World War

The confrontation between America and Iran in the summer of 2006 was reminiscent of the summer of 1914. Then, the assassination of the Austrian archduke by a Serbian nationalist terrorist provided the senescent Austro-Hungarian Empire the excuse it had been looking for to wipe out the Serbian nationalists, which provoked the pan-Slavic nationalists at work for the Russian czar to threaten the Austro-Hungarians with destruction, which led Germany’s Kaiser to pledge retaliatory war against Russia, which prompted the French, who had an anti-German alliance with Russia, to begin mobilization. “Nobody, wanted a global conflagration, yet nobody knew how to stop it, and American President Woodrow Wilson, did nothing to help avert the coming war. Within a month, the war came and took the remainder of the 20th century for the world to fully recover,” wrote Harold Meyerson, the editor-at-large of American Prospect and the LA Weekly.

The killing of eight Israeli soldiers, and kidnapping of three by Hezbollah, that escalated in less than a week to a bloody 34 day war with ghoulish regional and global implications, felt eerily similar to what happened in 1914 and what happened to the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The chief effect of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq is the further destabilization of an already nuclear armed region with a nuclear umbrella. To make matters worse, within Iraq, the Shi’ite-Sunni conflict that many scholars, diplomats and intelligence experts warned of before the U.S. invasion has depopuled Baghdad, Iraq ─ and ignited the Middle East. The battle for the restoration of the Caliphate and elimination of Israel, has pulverized Lebanon, destroyed its democracy, and antagonized the populace of the least anti-American Arab country in the Arab world.

Real security, starting with border security in Lebanon, requires the kind of Global Security Force that can spare the world from another global conflagration, because this time it will be nuclear ─ with ugly Armaggedoneon consequences. Remember the bitter Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88? More than a million people were killed or wounded. With a nuclear repeat, you do the math.

North Korea’s October Surprise

Republicans stood to profit in the 2006 midterm elections from North Korea’s nuclear test because of the “fear factor” and their successful push for sanctions in the U.N. ─ that were unanimously passed by the 15-member Security Council. Pyongyang’s unpredictable defiance deserved harsh sanctions. It has a string of terrorist attacks, kidnappings of foreigners, provocations and broken international agreements behind it to prove its defiant untrustworthiness. However, sanctions alone will not resolve the crisis because they are not enough to pressure a government that was economically and diplomatically isolated. The only people that suffered were We the Apathetic Maids because the price of oil climbed back above $60 a barrel after Korea’s nuclear test.

On September 19, 2005, North Korea signed a denuclearization agreement with America, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea to “abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs.” In return, Washington agreed that the United States and North Korea would “respect each other’s sovereignty, exist peacefully together and take steps to normalize their relations.” Four days later, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sweeping financial sanctions against North Korea designed to cut off the country’s access to the international banking system, branding it a “criminal state” guilty of counterfeiting, money laundering and trafficking in weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. freeze froze $24 million of Pyongyang’s money in Macau banks and brought the regime of Kim Jong-il to its knees.

North Korean refugees in China, called defectors by their government, have bounties placed on their heads and when captured are repatriated to labor camps or worse ─ executed. It is estimated there are more than 100,000 defectors hiding out in China. Many were sold into slavery and prostitution.

The full economic embargo and naval blockade backed by the Chapter VII provisions of the U.N. Charter that carry the threat of military action that the U.S. wanted to impose after Pyonyang’s nuclear test on October 9, 2006, something only Japan supported, is a short sighted fix that merely delays the inevitable ─ North Korea going nuclear ─ and ballistic.

Wrong Axis Leg Taken Out

The tragic irony of the Iraq War is that America took out the wrong leg in the “Axis of Evil” ─ the only one that was not developing weapons of mass destruction. With 20/20 hindsight, it seems to be precisely the reason it was Iraq that was targeted, because it was not the real threat the other two ─ Iran and North Korea pose. Furthermore, it also clarifies why Saddam Hussein bluffed, believing that he could deter a U.S. attack, by trying to convince the world he in fact had weapons of mass destruction.

The U.S. invasion of Iraq accelerated the development of the nuclear weapons programs of Iran and North Korea because it became abundantly clear to both regimes that the only way to deter a U.S. led attack is to have weapons of mass destruction. “The tragedy of growing up is that human beings acquire the means of killing themselves and others. The human race now collectively has that power,” wrote Boris Johnson, a Conservative Member of Parliament in Britain in an editorial opinion published in The Daily Telegraph. He went on to say, “The Iranians will join in soon enough. It might be sensible if they did so in an atmosphere of co-operation and understanding, and not amid intensifying threats and hysteria, especially when those threats are known to be bogus.”

Direct dialogue between America and the other two legs of the Axis is imperative. Both nations leaders’ taunt America with bombastic rhetoric out of frustration that America will not sit down and talk because it prefers the use of military threats and sanctions. How can a dispute be resolved without dialogue? “Talking is not appeasement or being a wimp. It is sensible,” former president Jimmy Carter said about America’s reluctance to sit down and talk with North Korea directly ─ something China and South Korea repeatedly encourage America to do.