I hope the young PLA officer who tried to disrupt my Thursday
night book signing isn’t shot for failing in such a farcical way.
It wasn’t his fault, really. The commissar who sent him out — in
civvies, of course — armed with such idiotic talking points is the
one who should suffer. If you’re still alive, lieutenant, go back
to your colonel and tell him that when you insist that China is
achieving democracy in a Chinese way, the argument is laughable —
as I demonstrated it to be Thursday — because democracy is
determined on the basis of objective criteria, not communist
solipsism. I’d be glad to send you these criteria — they’re what
we call the Bill of Rights — but you’d certainly be shot if
discovered reading them. Which kinda proves the point. Neither
subtle nor inscrutable, the Chicoms are on the offensive, and not
just at your local Barnes & Noble. Just look at last week’s
meeting of Beijing’s “Shanghai Cooperation Organization.”
The SCO — comprised of Russia, China, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan,
Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan — is the low-hanging fruit of China’s
assertion of hegemony over its neighbors. Russia is in to keep an
eye on China and join in whatever mischief making Putin can direct
in support of his own goals. There was a lot of SGO at the SCO last
week. India, Pakistan and Mongolia were all dragged in as
observers. If you saw the picture of Pakistan’s president and
India’s foreign minister lined up, grimly facing the camera, you
learned most of what you needed to know. But the guest who was
smiling most broadly was the man from Iran.
As I posted on
AmSpecBlog last Friday Mahmoud Ahmadinejad showed up — at Hu
Jintao’s invitation — to celebrate his diplomatic victories with
some of the nations that have helped produce them. His picture with
Hu is worth ten thousand words. And it’s easy to figure out why
Ahmadinejad is smiling. He arrived in Shanghai carrying with him
the cover Hu needs to protect Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
Ahmadinejad has been presented it on a silver platter by America
and the EU.
Held in confidence for several days before being published and
translated by
MEMRI, the EU’s offer of incentives to Iran — now endorsed by
us — contains some startling concessions to Iran. First among them
is that, “[The E.U. agrees] to halt discussion of Iran’s nuclear
portfolio in the U.N. Security Council, if negotiations are
restarted.” Saddam never had it so good. But then again he wasn’t
as smart as Ahmadinejad. He only had Jacques Chirac in his pocket.
But then again, so does Ahmadinejad.
The EUnuchs sold out to Saddam for oil contracts. Iran is going
them one better. As usual, the shopkeepers who rule Old Europe want
to profit from the wealth produced by oil, even if it’s money
soaked in the blood of victims of terror. Another “incentive”
granted Iran is the ability to buy civilian — i.e.,
EUnuch-subsidized — Airbus aircraft.
The language in the EU proposal to Iran grants Iran, “Civilian
aeronautic cooperation (including an option [for Iran] to purchase
civilian planes), and to lift restrictions [placed on] Iran
regarding the repair of these [Western-] made planes, and in this
way Iran will have the opportunity to acquire a fleet of new planes
for conveying passengers.” Airbus is in a world of hurt because its
huge new 555-passenger aircraft isn’t selling. The EUnuchs want to
sell enough to recover their 12 billion euro investment and make a
nice profit. They will do so by selling it to Iran and to China in
return for allowing Iran to achieve its nuclear weapons ambitions
(and whatever else Hu can demand of Iran). What could be worse? How
about security guarantees to Iran — diplomatic guarantees against
American military action to destroy Iran’s ability to produce nukes
— and even a regional security arrangement?
Reading on, the EUnuchs’ package proposes: “Support for the
establishment of a regional intergovernmental organization, to
include the countries of the region and other countries interested
in advancing the level of cooperation and dialogue on security
issues in the Persian Gulf, with the aim of creating security
agreements in the region and cooperation on important security
issues in the region, including guarantees of political power and
territorial integrity.” In short, the EUnuchs have signed on to an
Islamic caliphate in the Middle East ruled by Iran. And we have
endorsed it.
In return for all this, the EUnuchs ask Iran to promise to halt
enrichment of uranium during the negotiations, which — of course
— are open-ended. In response, Ahmadinejad says only that,
“Generally speaking, we regard this package as a step forward, and
we will give a response in due time based on the interests of the
people of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Even though the EUnuchs
have given him everything he wanted, he wants more. And he’ll get
more, from them and from China.
Shortly after 9-11, the President demanded that nations choose
between the terrorists and us. China has made a clear choice, and
it is the wrong one. The SCO isn’t yet a global alliance of
terrorist nations, but it may soon be. Whether it attains that
status depends on how much Iran is willing to pay to join. On
Sunday, the Iranian News Agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying, “The
SCO itself means sustainable security in half of the world while it
can serve a good pattern for others,” adding that it can connect
Asia to Europe. The pattern of the SCO is distinguishable from the
pattern of the Iranian Islamic caliphate it nurtures. For now.
TAS contributing editor Jed Babbin is the author
of Inside the Asylum: Why the UN and Old Europe Are
Worse Than You Think (Regnery, 2004) and, with Edward
Timperlake, Showdown: Why China Wants War With the United
States (Regnery, May 2006 — click here to obtain a free chapter).
