PrintOctober 13, 2008
The Left has destroyed anti-nuclear proliferation
In a sane world every responsible nation and political party would pull together to keep the nuclear genie bottled up tight. By that standard we are not living in a sane world.
Nuke proliferation is now out of control, and our Democrats have been the biggest saboteurs in that massive civilizational failure. The second party of sabotage has been Europe, ruled by socialist elites; the third and fourth have been the United Nations and Russia, which is supplying nuclear technology to Iran. Anti-proliferation has been constantly undermined and sabotaged by the domestic and international Left.
As a result, today the Iranian nuke program may well be beyond the point of no return. Even systematic, long-lasting air strikes against its nuclear industry may not be enough to put the genie back in the bottle. That will change our world forever, and not for the better.
How did we get here?
The single most suicidal action by the Left has been its years of assault on President George W. Bush after the overthrow of Saddam. It has often been pointed out that every intelligence agency in the world believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction before the invasion of Iraq. UN inspectors like David Kay repeatedly said so. Democrats and European socialists alike repeated warned about the danger of Saddam's weapons programs, knowing full well that his first nuclear reactor was destroyed by an Israeli air raid as long ago as 1981. Al Gore, Bill Clinton, and even the UN's El Baradei pointed out the danger.
As we now know, Saddam has had 500 metric tons of yellowcake uranium in storage since 1992. But George W. Bush was assaulted by the Left, in the person of Valerie Plame, Joe Wilson and the New York Times editorial page, allegedly because Bush peddled the lie that Saddam wanted to obtain yellowcake uranium. But there was no lie; the whole phony brouhaha was a PR assault to destroy the credibility of the Bush administration. The end result was to make us helpless in the face of more nuclear proliferation. To slake its lust for power the Left was more than willing to sabotage our safety.
As we now know, Saddam has had 500 metric tons of yellowcake uranium in storage since 1992. But George W. Bush was assaulted by the Left, in the person of Valerie Plame, Joe Wilson and the New York Times editorial page, allegedly because Bush peddled the lie that Saddam wanted to obtain yellowcake uranium. But there was no lie; the whole phony brouhaha was a PR assault to destroy the credibility of the Bush administration. The end result was to make us helpless in the face of more nuclear proliferation. To slake its lust for power the Left was more than willing to sabotage our safety.
Did Saddam pose a plausible threat of nuclear weaponization? Of course he did. Did he pose an actual threat? That is, did he actually possess WMD's ready to mount on missiles in a matter of hours, to shoot off at his enemies? Today's conventional wisdom is that he did not. But that is pure post-hockery.
George W. Bush has been crucified for five long years in the media, by the feckless, hysterical and cowardly Europeans, by the United Nations, and of course by the Democratic Party, because he took the only sane action possible in the face of the apparent WMD threat from Saddam. Because presidents don't have the luxury of Monday morning quarterbacking. They cannot wait for metaphysical certainty about threats to national survival and international peace. There is no such thing as metaphysical certainty in these matters; presidents must act on incomplete intelligence, knowing full well that their domestic enemies will try to destroy them for trying to save the peace.
But that is water under the bridge by now. What's not past, but rather a clear and present threat to civilization are the consequences of the unbelievable recklessness of the International Left --- including the Democrats, the Europeans, the UN, and the former communist powers. Because of their screaming opposition to the Bush administration's rational actions against Saddam, we are now rendered helpless against two even more dangerous challenges. With Saddam there was genuine doubt about his nuclear program; the notion that he had a viable program was just the safest guess to make in the face of his policy of deliberate ambiguity. In the case of Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong Il there's no guessing any more. They have nukes and missiles, or will have within a year.
The entire anti-proliferation effort has therefore been sabotaged and probably ruined by the Left. For what reason? There can be only one rational reason: A lust for power, even at the expense of national and international safety and peace. But the Left has irrational reasons as well, including an unfathomable hatred for adulthood in the face of mortal danger. Like the Cold War, this is a battle between the adolescent rage of the Left and the realistic adult decision-making of the mainstream --- a mainstream which is now tenuously maintained only by conservatives in the West.
Barack Obama represents the revolt against reality in contemporary politics. He is the ultimate fantasy candidate, the Savior who appears from nowhere to rescue the poor and helpless and intellectually impaired among us. That is the source and essence of his appeal. His backers, from ACORN to Ayers to Soros, are profoundly driven by otherwordly fantasies. They are the perfect secular parallels to the Armageddon regime of Tehran.
Sigmund Freud would recognize this battle instantly, as the old, old struggle between childhood fantasies and adulthood. Freud lived to see the rise of the Nazis and the Soviets, two gargantuan fantasy-driven terror regimes. But Freud died before the first nuclear bombs went off. Had he lived to see nuclear weapons, his trademark pessimism about human beings would have received even greater confirmation.
We are now left with the shattered remains of an anti-proliferation policy that has been systematically laid waste by the Left, domestically and internationally. If McCain/Palin win this election, they will deal with that in the most adult and rational way possible; which is not to say it will be easy. If Obama/Biden win, they may be able to switch back to a sane anti-proliferation policy with some very fast footwork, disappointing their millions of fatuous followers. But Leftists followers are emotional and wishful, as Lenin noted long ago. They will go along if their messianic hero leads the way.
But we have no guarantee of such sanity in an Obama/Biden administration. It is just as likely that they will retreat and rationalize a Brave New World full of nuclear rogues -- Iran, North Korea, and soon many others. They may put their trust in the paper dolls of international agreements and beefed-up UN agencies.
In such a world, anti-missile defense will be our only real protection. But Obama/Biden may even end up suicidally gutting our missile defense efforts, as the Left has been trying to do for decades.
This election pits adults against children even more than usual. The adults are called "conservatives." The Left significantly finds its affirmation in the songs it teaches to toddlers. It is just another sign that Leftists are always tempted to abandon adult reality whenever they think they can get away with it.
National security is the greatest adult responsibility of the American president. It always requires making tough and often unpopular decisions. John McCain and Sarah Palin are obviously qualified to do so. Obama and Biden are classical Leftists.
It was Lenin who famously told his Chekist thugs in Moscow that "The West are wishful thinkers. We will give them what they want to think." The Soviet Empire lies in ruins today, but the psychology of the Left has not changed one little bit.
Therein lies our greatest danger.
James Lewis blogs at dangeroustimes.wordpress.com.
