Guns of August, 1939? Iran’s confrontation with the IAEA over
the Natanz nuclear fuel facility has triggered a genuine crisis in
the European Union — a war-worrying, back-stabbing, bush-whacking,
America-launch-on-warning crisis. Daniel Dombey, the Financial
Times diplomatic correspondent at Brussels, told me last night
that the definition of a crisis is when there is no acceptable
solution. EU Foreign Secretary Javier Solana is talking like a
Texas cowboy. Line in the sand. Britain’s Straw, Germany’s
Steinmeyer, France’s Douste-Blazy, meeting in heated, whispery
emergency session in this news cycle, have declared talks with Iran
at a “dead end.” Russia also shows profound frustration and
confusion with Iran’s adamancy, and the opaque RU foreign secretary
Lavrov has signaled support for the EU crowd’s aim to refer Iran to
the UN Security Council.
Guns of August, 1939? Iran’s Regime is savvy, well-financed
beyond imagination, hostile, paranoid, and motivated with an
apocalyptic vision of paradise. Ahmadinejad’s declarations that he
wants Israel wiped off the map, that the Holocaust is a lie, that
the United States is the great Satan, are sincere expressions of
his and his cabinet’s hallucinatory thinking. The Iranian
Revolutionary Guards Council has just lost its aggressive chief and
ruthless intelligence chief in a plane crash, and their
replacements will redouble the IRGC capability for mischief and
aggression.
Guns of August, 1939? The United States policy is to join with
the EU and the Security Council to threaten Iran with trade
sanctions and other non-military punishment. The PRC is the one
mystery card, but China has never used its veto on the Security
Council without the support of one other permanent member. France
and Russia, very good customers of Iran’s oil money, are not
presently available to give China cover.
Guns of August, 1939? History does not offer a model where
political or economic sanctions work to back down a revolutionary
military power intent on dominating its region. Not the
Bonapartists. Not the Confederacy. Not the Prussians. Not the
Nazis. Not the Japanese militarists. Not the Soviets. Not the
Maoists. Not the Baathists. Not the jihadists. No model works short
of gunplay.
Guns of August, 1939? Many sources confirm that Natanz contains
a secret underground facility with a cascade of centrifuges capable
of manufacturing 90% enriched fissile material. Many sources
confirm that Iran has the capability of a multistage ballistic
missile. Many sources confirm that Iran has the plans and intention
to miniaturize a nuclear warhead for a ballistic missile.
Guns of August, 1939? The numbers tell the tale succinctly:
light sweet crude neared $65 per barrel in New York, entirely on
the Iran nuke news. And in the event of any retaliation by Iran to
an economic sanction or the eventual logical scenario of a
blockade, a barrel of light sweet crude has no calculable price at
this time.
Guns of August, 1939? It is September 1938. Appeasement?
Concessions? Contest? Europe failed the test, and the German tanks,
after one one swift, mass murdering year, massed at the Polish and
Belgian borders the last weeks of August, 1939, and then the
apocalypse.
