PrintApril 2, 2007
As long as you are hated, it's better to be feared
Tehran isn't interested in loving the West, or even in tolerating us. If you doubt it, just listen to the Khomeini gang. Since the 1979 they've been yelling "Death to America! Death to Israel!" Have we not heard?
Even while the Brit Left is busily trying to figure out a way to blame America for Tehran's barefaced kidnapping of 15 UK Service personnel, The Telegraph is rediscovering common sense. In an editorial entitled, "If they hate us, let them also fear us" they are drawing the obvious conclusions.
No doubt a lot of Europeans were secretly glad that they were not the target of all that mass hatred. But of course that's simple self delusion. Khomeini and his followers were taught to hate the whole West, including Europe and America --- for its wealth, power, sexual openness, women's liberation, homosexual freedoms, capitalism, Christianity, its free press, its Marxoid intellectuals, and for conquering Andaluz in 1495. (If you forgot how we conquered Andaluz and drove out the Muslims, Ahmadinejad hasn't. Nor has Osama Bin Laden.)
In fact, Europe has very conveniently blacked out its own history. Europe as a unifying idea arose to resist numerous Muslim invasions --- in Spain, France, Eastern Europe, even in the British Isles, which were the subject of slave raiding well into the 18th century. That's what the Song of Roland is all about, the first European epic poem. That's what Charlemagne was all about, the hero of today's European Union. You can try to imagine that's all past, but Ahmadinejad lives in the past. That's what "Islam" means to the radicals: Surrender to the 7th century, or get your head chopped off.
Short of running up the white flag the West has only one strategic option: To show its real mettle. This will upset the fantasy-prone Left to no end, but it's so obvious that only a fool or a professor could think otherwise.
The West is far more powerful than the madcap mullahs. What they have over us is sheer pig-headed fanaticism. But if you pit two speedboats with armed IRGC zealots against a couple of boatloads of oh-so-polite Brits, the zealots will win every time.
Now politeness is a very good thing. Queen Victoria, as far as we can tell, was extremely polite every day of her long reign. But she was no fool. The Victorians understood that civilized behavior only works with civilized countries. They would have very politely come to an instant conclusion: "If they hate us, let them also fear us" --- and taken the necessary action. That's not cruel, mean, or imperialistic. It's elementary common sense.
Just one warning shot from HMS Cornwall would have stopped the kidnappers in their tracks, because they were conducting a carefully planned provocation. It was a test of British resolve, courage and power. They still are doing it today to squeeze every drop of advantage out of their mischief.
Ahmadinejad understands that game very well. He's run his whole career on the principle of inspiring fear. That's how the mullahs stay in power and keep the people of Iran in abject misery.
In a decade or so, London will be within easy range of Iranian weapons of mass destruction, along with Paris and Berlin. The purpose of Tehran's rush to nukes is to inspire a hell of a lot more fear than today's exercise in intimidation. Turn tail now, and they will gain more confidence that Europe will turn tail when they get the Big Bomb.
Does the British government understand the obvious? Or will Prime Minister Blair try to buy off the mullahs --- like Roman Prodi just bought off the Taliban --- hoping that the crocodile will eat him last?
James Lewis is a frequent contributor to American Thinker. He blogs at http://www.dangeroustimes.wordpress.com/
