The Mullah Menace

Question: What's the most dangerous geopolitical development in the 21st century? Answer: Iran's emergence as the Middle East regional superpower. Why? Because it places the center of the world's increasingly stretched energy resources more and more under the influence of an oil-rich, fundamentalist, pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic regime that has not only nuclear ambitions but the means to realize them.

Iran's malign hand now reaches directly into southern Iraq, to Syria, to Hezbollah in Lebanon, to Hamas in the West Bank, and to the shores of the Mediterranean. Iran's long shadow now casts a deepening pall over the Sunni Arab countries of the region, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. All the Sunni gulf states have sizable Shiite populations, which Iran could turn against them. And what once promised to be a seed for democracy in the despotic Middle East, a new free state of Iraq, has betrayed every hope in an increasingly violent religious schism aggravated by Iranian meddling. The elections in Iraq led not to collaboration between different ethnic and religious groups but to a Shiite majority with a mandate to introduce what is, in effect, a radical Islamic republic. The south of Iraq is now an Iranian quasi protectorate, with police and local militias controlled by Tehran. No longer a traditional bulwark against Iranian expansion and influence, Iraq is in a dizzying downward spiral that has left Iran the undisputed champion of political Islam.

In Iraq, Iranian agents back the anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada al Sadr. His ambition is to take over from the moderate Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who is suffering from heart trouble, and to swing the Shiites fully behind Iran and the Iranian-backed terrorists in Iraq.

The West will have to decide what is more dangerous–to attack the infrastructure of the Iranians sooner rather than later or to deal with an Iranian nuclear capability after the fact. The choices are not between good and bad but between bad and worse–and the longer we delay, the more dire those bad and worse choices will become.

This sums up the predicament perfectly. There is simply no "good," cost-free solution.

But far too many people (both American and European) seem to believe that there must always be a happy-face alternative. This leads them to prefer inaction, since the only viable action (sanctions having proven themselves a non-starter and regime change being a long-term longshot) is something of a military nature--be it a naval blockade or a series of air strikes. No happy face there.

Then there are the rabid Bush-bashers--the folks who view President Bush as the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler. For obvious reasons, this crowd would not trust President Bush to conduct a war, even against America's most vitriolic enemies. In fact, especially against America's most vitriolic enemies. Their pathological hatred for President Bush has led them to believe that he has created enemies where none existed before. Given this premise, it is but a short step to the conclusion that we should not further "antagonize" our adversaries, such as Iran.

Mr. Zuckerman is correct in his analysis. We must stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, by whatever means necessary.

I am just not convinced that postmodern America has the iron will--or that President Bush has the political strength, or the right second-term advisors--to do the necessary job.

Stuff like me makes me wish for the draft.

Well the military wants a professional upscale force that is efficient and smart. The draft institutionalizes the opposite. Let the military call their own shots on how to make things work best. An elephant is a horse designed by a congressional committee of backseat drivers and armchair generals...

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