Foreign In More Ways Than One

So let me see if I have this straight: Cap'n Ed believes that the same United Nations that declared this week that Iraqi women were better off under Saddam Hussein, the same United Nations that tacitly endorsed Israel's destruction last fall, and the same United Nations that just recently admitted Iran to its disarmament commission (or whatever they call it) - just to tick off Turtle Bay's most recent iniquities - has actually taken a stand against the mad mullahs and their drive for nuclear weapons on the basis of Kofi Annan "publicly scolding" them? Kind of like the way the Security Council "publicly scolded" Saddam Hussein eighteen times, and still balked when it came time to specify the "serious consequences" it had vaguely and emptily threatened?

What makes Mr. Morrissey think that Tehran gives a frog's fat leg what Kofi Annan - or their Russian and ChiComm sponsors, for that matter - think about anything, much less their stated intention to "join the nuclear club" - even assuming that any of them actually opposed it? And where is the evidence of that?

This is a real simple equation: the Iranians want nukes to use them against their enemies (that's Israel and us, primarily, and Europe if they have any left over, just for giggles); they have already acquired several crude warheads and are building the capacity to manufacture a whole lot more; and nothing short of invasion and regime-change will stop them. And we're still talking about diplomacy and the frigging UN? Hello??? They've been at war with us for twenty-seven years without interruption; how big a hint does it take to make the powers that be face sober reality?

I really don't want to find out the answer to that question.

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If President Bush does finally recognize the handwriting on the wall (an ironic metaphor given that the event that gave birth to it was the divine heralding of the imminent defeat of Babylon by Persia), his "poodle" Tony Blair won't be sending British troops in at our side. I guess all those "Thank you, Tony" banners on center-right blogs will be evaporating in short order.

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How interesting, therefore, the timing of the visit of the veritable Wizard of Oz of this global crisis, Red Chinese "president" Hu Jintao.

Oh, it's not quite that cut & dried - no situation between and amongst nation-states ever is. But as Jean-Luc Picard used to say about the Romulans, it's always a chess game with the ChiComms, always probing and testing us, instigating (remember when they shot down an EC-3 Hawkeye near Hainan Island five years ago?) and manipulating crises (as they're clearly doing by running inteference for Iran) to make trouble for us while advancing their own inimical interests.

The difference is that at least in the Star Trek universe, the Federation recognized the Romulans as an enemy, or at least not a friend. Is there anybody in official Washington who acknowledges Jed Babbin's inarguable conclusion:

There is no chance whatever that [Red] China will change its position on Iran, and, media speculation to the contrary, any failure of the President to gain its support on Iran will be no defeat. China is not our ally, and not - at least yet - our military peer. It is an adversary in the Pacific Cold War.

One day the butchers of Beijing will challenge us - or whatever Western coalition succeeds us - in a showdown for global control. And we - or our international descendents - will never see it coming.

But we sure will have gotten a lot of assorted junk awfully cheap.