AMERICA, BRITAIN AND FRANCE have sent a flotilla into the Straits of Hormuz to prevent Iran from closing it when new economic sanctions by the European Union take effect. The flotilla, is headed by a US carrier. Of course Britain and Frances’ contribution, is somewhat meagre and amounts to no more than tokenism; but it demonstrates a coalition of the like-minded.
Iran has recently been sabre rattling in the straits by playing war games to demonstrate its military prowess to the West. These can be ignored: such displays of prowess fall well short of equity with what the West can produce.
However, when President Ahmadinejad threatens the closure of a sea lane that carries 20% of the world’s oil, then what else are we supposed to do? Iran is hell bent on making a nuclear device of some kind. It will soon have a missile delivery system of such sophistication that it can threaten parts of Europe. When this happens we will be left scratching our heads, with the prospect of another Cuban missile crises at sometime in the near future; and if (as one commentator suggests) that a conflict today would bare comparison with 1939-45… then what would a nuclear armed Iran be compared with?
For several years now Iran has bought time for itself to become a nuclear power in this most volatile region. During this time they have, from scratch, managed to produce weapon grade plutonium and will have achieved their goal of a nuclear weapon (so say the experts) within the next year. They have continually, throughout this whole period of development, protested to the international community that all of their nuclear ambitions are for civilian use.
Both the United Nations and the West have found such promises disingenuous, yet time and time again, we have recoiled from taking any kind of action other than through sanctions. We have sought dialogue, but Iran refuses to discuss a nuclear armament programme which they deny exists, but which we know they are working toward.
Economic sanctions have been our one peaceful rejoinder to Iran’s military ambitions. Iran is ambitious. It wants to become a nuclear power and no amount of diplomacy will dissuade her from her course; no amount of pleading, and no amount of Danegelt will change Iran’s direction - no more than it would have France or Britain when they shared Iran’s ambitions.
THE IRANIANS will not forgo their nuclear ambition now it is within their grasp. Jaw Jaw, is better than War War, but only if both parties are prepared to talk. Iran has cajoled, at various times best suited to their agenda, the UN into believing that diplomacy and negotiation would meet with success.
They have brilliantly grasped the fact that neither the United Nations or the West will prevent militarily, the realisation of their ambitions. On top of which, the one country that is prepared to take such military action, the state of Israel, has been hemmed in by US pressure.
If the West had acted much earlier, as the Israeli’s did in Syria when they discovered Assad had a similar ambition to Ahmadinejad: then by bombing Iran’s nuclear infrastructure in its infancy, we would not be awaiting a possible conflict in the Straits of Hormuz today.
If Iran succeeds in its ambition, then Saudi Arabia has promised to become a nuclear power within the region. You can see where this all leading; and it will have come about by the West issuing threats to Iran that they rightly dismiss. For Iran has the true measure of the West. They know that our politicians are weak and follow, instead of lead their people.
I want to cover my ears when, for instance, our Foreign Secretary, William Hague (a man I have the greatest respect for as a politician and biographer) appears on camera and announces that the soon to be implemented European sanctions proves, not that they will work, but the resolve of European nations working together.
AS MUCH AS I loathe President Ahmadinejad and all his works, I cannot help but respect him for the way he has judged the moral cowardice and supine nature of the West. He has acted at every step in the full knowledge that, apart from Israel, the West would hold back at any cost from a military conflict with his country; especially after Afghanistan and Iraq.
He knows that if Western politicians dared speak openly of military retaliation against Iran’s nuclear developments; their people would take to the streets in protest, and the Iranian leadership in Tehran would be ecstatic.
When I say ‘their people’ would take to the streets. What I really mean is a spoilt section of middle class youth who have a greater say, because of their parents, on the behaviour of politicians, than does the rest of the ordinary people of any country in Europe or America.
Iran should have been stopped in its tracks from becoming a nuclear power, and at one time Israel was the perfect vehicle for such an enterprise – as she proved with Syria.
We are now in a far more dangerous situation regarding Iran than we would have been had the West acted sooner, or allowed Israel to do so. All Israel has been ‘allowed’ to do, by America under Obama, is to knock off a few of Iran’s nuclear scientists when the opportunity presents itself.
This is hardly adequate. Once Iran becomes the most powerful military force in the region because of the West’s, as well as the UN’s feebleness, she will be in full control of the chess board. Which means that other countries in the region with the wealth to do so, will be busily becoming nuclear powers.
IRAN IS DRIVEN by Muslim fundamentalism, and President Ahmadinejad no doubt sees himself as another Suleman the Magnificent , the 16th century Turkish Muslim leader who advanced as far as Vienna on Europe’s north eastern boarders in the hope of taking full control of and reforming the Christian infidel by making Europe a Muslim entity.
Normally we could ignore such an ambition today. But in Europe, as a whole, we have living among us some 15 million Muslims(something Suleman could only have dreamt of) who have been welcomed by our various liberal establishments as part of assuaging their guilt complexes, that they share for the colonial injustice their respective countries were the cause of in the past.
These Muslims now living among us are not all fundamentalists; but a significant minority are prepared to advance to a point where, through violence, they seek Islam’s hegemony over the West. They may be a minority, but they are fed and watered innocently within the Islamic communities of Western Europe, including the United Kingdom.
This does not mean that those they live amongst are aware of their purpose, but that they are merely the camouflage that the Islamists seek to take advantage of.
A conscience makes cowards of us all; and a liberal one in particular is fatal to us all. Iran’s advancement is due to Western liberalism and its tepid and half-hearted appeal to a rationality that does not exist in a religious fundamentalism that President Ahmadinejad represents.
But rather than face up to the military sacrifices that may be needed to overcome Ahmadinejad’s imperious ambitions; we in the West sit biting our nails hoping against hope that this later day Suleman will come to his senses and abandon the power that he knows is within his grasp…what are the chances?
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