Words & Deeds

Hugo Chavez, dictator of Venezuela, leader of the Latin American Axis, talks a good game of wanting to stick it to "Dracula and Hitler," but only as long as it doesn't cost him anything.

In any case, he may have more important fish to fry within his own alliance:

It....begs the question: who exactly is running Cuba now? Daniel Ortega?

Until someone answers that question with more credibility than Ortega and Elian Gonzales, Cubans may decide that the Castro Era has ended and take matters into their own hands. That's why the Cuban military put themselves on full alert this week - not because of the laughable notion that the US would invade, but because of the real possibility that their soldiers would join the people to overthrow the Communist government. [emphasis added]

Comrade Chavez can't have the birthplace of the LAA defecting to the vampires, now can he?

Perhaps Hugo could take a lesson in self-sacrifice from his new friends in Tehran:

Iran yesterday rejected a United Nations demand that it halt uranium enrichment work, vowing instead to expand its controversial nuclear programme and threatening to block oil exports to the West if sanctions are imposed.

In a blunt response to international concern about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Ali Larijani, the chief negotiator on atomic issues, said that Tehran was ready for a showdown with world powers when the matter was taken up by the UN Security Council this month.

“We will expand nuclear technology at whatever stage it may be necessary and all of Iran’s nuclear technology including the [centrifuge] cascades will be expanded,” he said in Tehran. ...

Mr Larijani also served warning that Iran would retaliate if the world imposed sanctions. “We will react in a way that would be painful for them. They should not think that they can hurt us and we would stand still without a reaction.

“We do not want to use the oil weapon. Do not force us to do something that will make people shiver in the cold. We do not want that,” he said.

The mullahs threatened an oil embargo during last winter's Danish cartoon crisis and never followed through on it. But, unlike Cap'n Ed, I don't think they're bluffing this time. One reason is because their quest for nuclear weapons capability is worth a lot more than propaganda mischief over offended religious sensibilities. The other is that they're becoming more and more convinced through our insatiable capacity for diplomatic humiliation that they can commit any provocation and act of war against the West with total impunity. Yes, cutting off the oil they sell to us would cause them economic dislocations that could threaten the mullahgarchy's hold on power (though how much is debatable); but they are absolutely assured with the certitude of the zealot that we would buckle at the prospect of paying five bucks a gallon at the pump far sooner than their iron-fisted grip would dangerously weaken.

In any case, the oil weapon is part of their War Plan R, all designed to goad us into fighting a war against them not unlike the one that Israel is fighting against their Hezbollah division in Lebanon - limited, half-hearted, without the will to win through to total victory, and destined to be called off pre-maturely, leaving the U.S. in retreat and the mullahs triumphant over the entire Middle East.

It's what makes Islamists far more deadly enemies than communists - the latter don't believe in anything and therefore aren't willing to risk anything to gain the global domination of which they dream. The former, by contrast, are, like the Blues Brothers, "on a mission from God," and blindly convinced that nothing can stop them - least of all the pantywaist infidel "vampires" of the post-Christian West. And it appears that they are correct.

A pity Comrade Chavez didn't pay more attention when he visited Tehran last month. If he was willing to put his petromoney where his commumouth is, he really could stick it to us - the uppercut following the Iranian jab.

Or maybe he's looked where the mullahs are about to leap. There's plenty of time to shop for silver bullets, after all.