WARNING ON IRAN - AT 10:23 A.M. ET:  Consumed by our health-care debate, we're forgetting the ticking time bomb in Tehran.  British terrorism expert Con Coughlin warns that we're slipping into an extraordinarily dangerous situation, while Mr. Obama plans his summer vacation on Martha's Vineyard:

The West has given up on its attempts to prevent Iran acquiring an atom bomb – and the result will be a nuclear arms race that threatens not only the future of the Middle East, but the entire world.

This, at least, is the apocalyptic view that now appears to be taking root among some of the world’s leading Iran experts, as we approach the make-or-break moment next month when Tehran’s newly re-elected president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, decides whether he is prepared to enter into a constructive dialogue over his country’s illicit pursuit of nuclear technology.

And the blame?

Much of the blame for the failure to coax Tehran to the negotiating table, or so it was argued this week, lies with Mr Obama and his unwillingness to take a hard line with the ayatollahs. At the height of the pro-reform demonstrations in June, when the regime’s guardians launched a brutal assault to suppress the protests, he refused to be drawn into an open condemnation of their tactics.

Appeasement always has its price.

...what Mr Obama and his Iran team fail to appreciate is that this policy of appeasement is seen by the mullahs in Tehran – rightly – as a sign of weakness. If the Americans are prepared to sit idly by while the regime brutally suppresses the legitimate democratic aspirations of the Iranian people, why should Iran’s leaders be unduly concerned by threats of possible retaliation over their nuclear programme?

That's one of the great lessons of the 20th century, entirely ignored by the new "sophisticates" in Washington.

Moreover, a mood of defeatism appears to have settled over the White House. As one senior Obama adviser recently remarked: “It wouldn’t be easy to live with an Iran that’s a virtual nuclear power, but at the end of the day, it’s not a complete disaster.”

What leadership.  What determination.  The new standard for health-care reform is that "we're not gonna kill your grandmother," and the new standard in foreign policy is, "It's not a complete disaster."  Change we can believe in.

...the doctrine of mutually assured destruction, which could be relied upon during the Cold War to prevent a nuclear holocaust, cannot be applied to a region in which national pride and personal honour often take precedence over the more basic human instinct for self-preservation.

We're constantly told by our intellectual "betters" that we must "understand other cultures."  But these same people seem incapable of comprehending Coughlin's last point, that the cultures of the Middle East do not think as we do.  We forget that at our peril.

August 14, 2009