapons, for self-protection, and so as not to allow Iran to take de facto cultural-political control of the Muslim world. (I think you’ve got to at least add Egypt to this list.) With three, four, or more nuclear states in the Muslim Middle East, what becomes of deterrence?

With several Muslim countries in possession of the bomb, it would be extremely difficult to trace the state source of a nuclear terror strike. In fact, this very difficulty would encourage states (or ill-controlled elements within nuclear states — like Pakistan’s intelligence services or Iran’s Revolutionary Guards) to pass nukes to terrorists. The tougher it is to trace the source of a weapon, the easier it is to give the weapon away. In short, nuclear proliferation to multiple Muslim states greatly increases the chances of a nuclear terror strike.

Deep mutual suspicion between an expansionist, apocalyptic, Shiite Iran, secular Turkey, and the Sunni Saudis and Egyptians (not to mention Israel) is likely to fuel a dangerous multi-pronged nuclear arms race. Larger arsenals mean more chance of a weapon being slipped to terrorists. The collapse of the world’s non-proliferation regime also raises the chances that nuclearization will spread to Asian powers like Taiwan and Japan.

“Duck and cover” is back! In a post-proliferation world, we are going to be raising another generation of children (probably several generations of children) marked by nerve-wracking “retention drills.” And get ready...the fallout shelter is coming back, too. Given the Soviets’ overwhelmingly large nuclear arsenal — capable of turning the entire United States to dust in the event of a major nuclear exchange — fallout shelters came to seem like a joke. But when dealing with a possible strike from a single weapon, or at most a mere handful of weapons, the logic of the fallout shelter is compelling. We’re going to need to be able to evacuate our cities in the event of a direct attack, or to avoid radiation plumes from cities that have already been struck.

We are in big trouble even if Iran never uses its nukes; just having them will insure their immunity from retaliatory military action for any transgressions they may initiate. What do we do if they move into southern Iraq? Or worse go through Iraq, into Kuwait, and unlike Saddam, down into Saudi Arabia? Imagine the Mullahs controlling that much oil. Tehran has shown itself to be the world’s premier sponsor of terrorism, would we go after a nuclear armed Iran like we did little Afghanistan if a Tehran sponsored terrorist group brings on another 9/11? Could we count on our European allies, (as if we could now), if the Mullahs have the capability to lob nukes into Europe? Iran will be able to ride roughshod over the entire middle east with impunity, at least till its neighbors gets their nukes. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty will be dead and the world will become a much scarier place than it already is and its going to happen.

Update:

Ahmadinejad cannot become Supreme Ruler, he lacks the religious credentials. At best he will remain a toady puppet for the Mullahs who are hopefully no where near as insane.

Our friends the Afghans

One problem with supporting Democracy in Muslim countries is that the result may not be what we want. American blood and treasure was spilled in Afghanistan to promote a stable democratic society that would have the chance of bringing a backward theocracy into the twenty-first century. Concurrent with that goal was the hope that other institutions that we associate with democracy would also follow, one being religious tolerance. Instead we saw a man condemned to death for converting away from Islam. Now Afghanistan plans to bring back the religious police.

The cabinet also approved reviving the Department for the Promotion of Virtue and the Discouragement of Vice, a body that Afghan governments have maintained through much of the country's history. It became notoriously punitive under Taliban rule, from 1996 to 2001, when turbaned enforcers whipped women if their veils slipped and arrested men for wearing too-short beards or playing chess.

This leads me to wonder can Democracy and Sharia co-exist?

The Iran War

Iranian Akbar Mohammadi is dead. Read here about who he was and why we should care. Arrested for participating in a demonstration against the forceful shutdown of a campus newspaper he was sentenced to death but his sentenced was reduced to 15 years. You just don’t mess with the Mullahs of Iran. Tortured and denied medical care he went on a hunger strike nine days ago to protest his and his fellow prisoner’s treatment. In poor health due to his nine years in prison the hunger strike killed him in the form of a heart attack.

So what? The world can be expected to rant and rave about Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, but remain silent about the horrid prisons in the Middle East that house political prisoners. By political prisoners I mean the likes of Mohammadi, Ahmad Batebi, and Zahra Kazemi, as opposed to the “political prisoners” that the world wants Israel and the US to release. The terrorist still housed in Gitmo were captured on the battlefield and represent the worst of the worst. Some that we already released have been found back in the field carrying on the Jihadi mission of killing Americans and Democracy. Yet we hear constantly from liberals about how we need to close Gitmo and release the terrorist or place them in the care of our justice system. It’s a dangerous precedent treating POW’s as criminals, our troops are not police and you can’t treat a battlefield like a crime scene.

Even more ridiculous is the notion that Israel should reward Hezzbollah kidnappers by trading with them terrorist in Israeli prisons. Such so called political prisoners include Samir Qantar who killed a policeman, a father, and his 4 year old daughter. Qantar smashed the young girls head against the rocks with his rifle butt after shooting her father at point blank range. He is now a hero to the Islamist terrorists and Nasrallah demands he be part of any exchange.

Underlying all this; Sadr in Iraq, Hamas attacks, Hezbollah attacks, and jailed political prisoners dying while in custody, is Iran. The MSM's and the international community's constant anti-Semitic drumbeat that Israel is overreacting, killing civilians, invading its neighbor, and raising the price of oil allows for scant mention of the fact that it’s all Iran’s doing.

Adios Fidel

He aint dead yet but just the fact that he is in poor shape sent thousands of exiled Cubans into celebratory mode. GOP Vixen Bridget Johnson reports at NRO on how Castro's death will raise Hugo Chavez’ already rising star to greater heights.

Chavez fancies himself the cult of personality that will eclipse the long-fading allure of Castro; he fantasizes about being the larger-than-life leader who can unite even the most stubborn and independent Latin American countries into the United States of Hugo.

Does Chavez have any protégés in Cuban power circles? Does he have to set up a puppet to effectively control Cuba or will his money and popularity alone give him that power? 75 year old alcoholic Raul won’t last too long.