A great speech?

Here's a speech, short and to the point, that calls for the international community to focus on the dangerous actions of Iran and North Korea and, for once, do something about them. The speech was made by French president Nicholas Sarkozy, to the UN Security Council.

There is a problem, of course: Sarko says now is the time to decide what to do; that if we want a world without nuclear weapons, we can't let the international rules be violated. But all he's talking about is sanctions.

Why anyone would think sanctions would dissuade the Iranians and North Koreans from pursuing nuclear weapons is a mystery to me. Yet that's the only thing the international community, led by the United States, can come up with.

Liberal fascism

I finally read Jonah Goldberg's 2007 book, Liberal Fascism, and recommend it to anyone who is curious about where ideas come from and how history can be distorted for political and philosophical reasons.

As I recall, I learned in high school that the American Progressive movement flourished in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, then petered out. Goldberg shows that this was far from the case. The Progressives instead became an important current in the Democratic party.

Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama come from this tradition which, as Goldberg points out, has ideals, goals and techniques in common with fascist movements. No, he doesn't argue that these or other Americans were fascists - but he points out similarities and links which were in fact noted at the time.

This is a history book, not a polemic, and Goldberg has done his research.

Crush Honduras

Yup, there's a serious threat to U.S. national security. You might name Iran, or the war in Afghanistan, or maybe North Korea - but you would be SOOO wrong. It's none of the above.

It's the current regime in Honduras. The United States has been consistently hostile to it; has called publicly for its demise; and has applied all kinds of sanctions, from withdrawing U.S. funds to denying U.S. visas to prominent Hondurans, including all members of the Supreme Court.

Now, the latest: the United States, along with the Organization of American States, will not accept the outcome of presidential elections in November unless former President Manuel Zelaya gets his job back. As Zelaya was thrown out of office since he wanted to be President for Life, this arrangement might seem a bit odd. The OAS, however, says he would only have limited authority.

I'm looking forward to the bestseller that explains how we got into this mess. Particularly since we so proud of not 'meddling' in Iran. I hope it names names!

Nazis and the Mideast

The pro-Nazi past of key Arab leaders like the Mufti of Jerusalem remains a hot topic. A recent exhibition in Berlin was cancelled because it detailed the links between the Nazis and the Mufti, who led the opposition to the return of Jews to Palestine and the establishment of a Jewish state, as well as to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Nor were those links purely pragmatic: rather, the Mufti and the Brotherhood shared the goal of exterminating the Jews.

So why is this ancient history so explosive? Because it reverses the narrative of why there was so much resistance to establishing the State of Israel.

As the exhibition's author, Mr. Rössel, said "I wonder why the people who so one-sidedly regard Israel as the region's main problem never consider how the Mideast conflict would have developed had it not been influenced by fascists, anti-Semites and people who had just returned from their Nazi exile."

When, did you say?

Matthew and I were just talking about the latest revelation of a 'secret' Iranian nuclear facility in the city of Qom. Secret is indeed a term of art; it means secret from the public, not from the U.S. government, which has known about it since 2002.

There are two aspects to this puzzling announcement. First, it does make you wonder about our intelligence estimates. In 2007, the U.S. intelligence community concluded that Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and kept it frozen. In 2007, we had known for five years about the 'secret' facility - so how could we have reached such a conclusion?

As for the second aspect: why is the Obama administration so confident that it can persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear program by using diplomacy perhaps backed by sanctions? Wouldn't you think that the existence of at least one 'secret' undeclared nuclear facility would suggest otherwise?

Betrayal with a capital 'B'

Well, like a slow-motion crash, the Obama Administration finally dumped the missile defense system that was to be installed in Poland and the Czech Republic. The reason: we don't need it, because Iran's long-range missile program isn't on track. Instead, we're going to concentrate on short- and medium-range missile defense systems.

This news broke the same day that the International Atomic Energy Administration (IAEA) announced it now believes Iran can build a nuclear weapon and is likely to 'overcome problems' on developing a delivery system.

I don't know whether our technical assessment of the threat is accurate. (Remember how good our intelligence has been on other threats? But I digress.) If the more immediate threat is the shorter-range missiles, then by all means we should protect against them. But to dismiss the other threat strikes me as short-sighted in the extreme.

I also don't know if the Russians will deliver a quid pro quo for this obvious concession. They're unlikely to support sanctions against Iran; as recently as last week Russian prime minister Putin's spokesman said sanctions were out of the question, especially since there were "no grounds to doubt" that Iran's nuclear program was purely peaceful - dazzling mendacity, especially given the IAEA report.

I also have no idea if there's any way to regain the trust of the Poles and Czechs, our good allies in both Iraq and Afghanistan, now we've pulled the rug out from under their feet so unceremoniously (we did, after all, sign agreements with them, for what the word of the United States is worth). In particular, it's a great way to celebrate the anniversary of the Soviet invasion and partition of Poland in 1939.

When we 'betrayed' Poland at Yalta, at least we had the reasonable excuse of not wanting to take on the Red Army which had already occupied Poland. There's absolutely no excuse this time around.

The international literary circuit

The prestigious Berlin Literature Festival kicked off on September 9 with a speech by Indian writer and activist Arundhati Roy. Here, if you have the stomach for it, is a brief analysis of her remarks by Clemens Heni and myself. It's the latest of the anti-capitalist, anti-American, anti-Zionist rants that pass for wisdom in many intellectual circles. Enjoy!