Given the history of mankind, few generations escape the threat of civilizational darkness in one form or another, and the Free West has had perhaps more than its share of challenges. If blessed or fortunate, these forces of destruction are met when a people are in their ascendency or vigor and able to command their virtues as a counter to subjugation or annihilation. In contrast, societies which have forgotten their martial fortitude and love of self-determination, a trait that all healthy higher cultures manifest, telegraph unmistakably that they are exhausted and ripe for concessions. Having waxed luxurious and insensate, such peoples grow to believe that the world was forged on the day they were born and will end when they have passed through the ether. In obliterating the past, the future is reduced to a fool's dream that is as unworthy of concern as the beating of a butterfly's wings in the Sudan. I believe that we find ourselves in this latter age.

And who can doubt that America is quickly becoming such a people? Although possessing a military-technical prowess that has been the envy of the earth, the prerogatives and prudential will to utilize that power has been diminished by the preoccupations of self-doubt and the insane crippling fetish for equalization that invariably accompanies the debilitated spirit. To be sure, nothing exemplifies such moral enervation as the schizophrenic Obama foreign policy of "leading from behind." Indeed, this passive-aggressive policy funnels money and arms to our sworn enemies while it disengages into the persona of a sideline spectator -- creating a power vacuum that is enthusiastically filled by foreign seats of power that revel in our enfeeblement and contemplate our impending humiliation with gusto.

In our world of nation states, there is no more dangerous regime than the Iranian theocracy. While they lack the industrial and technical base of Russia or China, they have proven to be wholly hostile to America and defiantly view us as their greatest obstacle blocking their ascendency as a major player on the world's stage. While segments of the population may retain the residue of fond memories acquired before the 1979 Revolution, the regime itself despises the West with that same fanatical religious ardor that coalesces in their mission of jihad. Having manifested in their political-theological doctrines that divine destiny of territorial expansion with the ideological purity of an emergent Islam, they have divided the world into the Dar al-Islam and the Dar al-Harb: the House of Submission and the House of War. Their worldview leaves no room for any other option but sharia law's subjugation of infidels and the eradication of heretics. Viewed in black and white terms, the earth must inexorably submit or face destruction and Muslim hellfire.

Indeed, the peculiar Shia sect known as "Twelvers" are reputed to comprise over eighty percent of all Iranians and are a formidable presence in the government and Council of Mullahs. Ahmadinejad himself is a Twelver and his ultra-orthodox dogma informs true believers that the missing Twelfth Imam, or Mahdi, will soon return after a millennium of concealment to herald in the Universal World Caliphate -- the fulfillment of Mohammad's "Great Commission" from Allah. Implicit within the Shia's doctrinal eschatology is a final terrible battle that will result in Islam subduing the earth before the Great Judgment at the End of Days.

This End Times teaching is perhaps the key to understanding the Iranian motivation directed towards: destabilizing the Middle East, their investment in the Palestinian Question, their fomenting of bloodshed and terror through proxy groups, and the maniacal obsession towards weaponizing their nuclear technology. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard has been complicit in establishing hegemony through its client groups Hezbollah and Hamas -- providing arms, personnel, and exporting the rudiments of terror to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza.

While the West is infatuated with disarming itself through some psychological utopian necessity, the Devil's Hands have been exceedingly busy in assassination, wresting and consolidating local control from opponents, and in propping up their puppets. Having its fingers in a multiplicity of falafels, Iran has assumed the mantle of Terror Incorporated -- all for the purpose of warring down the hated Sunni convergence or in plotting the extermination of the loathsome Jew and his allies. But this is merely ancient knowledge now to all but the most deluded and credulous.

Questions then arise as to what can be done with a regime that has gone on record in affirming its desire to affect martyrdom on its population. Those in high positions of power have unblinkingly proclaimed that Iran would willingly sacrifice its teeming millions in order to destroy the "Zionist Entity" so that other Muslims could unify Palestine and eventually the planet under the Crescent Star. Indeed, the theology that informs the Twelver sect believes that only a near cataclysm will usher in the Mahdi's return -- and the regime seems hell bent on providing just that. Given all the rational Western assumptions that undergird the preventative doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction, how does a life affirming civilization conduct diplomacy with the nation state equivalent of a suicide bomber writ large? How does the West contend with a blighted worldview that has elevated a torrid romance with death to the status of a grim necrophilia?

Apparently, it will be with talk. On the surface, our State Department and the West's strategy are supported by the slimmest of reeds -- holding that rationality and good English commonsense will eventually induce the demon to unball his fist. Such inexplicable optimism is the Achilles Heel of not only the Progressives, but of peace-loving peoples in general. However, this laudable propensity becomes an iron bar across the nose when misapplied to goblins and orcs. And so, we will talk, talk, talk while the centrifuges spin, spin, spin and the Iranians bake the world a tantalizing yellow cake of woe. How many historical lessons of appeasement's folly must America and the West endure before we can apply those credits towards a post-doctoral degree in prudent statecraft?

Iran will not be deterred and will precipitate a war whose sufferings will dwarf any of the concerted efforts that the allies might have taken early on to stop the impending carnage. Surely economic sanctions have ravaged their country bitterly, but the regime simply does not care -- totalitarian regimes never care about their slaves by definition. And like any scared rabbit we will hold out for "Peace in Our Time:" all the while Iran continues propping up a Syrian revolution that has claimed seventy thousand dead. Meanwhile, having slapped the hand and spat on the shoes of our only true friend in that god-forsaken Crescent of Pain, this administration continues searching for a diplomatic alchemy -- but has only succeeded in transmogrifying lead into feces. And to top it all off, the Obama brain trust has decided that a near bankrupt nation should somehow offer a quarter of a billion dollars and fighter jets so that an Egyptian pharaoh can cement his Sharia slaveholdings. This folly is incomprehensible -- if not predictable.

It is said that a fool can accomplish the impossible by always making a horrid state of affairs even worse. Progressives seemingly have perfected the congenital art of transmuting authoritarian regimes into the totalitarian variety with the same ease that Nobel Peace Prizes are handed out. Criminally ignorant of human nature, they sanctimoniously unleash crazed pit bulls at one another and call it liberation as a smug afterthought during fawning press conferences. Atomic clocks are ticking down and red lines are converging in a region where the only unforgiveable sin is to be caught slack-jawed and flat-footed. It remains to be seen if the West will prove the Tolkien wisdom that "A man that flies from his fear may find that he has only taken a short cut to meet it."

Glenn Fairman writes from Southern California and blogs as The Eloquent Professor at www.palookavillepost.com and can be contacted at arete5000@dslextreme.com.