Storm On The Horizon

“People of the region should be alert and ready so when the time comes, we can fight our final, decisive battle.” These are the words of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a typical reference to fulfilling his publicly stated goal of annihilating the nation of Israel. On Friday, September 3rd, in a speech attacking America with regard to its recent efforts to mediate a peace between Israel and the Palestinians, Ahmadinejad called on all Muslims to prepare for a final battle to free Jerusalem.

Iran, with the assistance of Russia, China and North Korea, is inching closer to achieving its long sought after goal of weapons-grade nuclear technology. With each step forward in Iran’s nuclear program, Ahmadinejad grows more militant in his public denunciations of what he refers to as “the little devil” (Israel) and “the big devil” (America). These threats and the calls for the destruction of the Jewish State, running parallel to Iran’s nuclear advancement, do not bode well for Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who administers a nation that was born of another holocaust when the dire threats of another madman similarly went unanswered.

As an optimist, I believe that good will always prevail over evil. However, the question is, how many lives must be sacrificed and how much blood must be spilled before a nation, a leader or a people prove ready to confront that evil. Thomas Jefferson astutely wrote in the Declaration of Independence that “all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” It is this innate human deficiency that has led to the immense suffering of the Jewish people at the hands of such infamous miscreants as the Pharaohs of Egypt, the Russian Cossacks, Hitler’s Third Reich and the modern day Iranian backed terrorist groups, Hamas and Hezbollah. American support for the Jewish people has helped stave off cataclysmic results from the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah. In the case of Nazi Germany, six million Jews were senselessly murdered before a belated alliance between Great Britain and America defeated a movement that never should have transpired. One hundred thousand Jews were exterminated by the Cossacks in the Chmielnicki Massacre of 1649, and the atrocities that followed, before the Jewish people simply ceased to exist as a functioning minority in the Ukraine. With regard to Ancient Egypt, the children of Israel required a higher form of foreign intervention in order to achieve liberation.

President Obama has rightfully pursued and effectively implemented tougher U.N. sanctions against the Iranian government in response to its nuclear development. I applaud the President for these efforts but, to expect that these sanctions, alone, will result in curbing Iran’s appetite for weapons of mass destruction defies logic, ignores precedent, and disregards the lessons of history. Irrespective of the sanctions and the economic pressure they place on Iran, Ahmadinejad’s paramount goal is that of military superiority over Israel, the nation which the Iranian leader has professed his desire to see “wiped off the face of the map.” At best, a nuclear Iran would lead to Iranian hegemony in the Middle East, leaving America insignificant and weak in the region and forcing Israel into submission. At worst, and equally likely, is the prospect of a nuclear apocalypse, the consequences of which are unthinkable.

I believe that the only hope for a non-military solution to curbing Iranian ambitions is through a relentless campaign aimed at convincing Iran and its allies that America will do whatever is necessary to ensure the safety of Israel, up to and including a military assault on the nation’s nuclear facilities. President Obama’s greatest weakness, in regard to international diplomacy, is his timidity in the face of confrontation. For all the talents the President possesses in the realm of oratory and persuasion, his proven gift for intraparty influence does not appear to translate internationally. I do not believe that Mr. Obama wants to see Iran go nuclear. I merely believe that the President is, by nature, adverse to foreign confrontation. His penchant for submission and apologetic bent has, unfortunately, led many foreign nations to conclude that America is a paper tiger. This irresolute perception of our nation does not bode well for Israel.

There is a storm on the horizon. America and its allies must do all within their power to stop it before it becomes too late. America and Israel will ultimately prevail in a standoff with their shared enemy, but the cost of that victory may be devastating. It is our right and our duty to stand tough now, as to avoid a greater catastrophe in the future.

Jeremy Pitcoff