Blogger Michelle Malkin took this photograph while participating in a protest against the visit by crazed Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Columbia University in New York City for a speaking engagement; the lunatic was in town to address to the U.N. General Assembly at its opening ceremonies. (Michelle has a tribute to Shiri here).

Shiri speaks from the grave in this image, attending the protest in spirit to remind those gathered that she, too, would have liked to address the students at Columbia, but was prevented from doing so by terrorists from Hamas who were funded by Iran's government, which is led by Ahmadinejad -- who in turn has called for a holy war against Israel wiping it off the face of the earth. All of the NATO allies are now furiously arrayed against Iran and, amazingly enough, France's new president is leading the charge to impose draconian sanctions to keep Iran in line. If France is willing to take action, you know that Ahmadinejad is just as extreme as he can possibly get.

One might well ask: Where does Ahmadinejad get the brazen hubris necessary to confront the overwhelmingly more powerful team of the United States and Europe in this haughty, contemptuous manner? His nation, alone, is far too puny to work up such suicidal pathos (look how easily the U.S. destroyed the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq). There's a clear answer: He gets it from Russia, and specifically from Russia's dictator Vladimir Putin. It is no overstatement to say that Russia is the real root cause of turmoil in the Middle East. There would still be violence and conflict in the region if Russia ceased to exist, but it would be far more subject to U.S. influence if Russia were not fanning its flames.

And make no mistake: turmoil in the Middle East is directly in Russia's interests. Even if it doesn't actually undermine U.S. security, it still creates the conditions of uncertainty which tend to keep international oil prices inflated, and those prices are the Kremlin's lifeblood. By supporting terrorist and rogue regimes in the Middle East, Russia not only gets the chance to vent its pathological hatred of America and her values, but more importantly supports the only pillar of its economy. Peace and stability in the Middle East are the last things Russia wants.

Recently, we published a drawing depicting Putin and Ahmadinejad as lovers, and the two truly are birds of a feather. Ahmadinejad is cracking down on Iran's universities, seeking to purge them of all secular influence, while Putin is developing the maniacal "Nashi" youth cult in Russia. Ahmadinejad denies that Iran has any homosexuals, and hence can't be accused of persecuting them, while Putin jokes about rape in front of a diplomatic delegation. Ahmadinejad says the Jewish holocaust never happened, and Putin says Stalin wasn't really so bad after all. Both are shutting down newspapers and arresting or killing journalists at breakneck speed, and centralizing their power whilst crushing local government. One could go on for days listing the barbaric outrages taking place in these two countries and pointing out their similarities; it's almost impossible to decide which one is a greater affront to democracy, almost as if they are engaged in a sickening pas de deux, the Fred and Ginger of atrocity, barbarity and vulgarity.

And the two are very literally in bed together where hatred of America, Europe and Western values are concerned. Recently, the U.S. military confirmed that Iran is providing missiles to the Islamic terrorists in Iraq which are being used to kill Americans on the ground there. While these particular missiles apparently came to Iran by way of North Korea, Putin's Russia is also providing Ahmadinejad's Iran with the technology it needs to develop nuclear energy, which Iran hopes will be the basis for its obtaining a nuclear weapon. Faced with the threat of Western attack should a bomb become possible, Iran has also obtained a missile defense system from Russia to thwart such an attack. Russia has continually refused to cooperate with Western moves to sanction Iran, providing it with the diplomatic cover it needs to continue killing American soldiers in Iraq as it seeks to exercise imperial control over that troubled nation. How long will it be before we learn that Russian weapons supplied by the Kremlin and wielded by its Iranian friends are killing Americans in Iraq, or elsewhere in the Middle East?

And we must not forget that Russia is doing far more than making common cause with Iran in order to foment turmoil and instability in the Middle East. It is directly supporting Hamas itself, as well as Hezbollah and Syria, with diplomatic protection, weapons and lots of cold hard cash. And Russia's hostility is not limited to the Middle East; it is also providing weapons and diplomatic support to the crazed dictator Hugo Chavez in Venezulea, and seeking to cooperate with the abusive, anti-democratic communist regime in China.

The ironies are almost overwhelming, of course. You can't get any more anti-Muslim than Russia's conduct of its war against Chechnya, and there is zero tolerance for dark-skinned non-Orthodox people in Slavic Russia, yet the hyper-Islamic Ahmadinejad and the ultra-Orthodox Putin both have no problem abandoning their supposed core values and ignoring this fundamental hostility in the short term (just the same way that it was easily possible for Stalin to enter into a secret pact with Hitler selling out Europe). Although these kind of alliances between rogue nations always lead ultimately to their destruction (both Hitler's Germany and Stalin's USSR were obliterated), in the short term the new Evil Empire means a great deal of trouble for the West if it is allowed to fester and grow. Immediate action is needed to prevent this from happening. A new Ronald Reagan must step to the forefront, and the upcoming U.S. presidential elections are the ideal place to start looking for her (or him).

It's time to give up the ridiculous, childish and arrogant idea that the only reason Iran and Russia are keeping company together is that our misguided policies have driven them together. The idea that by "engaging" these two regimes we could "convince" them to stop desecrating the globe with their barbarism is a flight of fancy, the easy way out, too good to be true. It's oh-so-comforting to imagine that we are so powerful that if we only say the right magic words, all our enemies will turn into friends, or at least harmless bystanders, that we don't have to fight -- and this is exactly what our enemies want us to think. They want us to drop our guard, "engage" them with meaningless rhetoric and allow them to consolidate, manipulate and destroy.

It was not kind words of understanding that brought down the USSR, it was direct confrontation. And it was just plain crazy for us to believe that simply because it had been defeated the USSR would slink away into the recesses of history, never to be heard from again. Would we have become happy communists if the USSR had won the cold war? Of course not. And Russia has not abandoned its fundamental hostility to our values or its desire to rule the world with its own brand of what's-good-for-you. It simply bided its time waiting for the chance to lash out, and rising oil prices have made it think (quite wrongly) that the time has come.

It was possible for us to turn Japan and Germany into friendly, democracy-respecting nations because we physically gutted their leadership and obliterated them militarily. No such thing happened in Russia after World War II, and today the "president" of the country is a proud KGB spy who spent most of life trying to destroy our democratic friends in Germany. As long as Putin and his ilk hold power in Russia, that nation will remain devoted to our destruction by any means possible. They are a mere shadow of their former might, and so the only way they can make serious trouble for is is by getting us to drop our guard. And so that is what they are endeavoring feverishly to accomplish.

That Vladimir Putin, presiding over a nation which loses up to 1 million from its population every year due to demographic crisis, and works for an average wage of $3/hour, would think he has the time and energy to spare to make common cause with one of the world's most despised despots, antagonizing the entire world into a cold (and perhaps hot) war, and that nobody within Russia would seriously challenge his doing so, is clear proof of the depth and breadth of Russia's abiding hatred for the West and its total inability to act rationally in the face of it. And what else should we expect from a man who spent his entire life in the KGB, learning not merely to hate the West but to destroy it by any possible means. Do we really believe he simply woke up, as if from a dream, when the USSR collapsed and abandoned his life's work? If so, we deserve to suffer for our stupidity, hubris and insularity.

We must fight back, and we must do so now. There are those who argue that it was wise to give Ahmadinejad the opportunity to speak at Columbia, since it helps to elicit his crazy views and lay them before the world, helps us to better understand how to deal with him. This is pure nonsense. Ironically, Columbia's own president said, introducing Ahmadinejad as a speaker: "You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated. Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator. When you come to a place like this it makes you simply ridiculous." So much for respectfully allowing him to speak and eliciting his views! As David J. Feith & Jordan C. Hirsch of National Review put it:

It is naive to ignore the uses to which Ahmadinejad will put his invitation. Over the past years, Ahmadinejad's confrontational rhetoric and policies have resulted in diplomatic isolation and economic hardship for Iran. These developments are unpopular among Iranians. It is beneficial to Ahmadinejad and his regime, then, if he can claim to the Iranian people that his leadership is not hurting their country. If he can demonstrate that he is treated abroad as a respected leader, he will be better able to counter his critics at home. Columbia's invitation thus gives political assistance to Ahmadinejad.

We must not do the same with Vladimir Putin, it's his only hope of defeating us with only the feeble resources of the neo-Soviet Union at his disposal. We have to stop asking for it -- or we're going to get it. Right between the eyes.

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Kim Zigfeld · September 26, 2007 10:46 AM · Comments (10) · TrackBacks (0)

Reality Check

Filed under: Middle East

Those who hoped that once Hamas will lead the government it would be a new period of tahydya (calm) and prosperity for the Palestinians have now the proof that they were deadly wrong. Hamas slogans were powerful and correct to a certain extent. Fatah is the personification of corruption. But Hamas is the incarnation of nihilism.

They do not want a state, two states or three states solution. They want to keep killing Jews and apparently they have no problem in killing their own kind either. The difference between Fatah and Hamas is not their objectives but rather their tactics.

President Abbas sacked the Hamas led government. But that does not change a thing on the ground. Hamas has taken Gaza. Hamas is the elected government of the Palestinians.

What more can be said? Except that the Palestinians have what they wanted all along. Outside Israel people often excuse Palestinian violence by saying it is a reaction to the pressure, but hostile Arabs surround Israel, Hezbollah's missiles threaten it, Iran threatens it with a a nuclear
attack and Palestinian Qassams land weekly in Israel's towns and villages.

This is the cult of violence and death preached by Hamas. Racism, hate and murder seem to be a national obsession. It is a deeply troubling fact but that is the reality and we have to call a spade a spade.

In the past few years Iran and Syria have been constantly undermining any chance for a Palestinian coalition. They have been paying Hamas not to negotiate or recognize Israel, not to release the kidnapped soldier, not to form a unity government with Abbas. Hezbollah trained
Hamas and Syria offered safe heaven to individuals such as Khaled Meshal.

What the Palestinians as a people failed to see or admit is that their interests are being used by Arab Muslims and by Muslims for decades. No one cares about them period. They are and always were proxies in the war of others to gain regional preeminence, to escape isolation, justice, to gain better deals from the West etc.

Hamas is only leading the Palestinians into more despair and misery. Palestinians do not need a savior. They never needed one. They need to stand united, end terror, negotiate with Israel a lasting peace, not a hudna and start building a nation. If they want to be recognized as a people and not as a bunch of criminals they need to start acting like one.

When the Iranian money and support ends, and it eventually will, the Palestinians will be even further from having their own state than they are now. The world has spent 59 years giving Palestinian Arabs a chance. And what has it gotten the world? For that matter, what has
it gotten Palestinian Arabs? They used all this time trying to kill as many Jews as possible and obliterate Israel instead of building lives for themselves.

When Israel withdrew from Gaza, Hamas and those who elected it had a chance to prove that they are indeed capable of running it, that they can deliver what they promised. Has anyone seen what the Palestinians have done with Gaza? State-of-the-art greenhouses that used to provide food and products that were high on demand on the international market have now been turned into tunnel openings.

The terror groups will never allow Palestine to be a separate entity because they do not benefit from it. They do not want to work for themselves and for their own people; they simply want to keep on stealing the money the international community is sending and terrorize the Jews.

The Palestinians should accept written agreements, end all acts of terror, violence and the incitement to terror. If and when they will do it only then the international community should help them financially. Meanwhile let their Iranian and Syrian sponsors pay. Let the oil rich Arab states send money to them if they want, but the US, Israel and EU money should not be used to support and enhance a terrorist, lawlessness entity. It is illogical and it will cause more deaths and destruction in Israel, Gaza and West Bank on the long term.

Terrorist actions have terrible consequences for all involved parties. The only way to get away from the vicious cycle of violence is for the Palestinians to get out of the Islamic propaganda box and be responsible.

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Manuela Paraipan · June 20, 2007 5:29 AM · Comments (9) · TrackBacks (0)

A Gentler, Softer Iran

Filed under: Middle East

Now that Iran is planning to release the 15 captures British sailors, the blogosphere's post-mortem is already beginning. It's necessary to look back over the past few weeks and ascertain just exactly how this began, what was went wrong and right throughout, and especially what should have been done instead. Austin Bay, for example, takes a look at this in the context of the intelligence operations wars between the United States and Iran.

In fact, most people are looking at this entire affairs in those terms. The U.S. has taken a few of their guys, so they took some Brits. It's all a huge effort to humiliate us, and especially our governments, by testing just how pacifist they'll be in dealing with the situation. Given how long this dragged out and the response they received, I'm willing to bet that the mullahs are feeling pretty smug and snug right now.

Another benefit that Iran got out of this was the media attention. Austin Bay describes the entire crisis as a diversion from other pressing issues like UNSC sanctions and the developments of Tehran's nuclear weapons program. No doubt this is true, but more importantly, Iran knew what to do with this media attention. All cameras on the crew, Ahmadinejad worked the Western public.

While most people are adamant that the sailors were forced to confess and act happy on camera, or were just too unwilling to resist, unless they say otherwise in the freedom of their homeland I am absolutely convinced that the Iranian government treated them with the utmost respect and generosity. It only makes sense. Though the media is now redirecting attention to the hostage crisis rather than sanctions or nuclear weapons, Iran has been using the attention to convince the Western public that indeed Iran does not deserve such sanctions or treatment. While the British and American governments talk about the unacceptability of Iran's actions, people are seeing video confessions and smiles. Some people don't know what to think. On the one hand, according to our governments, Iran is the arch-enemy of Western civilization. On the other, it's all right there -- Iran is treating the sailors with great respect and their capture was just a mistake.

Unlike the Iranian government, the Western democracies are actually susceptible to public opinion. While at least a majority of people won't believe a word that Ahmadinejad says, there will always be the internationalist, anti-American Left that does. Furthermore, as the legitimacy of the Bush Administration and Tony's Blair's government continues to crumble as the war in Iraq continues, more and more doubters are likely to appear. Doubters of the West, that is.

The reason that sanctions have been steadily moving forward at the UN Security Council is because America has brought the Europeans on board. But if Ahmadinejad can convince enough of the European public that indeed the entire affair was a misunderstanding on their part and that the British sailors were treated well, then -- against all evidence of rampant human rights abuses in the country -- people will believe that Iran is not such a bad place. Why should we place sanctions on it, or consider it a renegade country trying to blow up the world with nuclear weapons? There will no longer be large support for it, and if we can use history as any precedent, the Europeans will quickly back away from any further action. Game, set, match.

There is no way to know what the now-released British sailors will say once they've been debriefed. But one thing is certain -- they will be the most sought after people in the media. Iran knows this. Do not be surprised if they tell all of Britain that they were not tortured, forced to confess, and kept in a jail cell. Do not be surprised if they tell us that they were treated with respect, fed well, and allowed to play games. Do not be surprised if they say that they freely confessed to crossing into Iranian territorial waters after being told that there is no clear agreement specifying the border. And last, do not be surprised if they think that Ahmadinejad is a pretty swell guy after they met with him.

It would be a lie if they didn't say that if it were true, because to them Ahmadinejad actually is a pretty swell guy and gave them a pretty leisurely accidental capture. That's their own personal story. But they would also be naive to believe that it is the overall policy of his government, that their treatment is the rule rather than the exception.

They are just pawns in a greater strategy to disarm Western civilization, not through nuclear weapons, but through the media.

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Robert Mayer · April 4, 2007 5:13 PM · Comments (2) · TrackBacks (0)

The Middle East's new democratic model

Filed under: Africa ~ Middle East

Mauritania's military coup in 2005 yielded widespread international condemnation from all quarters of the globe. The United States, for example, unleashed a barrage on the junta by stating, "We oppose any attempts by rogue elements to change governments through extra-constitutional or violent means." Such statements were not only premature at best, but completely baseless and hypocritical at worse. The junta of colonels had just overthrown a tyrant that had himself curbed all constitutional laws, released hundreds of political prisoners ordered into jail by said tyrant, and promised a return to democracy under a more transparent constitutional system with a reinvigorated civil society. This was an opportunity, not a setback. And as the months pressed on, it became readily apparent that the promised reforms were underway with the inclusion of all segments of society.

Elsewhere in the Middle East, reforms have come to a halt in all but the most rapidly liberalizing countries. The hope brought by Iraqi elections has burned out for now, leaving the region's dictators legitimately ruling under the popular fear the democracy will breed civil war. Lebanon's Cedar Revolution is being crushed by the overbearing Syrian security state and Iran's imperialist ambitions. Egypt is cracking down hard on Islamic and secular activists alike. Algeria is effectively doing away with term limits for its very own strongman. The list goes on and on. Once sought after, the holy grail of a democratic and liberal Islamic world has disappeared out of reach.

Except for Mauritania. But you wouldn't know that because the media hasn't been reporting on its astounding moves toward democracy.

Mauritanian women stand in line to cast their ballots in Nouakchott, Mauritania, Sunday, March 11, 2007. Men in flowing white and ochre robes lined up under the light of the moon at voting booths Sunday with hopes that whoever wins Mauritania's first presidential election since a coup two years ago will not plunge the country back into totalitarian rule. Courtesy: Associated Press

A new constitution developed through the inclusion of all of society's major groups was widely approved. Just as we may be seeing some of today's leaders around 30 years from now, this new constitution guarantees that presidential terms will be limited to two five-year terms. They must also swear to Allah that they will not try to change this law. The legislative branch and judiciary have also been strengthened relative to the president -- good news for a loose opposition coalition that garnered 41 of 90 seats in parliament. The country is hosting an open presidential debate. Civil and political society have strengthened greatly without government interference. The rise of radical Islam is now on the decline.

This month's presidential election is the real test, though. Out of twenty candidates running, none had a majority in the first round, which means that a runoff will be held in just less than two weeks now.

For continuity and stability's sake, the military has favored Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdullahi even though his opponent, opposition candidate Ahmed Ould Daddah, is neck'n'neck with him. But what current government would not prefer that a certain candidate win? What matters is what they are doing about it, and up until now, the election process has been regarded as totally peaceful, transparent, and with every attempt to make it as fair as possible.

In fact, Reporters Without Borders, hardly an uncritical institution, had this to say about the first round of the presidential election: Presidential campaign being covered fairly by public media. Eghad! Is that milk that just flew out of my nose? And while RWB says that media coverage of the junta's favored candidate has been skewed, it admits that it is largely due to the amount of former candidates defecting to him which results in more media coverage. Aside from that, other imbalances have been corrected. Furthermore, there has been no intimidation of candidates or restrictions to their or their supporters' ability to speak and act freely.

How often does this happen in the Islamic world?

This isn't to say that Mauritania is a shining bright spot on the world. It's one of the only places in the world where slavery is still practiced to a large degree; racism has historically been extreme. Economic and cultural liberalization have been slow to take hold and in most cases outright suppressed since independence.

Yet politically, Mauritania is becoming generations ahead of its neighbors in the rest of Africa and the Middle East. The development of a more democratic system, complete with free elections and a newly found spirit of civil and political society, has clearly put the country on the path of liberalization. Its people will be able to drag themselves out of the same spiral of repression under backwater dictatorships that is only intensifying elsewhere.

While the media may not be paying attention to these historic developments, you can bet that regimes from Zimbabwe to Iran are paying attention. Mauritania's transition to democracy is predicated on a split by the country's own military with the government's corrupt officials, rather than an all out intervention from Western forces. They acted as a temporary stabilizing force rather than a new tyrant. The transition is therefore wholly its own rather than one overseen and partially illegitimized by a foreign power.

If successful, Mauritania's experiment will prove to be a landmark and precedent for other countries to follow. It shows one way that democracy can potentially be established while also stemming the rise of radical Islam. Most of all, it shows that democracy itself is not a dead idea and must be taken seriously by democrats and dictators alike. Iraq may have turned many off, but Mauritania's successes show that such reforms can work.

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Robert Mayer · March 20, 2007 7:57 PM · Comments (10) · TrackBacks (0)