Smoke and Mirrors

20060226

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     In 1994, the US, under the guidance of the Clinton Administration, entered into an agreement with the North Koreans in which the North Koreans agreed to suspend the development of a nuclear weapons program in return for US aid in the form of two light water (non-weapons grade material producing) nuclear reactors and oil shipments. The goal of that deal was to end North Korea’s race toward building nuclear weapons that it could use to threaten its perceived enemies in the Western Pacific Rim.

     In 2002, it was revealed that, in the intervening seven years, North Korea had continued its weapons development program, protected by the guise of compliance with the US-North Korea agreement, and now likely possessed completed nuclear weapons as part of its military arsenal. Today, North Korea may possess as many as several nuclear warheads as well as the capacity to deliver those warheads against enemies as far away as the western coast of the United States.

     The major failure of the US-North Korean agreement was the failure to verify that the agreement was being implemented as required by the North Koreans in such a way that they could not cheat, as they obviously did. The agreement basically gave the North Koreans the cover needed to develop nuclear weapons under the very eyes of those who desired to prevent that development from taking place.

     Similarly, the current agreement under negation between Iran and Russia to enrich uranium on Russian soil is an agreement designed as a screen for Iran’s true purpose- to develop an indigenous nuclear weapon. The world already knows that Iran possesses the materials and the technical capacity to produce within its own country all of the components necessary to build a nuclear weapon. They possess raw uranium, the capacity to process and enrich that uranium, the capacity to produce plutonium, and the knowledge necessary to assemble the necessary components into a nuclear weapon once those components are available in sufficient quantity.

     There are many in the international community who want to believe that Iran will agree to and abide by the terms of an international agreement designed to prevent them from producing nuclear weapons, but upon what evidence is such a belief based? These are the same Iranians who financially and logistically support terrorism throughout the world, including current, ongoing operations to destabilize and foment civil war in Iraq and to fuel the ongoing strife in the Palestinian Territories, in direct contravention of international agreements.

     Indeed, any agreement that Iran enters into, whether it be with Russia or any other nation, is not designed to abate their nuclear ambition, but to buy them time until that ambition can be realized. The Western mind does not think with the ideologies of radical Islam, where faith and government are inseparably the same, and therefore does not see that, if given the opportunity to further the goals of that radical ideology, Iran will do whatever is necessary to do so, regardless of international pressure or agreement to the contrary.

     Ultimately, any agreement with Iran at this point that does not include the dismantling and liquidation of its current nuclear program is an appeasement that is doomed to fail like so many appeasements with radicals and tyrannical governments of the past have failed. Such an agreement is playing into the hands of people who genuinely want to destroy the Western ideal and way of life by whatever means are given to them, even if that means is wholesale annihilation.

     The world cannot afford such an appeasement, because its consequence will be measured in lives. What will the international community say when thousands or millions are dead because of a nuclear attack using an Iranian nuclear weapon, whether that weapon is employed by Iran directly or through one of its terrorist proxies. Have no doubt that, if Iran comes into possession of such a weapon, this nightmare will occur.

     The only hope that remains for the rest of the world is to resolve itself to putting an end to Iran’s nuclear ambition. The task of ending this ambition will likely require force, which will have its own consequences, but failure to act will have consequences far more dire. Which consequences is the world willing to accept?

DLH