Carry No Stick?

From IBD:
Posted 5/31/2006

Nuclear Arms: The U.S. now says it will join Europe in nuclear talks with Iran and that it'll no longer threaten military action if Tehran stops enriching uranium. We wonder: Are we giving up too much?

We greatly admire Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and are confident in her abilities as diplomat and security strategist. But we also believe that the essence of diplomacy lies in backing words with deeds — letting potential foes know that America's threats aren't empty.

It is the explicit threat of military action that makes meaningful diplomacy possible. If the other side doesn't think it faces consequences for its behavior, it has no reason to talk.

This helps explain Iran's behavior today. As the furor over its nuclear program has grown over the past three years, Iran has focused on defanging the U.S. — a real threat. It has done so by decoupling U.S. diplomacy from that of its erstwhile allies in Europe, Russia and China. Isolate the U.S. diplomatically and neutralize its military threat, Iran thinks, and victory is possible.

If you accept this premise, America's latest announcement is nothing short of a coup for Iran's mullahs and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Suddenly, there are no sticks, only carrots.

The Iranians aren't stupid. They know Russia and China can be bought off with oil and multibillion dollar contracts. It's no surprise that they don't back military action or sanctions.

Tehran also knows Europe is terrified of confrontation. So they let it be known that, in addition to nukes, Iran is seeking long-range missiles that can reach the Continent. Those threats have been offset by a
recent charm offensive aimed at softening Europe further.

In an interview last week with Germany's Der Spiegel magazine, Ahmadinejad sought to allay European fears of a nuclear Iran. And he counseled Germany to get over its guilt about killing 6 million Jews in the Holocaust — an event he says never occurred — and not to be "taken hostage by the Zionists."

So the fact remains that Ahmadinejad, for all his cunning, is quite mad. He has threatened to continue Iran's nuclear program, annihilate Israel and spread fundamentalist Islam across the globe. We'd be fools not to take him at his word.

We must also keep in mind that the long-term goal of Iran's ruling mullahs is to create a Muslim superpower — one that will provide a nuclear umbrella for Islam to restore its Caliphate, reclaim lands lost to the infidel in World War I and spread Islam into Europe.

To that end, Iran has hidden its nuclear facilities and lied about refining uranium. This week, it let slip it has a nuclear fusion project, the only use of which is the creation of a hydrogen bomb.

Iran's strategy is clear. It will talk to buy time to develop a nuke. It may even accept Russia's offer to "host" a nuclear enrichment facility for commercial use. Then, weeks from now, we'll read something like this: "Iran has agreed to freeze its existing nuclear program and to accept international inspection of all existing facilities" in exchange for help with its commercial nuclear needs.

Sound familiar? It should. Replace "Iran" with "North Korea" and you have President Clinton's words on Oct. 18, 1994, announcing a deal with that rogue state.

Today, in spite of that "agreement," Pyongyang has an active nuclear program and, quite likely, nuclear weapons. And if we don't continue to back up our words with military action, Iran will too.