An interesting end to the week for the UN summit. Starting with Benjamin Netanyahu, on Thursday, who showed himself to be one of the few voices of reason and action in a week full of polyester threats and bedazzled treaties. He began by pointing out that allowing Iranian “President” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak the previous night amounted to a "disgrace of the U.N. charter."
Netanyahu’s outrage was spurred by Ahmadinejad’s comments, the previous week, proclaiming that the Jew’s “created the story of Holocaust...” and “then made hundreds of films and wrote hundreds of books to argue they have suffered and need a home.... This is a myth, and Zionists are criminals."
Mr. Netanyahu continued about Mr. Ahmadinejad, "Perhaps some of you think this man and his odious regime only threaten the Jews. Well, if you think that, you are wrong, dead wrong. What starts as attacks on Jews always ends up engulfing others."
Thank you Prime Minister! I’m glad someone has some concept of what the word ‘precedent’ means. How quickly the world forgets the ability of a few (or even one) crazy leaders, whose powers are left unhindered, who are given countless ‘warnings’ and “sanctions’ that are never followed through, to accomplish devastating feats.
He concluded his remarks by citing Winston Churchill,
“Over seventy years ago, Winston Churchill lamented what he called the “confirmed unteachability of mankind,” the unfortunate habit of civilized societies to sleep until danger nearly overtakes them. Churchill bemoaned what he called the “want of foresight, the unwillingness to act when action will be simple and effective, the lack of clear thinking, the confusion of counsel until emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong.”
I speak here today in the hope that Churchill’s assessment of the “unteachability of mankind” is for once proven wrong. and his warnings about mounting threats in the run-up to World War II. The question facing the international community is whether it is prepared to confront these forces or just accommodate them,"
(for a great read about the background history of this Churchill speech, read this insightful commentary by Rick Richman:
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/richman/104831 )
And that is the main question isn’t it? Sadly so far, we have pathetically answered that question. For years the world has given Iran warning after warning, all of which have proven to be empty and baseless. Diplomacy has come to be defined as words with no actions behind them- and now we wonder why Ahmandinejad prances around unhindered, unapologetic and flatout dismissive of any further threats and sanctions proposed for his country.
On Friday, President Obama, Prime Minister Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy threatened tough new sanctions against Iran after they publicly revealed that Tehran was building a second nuclear enrichment plant. According to US intelligence, the plant’s size and structure is consistent with enriching fuel to make nuclear weapons.
Threatening is nice, but really rather pointless. This is an opportunity for the United States and the world body to turn the tide in international relations. If we hope for the United Nations to ever have any type of worth, words need to be followed through on with actions.
So far in his Presidency, Obama has seemed more concerned with being ‘liked’ by insane world leaders (Chavez, Ahmandinejad, Qaddafi) than protecting the security and freedoms of the United States, its allies and suppressed peoples around the world. His words and actions, in response to Iran’s latest defiance, will have unmeasurable repercussions.
