Michael Ledeen, a well-known scholar of fascism and authority on Iran, had a must-read piece in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend, in which he asked, why, given the lessons of the 20th century, do we not confront the "regimes - from Hezbollah and al Qaeda to the Iranian Khomeinists and the Saudi Wahhabis - who swear to destroy us and others like us."
Ledeen writes:
This is not merely a philosophical issue, for to accept the threat to us means - short of a policy of national suicide - acting against it. As it did in the 20th century, it means war. It means that, temporarily at least, we have to make sacrifices on many fronts: in the comforts of our lives, indeed in lives lost, in the domestic focus of our passions - careers derailed and personal freedoms subjected to unpleasant and even dangerous restrictions - and the diversion of wealth from self-satisfaction to the instruments of power. All of this is painful; even the contemplation of it hurts.....
...Then, as now, the initiative lies with the enemies of the West. Even today, when we are engaged on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, there is little apparent recognition that we are under attack by a familiar sort of enemy, and great reluctance to act accordingly. This time, ignorance cannot be claimed as an excuse. If we are defeated, it will be because of failure of will, not lack of understanding. As, indeed, was almost the case with our near-defeat in the 1940s.
The enemy Ledeen so brilliantly describes continues to forge partnerships around the globe. The Bolivian Congress just approved the agreement between President Evo Morales and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last September that would invest over $1 billion in Bolivia's energy and agricultural industries. (Note: Thanks to an online translator we were able to decipher the news.) In a recent phone conversation between the two presidents, Ahmadinejad praised Bolivia for its "resistance against internal and foreign conspiracies."
And last Friday, Hugo Chavez's Venezuelan military fired live missiles from Russian-made fighter plane. The televised exercise showed off the new military equipment bought under Chavez. The test was an apparent success. "Our defense policy is oriented toward preserving our territorial integrity," Defense Minister Gustavo Rangel Briceno said in comments on state television. "The missiles hit their target showing the operational capacity of the armed forces."
