Wake Up, America!

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

World affairs have taken a sharp turn and America needs to take notice.

The strengthening alliances initiated by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinijad with North Korea's Kim Jong Il and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez should be a source of great concern to America's policy makers. All three have long standing grievances – real or imagined – with the United States, all have nuclear ambitions, and all have called for the destruction of America as we know it.

The importance of the alliances became evident when Iranian observers were spotted at the July 4th launching of long range missiles by North Korea. The profuse welcome which Ahmadinijad gave Chavez more recently in Teheran was equally telling. Iran's developing strategy to isolate the United States in the court of world opinion through the strengthening of such alliances should give us pause.

Ahmadinijad's visit to New York last week was a crowning moment in a series of maneuvers designed to marginalize America and enhance his own position on the stage of world affairs. What should have been seen as a major challenge to America's leadership in world affairs, was greeted by Americans with derision and sardonic humor.

When we dismiss people like Ahmadinijad with epithets, as so many of our pundits have done, we marginalize the enemy in our own minds, without addressing the larger issues that their challenge represent.

The drama that played out in the General Assembly is neither humorous nor trivial. A cynical strategy is being deployed to marginalize the role of the United States in the international body as a step towards isolating America from world consensus. The actors in this theater of the grotesque are reading from a malevolent subtext which is the basis of this strategy. It is at once cynical and extremely dangerous. And we seem to be ignoring it.

Mahmoud Ahmadinijad's soft spoken words and his portrayal of his country as the embodiment of tranquility, peace, and justice belied his earlier inflammatory statements in which he blasted the United States and called for the violent destruction of Israel. But he spoke to the General Assembly of peace and love. A master showman, he seemed both rational and gentle, a far cry from the man we should know, who dreams of a day when his radical vision Islam will rule the world absolutely.

His characterization of his country as one of the main victims of terrorism and chemical weapons, was grotesquely cynical. It completely ignored Iran's massive entrepreneurial support of terrorism throughout the world. He neglected to mention its distribution of millions of counterfeit American dollars, the so-called yellow money that floods the Middle East, that is used to destabilize local governments and support terrorism.

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez addressed the same assembly the very next day and, referring to President Bush as "the devil", he received a resounding ovation. The warmth of the reception that both men received at the UN should serve as a powerful warning to the United States and its dwindling allies. It confirms the success of Ahmadinijad's efforts to marginalize America in the body of nations.

No one poses a greater threat to world order than Ahmadinijad and his messianic vision of world power. His strategy is straightforward. In addition to cementing relations with North Korea and Venezuela, he is also making deals with China and Russia, and wooing countries like France, whose own large Muslim population and uncertain loyalties have translated into increasingly significant investment in Iran's economy.

At the lower end of the food chain, Ahmadinijad has been manipulating terrorist-supporting states like Syria, and terrorist organizations like Hezballah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, to destabilize the region and keep the pressure high on Israel.

Ahmadinijad's efforts are bearing fruit, with growing international support for his nuclear ambitions and opposition to proposed UN sanctions. More important, Americas influence in the United Nations is waning, as is our ability to serve as an honest broker in international conflicts.

The end game of this devious but very powerful maneuvering is religious, not political. His speech at the UN ended with an assertion of his belief in the coming of the Mahdi, that "perfect and pure human being" who will establish the global Caliphate that will confirm the global reign of Islam.

Ultimately, he will have to rid himself of his most powerful allies, Kim Jong Il and Hugo Chavez, neither of whom is a Muslim. But Ahmadinijad is nothing if not expedient. He will use them to achieve his goals, and then discard or destroy them to satisfy his greater vision.

As a growing chorus of voices challenges our view of democratic principles, America must face the threat that his manipulations represent without equivocation. The shift in global political balance threatens not only America's role as a leader in world affairs, but the democratic principles that our country represents.

It is time for America to wake up from the comfortable sleep that has lulled us into believing that the longer 'nothing happens', the safer we are. The war against terrorism has not passed - it has barely begun. And we are not ready.

Those who are bent on destroying us have made their intentions clear. We ignore their words at our great peril.

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