Columbia University has now supplanted its competitors in the upper echelons of higher education as the bellwether of intellectual dishonesty.

In fact, the lead may be insurmountable, unless of course the ghost of Stalin starts to hold vigil on the streets of Cambridge to debate the importance of purges in efficient communistic administration.

By now everyone knows that Columbia has invited Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak on its campus, a Holocaust denier, religious Islamist fundamentalist, and proud advocate of Jewish destruction. Just last year the leadership of Columbia University viewed such positions as less offensive than the United States’ military’s recruitment policies.

In short, Jewish genocide is less offensive than “don’t ask, don’t tell”.

Really?

Apparently. Columbia University might as well start a symposium on the subject and invite Jeremiah Munsen to discuss his views on the inferiority of other races and the proper role of Africa in international relations. It’s just free speech, right?

Which is a trap door. Free speech is not the real issue. Institutions all the time decide that certain opinions are too far outside the acceptable realm of discussion, whether it is the forbidding of ROTC recruitment on campus, or the denial of a former Harvard president to speak to a state university governing board because he dared comment that women simply didn’t like science as much as men do. Do not be fooled that Columbia is acting as a neutral forum. If they found Ahmadinejad’s statements and policies distasteful, he would have already been disinvited. American academia has long snuffed out the torch of free speech on its campuses.

Add to that a Columbia University dean John Coatsworth’s sua sponte admission that Adolf Hitler would have been welcome prior to the beginning of World War II (pre or post the invasion of Sudetenland, we’re not sure), and we have quite the mess. The rationale there, I suppose, is that we wouldn’t have been at war with Germany yet, or more invidious, that anti-Semitism is simply okay (I suppose someone should tell the dean Mein Kampf was published sixteen years before American involvement in the war). The lynch pin according to the dean is that he would have to be subjected to a discussion, which seems more label than substance. There will be no substantive discussion - Ahmadinejad will stick to his genocidal, anti-American talking points like he has in every interview he has conducted.

Either way, we are de facto at war with Iran, and Columbia is playing the perfect patsy, giving Iran’s leader an American platform to crown his well-orchestrated media circus. It is not debatable that Iranian monies and weapons have been provided to the anti-government forces in Iraq. I know at this point it’s too late to demand that our academics reach a pro-American consensus. At the very least one of our top universities could muster enough willpower to stand up to an avowed religiously intolerant, genocidal racist.

The surge in Iraq has touched public perception in a positive way

In the latest USA TODAY/Gallup Poll, taken Friday through Sunday, the proportion of those who said the additional troops are “making the situation better” rose to 31% from 22% a month ago. Those who said it was “not making much difference” dropped to 41% from 51%.

About the same number said it was making things worse: 24% now, 25% a month ago.

Of course, no good leader relies on polls to govern decision making, but the truth is that the stepped up American military presence, along with some ingenuous local diplomacy in places like Ramadi, have made a stabilizing difference on the ground. Add to this the lack of viable Democrat alternatives in the region, and this is the result one gets.

The challenge though is to parlay this concrete security success into Iraqi political achievement, which has been nothing but a completely frustrating endeavor.

The American public desires to be out of Iraq because it has been a mess. In all measurable ways, nothing has gone as we would have hoped. Largely this came out of an inherent American belief that democracy is desired by all, and allowing it to take root in the absence of a totalitarian dictator wouldn’t be all that difficult. We were wrong.

However, the only Americans seemingly consumed with defeat are hard core leftists (see that nonmoving last number in the quoted paragraph above). Most would be willing to stick it out if progress was being made. The surge is progress. Let’s turn it into something more permanent.

One of the distinctions between the Right and the Left regarding the ongoing war with Islamic fundamentalism is the cause the underlying the conflict. The Left seems to believe that our presence in Iraq and elsewhere is “breeding” terrorists - as if the primary reason for Islamic fundamentalism’s penchant for terrorism is a reactionary one. It’s a “blame the West” mentality. The Right, in marked contrast, believes that the actions of Islamist terrorists are at their very source religious, compelled into action by a belief structure absent any sort of real world prodding by free people.

Hassan Butt, a former member of the British Jihadi Network, validates the conservative interpretation. In an article in Britain’s Daily Mail, Butt explains

When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network - a series of British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology - I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.

By blaming the Government for our actions, those who pushed this “Blair’s bombs” line did our propaganda work for us.

The West certainly is to blame for Islamic terrorism, simply by its existence. It this sort of insight from a former fanatic that helps frame the long term nature of this conflict, and the need for Western civilization’s persistence and patience, not self-flagellation and 1960s mired intellectualism. In the world of the Islamic fanatic, there is no grey

There isn’t enough room to outline everything here, but the foundation of extremist reasoning rests upon a model of the world in which you are either a believer or an infidel.

Formal Islamic theology, unlike Christian theology, does not allow for the separation of state and religion: they are considered to be one and the same.

For centuries, the reasoning of Islamic jurists has set down rules of interaction between Dar ul-Islam (the Land of Islam) and Dar ul-Kufr (the Land of Unbelief) to cover almost every matter of trade, peace and war.

But what radicals and extremists do is to take this two steps further. Their first step has been to argue that, since there is no pure Islamic state, the whole world must be Dar ul-Kufr (The Land of Unbelief).

Step two: since Islam must declare war on unbelief, they have declared war upon the whole world.

Along with many of my former peers, I was taught by Pakistani and British radical preachers that this reclassification of the globe as a Land of War (Dar ul-Harb) allows any Muslim to destroy the sanctity of the five rights that every human is granted under Islam: life, wealth, land, mind and belief.

In Dar ul-Harb, anything goes, including the treachery and cowardice of attacking civilians.

So do with this anecdotal redemption what you will. The best way to defeat your enemy is to understand him. If American and Western leadership refuses to accept the truths about the showdown between our culture and the culture of the caliphate, the war will continue and more lives will be lost. An all-out press is still needed, and I am afraid that a significant portion of our Western populace prefers the instinct of the ostrich to the will of a Churchill.

UPDATE Further proof of my point.

The Tennessean runs a story today on Gore’s message, which follows on what I thought was a perceptive opinion piece by David Brooks in The New York Times a couple days prior (well, not everyone thought it perceptive).

Al Gore’s newest (s)creed comes in the form of a lament. Moving on from the gospel of environmental disaster, which causes the otherwise anti-religious among us to throw their hands to the heavens and shake with the spirit of Gaea, we are implored to now look to the American political tragedy

“There is a crack in the foundation of our democracy,” the former Tennessee senator said.

That crack, he said, is caused by the replacement of reasoned dialogue with manipulative appeals to emotion.

We have nothing to fear but Al Gore himself - and the Democrats say that Republicans peddle the emotion. Having read a number of excerpts from the book, I cannot help but flashback to college, where reading the tedious writing of overeducated academics was a daily requirement. Having moved beyond that phase of life, I see no reason to be so masochistic - especially since we’re talking only about a self proclaimed academic, who so gloriously flunked out of divinity school, couldn’t finish law school, and who (funny enough) received a “D” in natural sciences at Harvard with an overall “C” average.

But hey, he writes nearly as awkwardly as Bush speaks, and a Gore presidency would have required us all to wear solar panels on our backs by now, so I’m happy with the trade off.

Gore’s complaint seems to stem from the emotional “manipulation” of the public by the Bush administration over the Iraq war and the public’s reliance on broadcast media (as Brooks notes, doesn’t the Internet solve a lot of the problems Gore bemoans?). The former vice president’s inescapable conclusion is that no one rational could believe what conservatives believe. Because, as we now all know, the 9/11 attacks never actually happened, Saddam Hussein wasn’t responsible for a million deaths, and France and Russian didn’t maintain the same threat assessment the United States did. If only we would just skip away from the Middle East with a smile on our face. Without our interference the region would devolve back into the great and peaceful landscape it has always been. Perhaps even women will get the chance to vote by the next millennium. Or, if we’re lucky, men will, too.

Contrary to Gore’s assertion, the American public isn’t stupid. There’s a difference between dumb and busy. Yes, people get their information faster now - because they can, and because life has become more and more complex with each generation. Read Gore’s book in its entirety if you must - I’m going to stage a protest and watch some TV.

I’ve been poking around the ivory towers of the Internet, have dove searching into every self-important looking crevice, and have the scanned the planet around me for pseudo-intelligent life. I still cannot figure out where all the international law advocates have gone.

The Iranian capture of fifteen British sailors and marines has left the usually verbose critics of everything American silent. We now know that the holding of a few hundred terrorists at Guantanamo Bay is a greater violation of international law than the unprovoked capture and detention of one the world’s greatest democracies’ soldiers in at best, international waters.

Well, I guess it’s okay because Iraq is a mess, and if the Brits were smart, they wouldn’t be there anyway.

Of everyone, The New York Times has the most finely tuned sense of selective apathy. The day the story broke, the Times buried it halfway through the A section. Days later, as the Iranian government revs up the propaganda mills and has become exceedingly defiant and bellicose, the Times isn’t even running updates that take up a single column.

Much has been made about the fact that because of American involvement in Iraq, we are logistically unable to assist the British and confront Iran.  But we are no longer flying sorties over Iraq or employing cruise missiles against Baathist military installations. At present, two American carrier groups are positioned in the Persian Gulf. To confront Iran one need not invade it, and the resources needed to make good on a credible threat of force are at present sitting idle.

The problem with Iran generally is that her theocratic drive to destroy Western culture shows no signs of abatement. The popular conception of a pro-Western student movement has been overblown for some time. It makes me laugh.  I’ve never seen a nation where students supposedly do so much, from now allegedly being prepared to overthrow the Supreme Leader who controls Iran, all the way back to taking over the American embassy in 1979 (alas, the truth is that it was Iranian revolutionary soldiers, not students, holding our diplomats hostage). Fanciful dreams that there lies within Iran a bubbling cauldron of pro-Westernism that will moderate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s stated propensity to annihilate the West and kill the world’s Jews is not based upon fact, considering first that Ahmadinejad’s anti-semitism and his Islamist brand of dispensationalism were both well known at the time he was elected president by the Iranian people.

As is always the case, the question of Iran is one of net present value. Is it less risky and less costly, both monetarily and in lives, to confront the regime with real consequences now, or is it more astute to wait and see what happens later? A natural but misplaced hesitancy stemming from the fallout following the Iraq invasion clouds the equation. The threat from Iran is not yet imminent, but with Russian and Chinese assistance to the Islamic Republic, it soon will be. Time is not on our side. I hope that Tony Blair’s government and the Bush administration realize this before it is too late.

It requires registration, but it’s worth it. Go check out StratFor’s latest analysis on the geopolitically incestual connections among Lebanon, Hizbullah, Iraq and Iran.

If they were lesser people, those of the Balkans would be jealous.  If you care to know about the new and improved powder keg of Europe the world, then click through and read the piece.

The Ford blogs seem giddy that Harold Ford, Jr. has a plan to trifurcate Iraq, thinking this would somehow end the problems there, and make the Middle East a less volatile place. A bad idea is not better than no idea.

I question the Congressman’s sense of understanding of the region, and his knowledge of history. I could write an entire dissertation on why the establishment of Kurdistan, Sunniland, and Shiiteville is a bad idea. Here’s the quick version.

Though the Kurds have not been a problem in the Iraqi mess, they have been a problem to the Turks. Turkey has suffered Kurdish terrorism for some time, primarily because there is a substantial Kurdish separatist contingent just over the Iraqi border. Turkey would neither geopolitically nor militarily stand for the establishment of an independent Kurdistan. By giving the Kurds their own country, at least at this point in time, you’re simply rolling another barrel of gunpowder up to the fire.

An independent Shiite state would greatly enhance the capabilities of Iran in the region. The Iranians have already been interfering in domestic Iraqi politics through Shiite clerics. Separating the Shiites from the moderating effects of the Kurds and Sunnis would give Iran an instant client state. This is something we don’t need, especially in light of the recent hositilities between Iranian supported Hizbullah and Israel. Trifurcation, as Ford suggests, would empower Iran at a time when we’re trying to weaken the Islamist fascist regime.

Finally, the Sunnis would be the odd man out. The Sunnis in Iraq are a small contingent vis a vis the Shiites, and would be ripe for conquer by either the new more populous and fanatical Shiite state or Iran. The Shiites in Iraq are still smarting from decades of Sunni rule under Saddam Hussein. They would not hesitate to, in their eyes, even the score.

Dividing Iraq into three, as many would like to do, would be perfectly fine in a vaccuum. Iraq was an intentional and artificial state from the beginning, concocted by the British to ease imperial administration. But we’re not in a vaccuum, and the moving parts we do have to deal with aren’t going to sit idly by and help foster the growth of three new ethnic and sectarian based democracies.

This sort of uninformed thinking is exactly what we don’t need in Iraq. For this reason among many, Ford is not fit to be our next senator in Tennessee.

As if the debacle over the Danish cartoons didn’t establish exactly how many centuries behind the West the Middle East actually was, we now have a Persian-on-Azeri drawing

On Friday, the Farsi-language paper Iran published a cartoon showing a cockroach speaking Azeri, the language of an ethnic group in northwestern Iran.

The cartoon provoked riots in Tabriz, the capital of Eastern Azerbaijan province, on Monday. Police fired tear-gas as rioters smashed windows of the local governor’s office.

Culture Minister Saffar Harrandi appeared on state television Monday and apologized for the cartoon. He promised to punish the paper’s editor and cartoonist.

So, we have the Azeris rioting. Then, we have the Iranian government shutting down an Iranian government-run paper (which is aptly named Iran) that caused the Azeris to riot in the first place.

Does anyone else think there’s a screw loose here?

And, finally, this was all over a drawing of an improperly linguistically gifted cockroach, which may very well be the only thing left if Iran develops nuclear weapons technology. The fate of civilization could very well rest on the indiosyncratic tolerances of individuals who can’t seem to master the handling of cartoons.

May that make us shudder.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has determined to butt his way in, however

TEHRAN (Reuters) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday derided foes of Iran’s nuclear work as mentally disturbed, ignoring a fresh plea by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan for all sides in the dispute to calm their rhetoric.

When the insane call you insane, you know you’re doing alright. But he’s not done

“Those who get sad at the progress and happiness of others are suffering from mental and psychological problems, so they should find a way to cure themselves,” the student news agency ISNA quoted Ahmadinejad as saying in a speech.

Since his election last year, the president has frequently needled critics of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, raising tensions with the United States and the European Union.

“We do not have a fight with anyone, but we will not step back on our absolute rights,” declared Ahmadinejad, who on Wednesday rejected an expected EU incentive package as an attempt to persuade Tehran to accept “candy for gold”.

The Iranian claims that they are only interested in peaceful use of nuclear technology are, well, bunk. They can get that and more

Britain, France and Germany plan to offer Iran a package expected to include a European light-water reactor and some form of security assurances in return for a halt to enrichment.

But a senior Iranian nuclear official, Ali Hosseinitash, told Reuters on Thursday Iran’s current focus was perfecting its small-scale research and development enrichment program despite U.N. Security Council calls for it to be halted.

We simply must deal decisively with them before it is too late.

By now everyone has heard the anti-Western and anti-Semitic screeds of Iran’s illustrious president. He gets more determined to leave no room for debate as to his intentions on a daily basis.

The question is what to do?

Clearly half of our own country has no stomach for expanding the scope of war in the Middle East, no matter how necessary it might be. Europe couldn’t even stop the latest episode of localized genocide on its own continent, much less fight a war on another. The Old World’s impotence is on full display.

Add to the mix that Iran’s interests are within the protections of Russia and China, both of which have had no reservations selling arms to America’s enemies for the quick Ruble or Yuan. This powder keg rests on the engine of the free world. The situation is, to avoid being metaphorical, explosive.

And we have learned that mutually assured destruction is not a deterrent to the Muslim insane. Diplomacy works only when both parties are rational as to their respective interests. If one side sees diplomacy as a farce, it’s not going to work. The question then becomes who time benefits. Who is made stronger by the delay?

It clearly isn’t the United States.

Some sort of action is demanded now. The extent of which is the question. We as Americans cannot be fatigued yet. The fight has just really begun. I am afraid, however, that we aren’t ready to make the jump to Iran. I hope I’m wrong.

John Kerry is on Meet the Press. Thank all that is Holy that he is not the President. If you think Bush is bad, Kerry would have been infinitely worse on Iraq. The doubletalk is in full effect. His solution? Withdraw with a date certain. When Russert asks him about the prospects of an all-out regional war if we do withdraw on a certain date, he says we need diplomacy. That we will have to see if that happens. Terrible. Absolutely terrible.

What a responsible, thoughtful, and nuanced statesman of immensely clueless proportions. He wants to rely on the Jordanians and Syrians to to stabilize Iraq and the Iraqi government upon our surrender (er, withdrawal). He believes that the Iraqi government will get stronger if we leave. The world he lives in is one the rest of us don’t have the luxury to habitate.

His qualifier to the flip-flop on his position opposing immediate withdrawal last year is that we are no longer fighting al Qaeda in Iraq. He claims Iraq is in the midsts of a civil war. Well, not exactly. If anything else, we need to ensure a civil war does not erupt. Kerry believes that America cannot stop an Iraqi civil war. Stamp him “D” for defeat.

For his haughty nature and self-righteous demeanor, John Kerry is awfully clueless. We will strengthen our bargaining position with Iran, Russia, and China if we leave Iraq? Iran likes us in Iraq? I always thought the water in Boston tasted funny, but there must be something new in it up there. Surrender = strength. We all know who Kerry’s favorite politician from the 1930s must be.

Now he mentions the Vietnam Wall in Washington, DC. We couldn’t have gone a full segment without mentioning Vietnam. Senator, this ain’t Vietnam, for the bazillionith time. Kerry does not understand that diplomacy absent the threat of military (and at times, economic) force is pointless. Many don’t seem to realize that. You never hear much about the diplomatic efforts of Lesotho, and there’s a reason for that. I’m not sure which Senator from Massachusetts is worse.

Lost in the hoopla over Islamic animation and Dick Cheney’s hunting accident is this interesting little tidbit

In a little-noticed news item the same week as the riots, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accepted an invitation to visit Cuba in September to show gratitude for Castro’s support of Iran’s nuclear program. A few days earlier, Cuba, Venezuela and Syria had voted against the International Atomic Energy Agency’s resolution to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council over its nuclear program.

It is gratifying to see rogue states engaged in a group hug choreographed around the shared goal of bringing the United States to its knees, while sane nations busy themselves with debates about the ethics of publishing political cartoons.

While the Cuba visit itself may be of little consequence, the invitation offers a reminder that our Cuban neighbor is ceaselessly working to pursue anti-American foreign policy. It also offers a heads-up that Iran’s nuclear aspirations may as well be Cuba’s.

The Soviet Union’s nuclear option vis-a-vis Nikita Khrushchev and a younger Fidel Castro seem suddenly quaint compared with the havoc that could result should Cuba and Iran consummate their mutual hatred of the United States.

Uh yeah, Cuba has had a penchant for obtaining nuclear strike power against the United States. A rather legendary Democratic president was confronted with that problem, if I recall. I don’t recall that he backed down. But then again, that Democrat was for a strong defense and a low-tax economy (and was genuinely embarrassed when a tyrant kicked him around). The newer versions of Kennedy’s partisan are just as committed about their activism, but lack the nobility of pursuing freedom and economic opportunity. If Iran is set to provide Cuba with nuclear technology, that battle will be left to George W. Bush and his Republican successor.

As an aside, it remains clear that Castro is a hostile neighbor to the United States. This is yet another reason to stop that stupid “wet-foot, dry-foot” policy. All Cubans should be welcomed with open arms.

The Iranian president continues to remove all doubt

Tehran (dpa) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday that the Palestinians and “other nations” will eventually remove Israel from the region.

Addressing a mass demonstration in Tehran - one of many organized throughout Iran to commemorate the 27th anniversary of the Islamic revolution - he once again questioned the Holocaust “fairy tale”.

“We ask the West to remove what they created sixty years ago and if they do not listen to our recommendations, then the Palestinian nation and other nations will eventually do this for them,” Ahmadinejad said in a ceremony marking the 27th anniversary of the Islamic revolution.

“Do the removal of Israel before it is too late and save yourself from the fury of regional nations,” the ultra-conservative president said. He once again called the Holocaust a “fairy tale” and said Europeans have become hostages of “Zionists” in Israel.

He also accused Europeans for not allowing “neutral scholars” to investigate in Europe and make a scientific report on “the truth about the fairy tale of Holocaust.”

“How comes that insulting the prophet of Muslims worldwide is justified within the framework of press freedom, but investigating about the fairy tale Holocaust is not?” Ahmadinejad said.

“The real Holocaust is what is happening in Palestine where the Zionists avail themselves of the fairy tale of Holocaust as blackmail and justification for killing children and women and making innocent people homeless,” Ahmadinejad said.

The president said that the results of the parliamentary elections in Palestine and the victory of the Hamas group “clearly showed what the people really want.”

Ahmadinejad makes a fantastic point if you believe that the Moors didn’t finish the job. The question of course is whether or not the civilized world will listen. This is a man who wants the capacity for world destruction without a grasp of the world around him. Further indicative of his feud with reality is that he counters the Holocaust never happened. If he is so detached from the world that he cannot acknowledge the real death of 10 million individuals, most Jewish, within his father’s lifetime, he cannot be trusted to develop technology that would give him the capacity to destroy an entire region, and an entire civilization (that would be ours, in case you were wondering).

I only pray that among the politicians here there will be statesmen who will support Bush in confronting and defeating Ahmadinejad. If I had to take my odds, though, I would wager that the Democrats would sooner blame Bush for campaigning on fear rather than confront the realities brought upon us by a cadre of hate-filled religious fanatics. I do hope I’m proven wrong.

Courtesies of Little Green Footballs.

Chancellor Merkel continues to make sense

Addressing the annual Munich security conference, Merkel said countries around the world had underestimated the Nazi threat as Adolf Hitler rose to power.

“Looking back to German history in the early 1930s when National Socialism (Nazism) was on the rise, there were many outside Germany who said ‘It’s only rhetoric — don’t get excited’,” she told the assembled world defense policy makers.

“There were times when people could have reacted differently and, in my view, Germany is obliged to do something at the early stages … We want to, we must prevent Iran from developing its nuclear program.”

As she was speaking a few hundred metres (yards) from the Munich pub where Hitler launched his “Beer Hall Putsch” in 1923, the board of governors of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency voted in Vienna to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council over concerns it is secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons.

Fittingly, based on the underlying purposes of the Chancellor’s remarks, Iran ought to learn its own lesson from history, and know now to take the Germans at their word.

This is a most interesting poll result

WASHINGTON — Despite persistent disillusionment with the war in Iraq, a majority of Americans supports taking military action against Iran if that country continues to produce material that can be used to develop nuclear weapons, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found.

The poll, conducted Sunday through Wednesday, found that 57% of Americans favor military intervention if Iran’s Islamic government pursues a program that could enable it to build nuclear arms

Claims of war fatigue have been greatly exaggerated. Attacks on Bush’s conduct in Iraq seemingly overstep the bounds of public tolerance. The American people aren’t tired of war - they are tired of seemingly not winning the war. Therein lies a big difference. And it reveals that the Democratic strategy of attempting to emasculate the president’s war making powers (immediate withdrawal and other such shenanigans) is a wrong one, and one that is likely to keep them in the minority after this November. If the Democrats would point out ways to finish the job in Iraq instead of run from it, they could make some ground politically and do what would be good for the country, which has unfortunately been a novel concept as of late.

Europe has finally bucked up and told Iran where to stick it. Of course, but only with the support of the United States

PARIS (AP) — Europe, backed by the United States, on Wednesday rejected Iran’s request for talks on its nuclear program, cranking up international pressure on Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said “there’s not much to talk about” until Iran halts nuclear activity. But Iran’s president accused the West of acting like the “lord of the world” in denying his country the peaceful use of the atom.

The quick dismissal of Iran’s request for a ministerial-level meeting with French, British and German negotiators focused attention on the next step: the U.S. and European push to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council, which could impose economic and political sanctions.

China and Russia aren’t quite on board, which is understandable. Neither was excited about the deposing of Saddam Hussein, one of their better customers. But that shouldn’t bother us. At least Europe is talking tough. It’s certainly an improvement over the normal MO of incessant whining. Hopefully the world will stand firm against Iran. My money, however, is on the United States and Israel.

A little mental exercise regarding the near-future via Protein Wisdom

Are we living through the origins of the next world war? Certainly, it is easy to imagine how a future historian might deal with the next phase of events in the Middle East:

With every passing year after the turn of the century, the instability of the Gulf region grew. By the beginning of 2006, nearly all the combustible ingredients for a conflict - far bigger in its scale and scope than the wars of 1991 or 2003 - were in place.

The first underlying cause of the war was the increase in the region’s relative importance as a source of petroleum. On the one hand, the rest of the world’s oil reserves were being rapidly exhausted. On the other, the breakneck growth of the Asian economies had caused a huge surge in global demand for energy. It is hard to believe today, but for most of the 1990s the price of oil had averaged less than $20 a barrel.

A second precondition of war was demographic. While European fertility had fallen below the natural replacement rate in the 1970s, the decline in the Islamic world had been much slower. By the late 1990s the fertility rate in the eight Muslim countries to the south and east of the European Union was two and half times higher than the European figure.

I think there are some problems with the eventual conclusion, but only because 1) I don’t see Israel as remaining leaderless in crisis, and 2) I don’t see a passive United States while Bush is in office. Other than that, it’s an interesting take. But the assessment that Iran is serious should be taken, well, seriously. Go check it out.

This is what we deal with when we speak of a nuclear Iran

World leaders had expected a conciliatory proposal to defuse the nuclear crisis after Teheran had restarted another part of its nuclear programme in August.

Instead, they heard the president speak in apocalyptic terms of Iran struggling against an evil West that sought to promote “state terrorism”, impose “the logic of the dark ages” and divide the world into “light and dark countries”.

The speech ended with the messianic appeal to God to “hasten the emergence of your last repository, the Promised One, that perfect and pure human being, the one that will fill this world with justice and peace”.

In a video distributed by an Iranian web site in November, Mr Ahmadinejad described how one of his Iranian colleagues had claimed to have seen a glow of light around the president as he began his speech to the UN.

“I felt it myself too,” Mr Ahmadinejad recounts. “I felt that all of a sudden the atmosphere changed there. And for 27-28 minutes all the leaders did not blink…It’s not an exaggeration, because I was looking.

“They were astonished, as if a hand held them there and made them sit. It had opened their eyes and ears for the message of the Islamic Republic.”

I do like the Western response

Western officials said the real reason for any open-eyed stares from delegates was that “they couldn’t believe what they were hearing from Ahmadinejad”.

It seems that both leaders of the last two legs of the Axis of Evil are in need of serious psychological evaluation.

UPDATE Oh yes, and sanctions aren’t working.

Iran has accused the United States of complicity in kidnapping 9 Iranian border guards

(CNN) — Iran’s interior minister accused the United States on Saturday of orchestrating the kidnapping of nine Iranian border guards with the help of Sunni militant groups linked to the Taliban and al Qaeda, according to a report.

“The United States, which cannot directly encounter Iran, uses such groups to carry out such acts against the country,” Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi told reporters, according to state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).

Let’s say hypothetically that this is true. The theocrats in Iran need not worry - we’ll have them back to you in 444 days.