Saturday, June 7, 2008

Not enough people "get it"

Michael Ledeen has a thorough and well-reasoned piece in today's Wall Street Journal on how we as people rarely take seriously those who threaten us, and why we are so foolish not to do so: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121279291616353311.html?mod=djemEditorialPage.

The point he raises is an excellent one. History is full of examples of one nation or group threatening another (or others) with death, extinction, etc., and yet time and again, those warnings are ignored. Of course, the best example of this is the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany and its threats to wipe out the Jews. Once it obtained power, it set about accomplishing that objective.

So, why are we ignoring the Iranians when they are promising the exact same thing? Iran is not a country with a long history of anti-Semitism, or even anti-Israeli sentiment. That began 29 years ago, when the Khomeini-ist revolution swept the country. The steady stream of anti-Israeli propaganda and pronouncements by the Iranian President is therefore NOT something "for domestic consumption". It's something much more ominous than that, and the sooner we realize that, the better.

No comments: