Tomorrow, February 11th, is the 31st anniversary of the Iranian Revolution, in which the Ayatollah Khomeini and his forces overthrew the U.S. backed government. Tomorrow could also mark the failure of President Obama’s diplomatic efforts toward Iran. Obama came into office promising to speak with Iranian leaders “without preconditions” and jumpstart a process that would convince Iran to backtrack on their nuclear ambitions. Obama set a deadline for Iran to stop their nuclear program by the end of 2009. After a year in office, our relationship with Iran has only declined. Instead of rolling back their nuclear problem, Iran has continued to enrich uranium, necessary for a nuclear weapon, at higher levels than they have previously attempted. In addition, Khomeini has promised that on their anniversary tomorrow they will “punch the [Western powers] in a way that will leave them stunned.”
It is more than likely that tomorrow will not be the end of the world as some of my students seemed to think I was implying. But a declaration by Iran that they have already acquired a nuclear weapon or are much further ahead in the process than Western intelligence agencies have indicated will show Obama’s diplomatic route to have failed. How can an apocalyptic tyrant who believes that the Islamic Messiah will be ushered onto the world stage by starting a worldwide war be tolerated? How can a man who denies that the Holocaust happened and desires the destruction of Israel be allowed to hold the means of their destruction? In the end, it would be because Obama is a naive amateur who believes that radical Muslims only hate us because of Bush’s foreign policy and that once we stop meddling in the Middle East they will have a change of heart. Hopefully Obama will prove me wrong and show some backbone when dealing with Iran, but his track record so far shows that he is much more interested in bowing to world leaders than standing up to them.
UPDATE: Iran announced today that it had produced its first batch of enriched uranium, which can provide the fuel necessary for a nuclear weapon. They continue to say that they have no desire to build a nuke, but Hitler said he didn’t want any more land in Europe either. We know where believing him got us!
