Some talk is too much, some not enough

I’m really sick of politics. Is anybody else? If so, I’ve got some advice for us all. We’d better get over it in about five seconds, because things are hot right now and they’re only ramping up as the rhetoric gets more tense and the gamesmanship more ridiculous at the United Nations. They’re playing politics.

We’re facing potential military confrontations with renegades who are developing nuclear weapons. And the UN Security Council keeps stalling for time and pushing out deadlines for Iran to halt its uranium enrichment program. Russia, China and France are unwilling to impose any “meaningful” sanctions, and the only hands that don’t seem tied are Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s. Who was busy this week, by the way, ranting against the U.S., along with Venezuala’s Hugo Chavez, up at the podium in the U.N. General Assembly.

What in the world is going on?! And why should you be concerned about this?

Two answers, for now.

Here’s one scenario that might play out as a consequence of Iran’s nuclear buildup. The analysis goes through a likely chain of events and into a dark wrapup.

Then there is the larger danger of permitting nuclear weapons to be acquired by religious fanatics seized with an eschatological belief in the imminent apocalypse and in their own divine duty to hasten the End of Days. The mullahs are infinitely more likely to use these weapons than anyone in the history of the nuclear age. Every city in the civilized world will live under the specter of instant annihilation delivered either by missile or by terrorist. This from a country that has an official Death to America Day and has declared since Ayatollah Khomeini’s ascension that Israel must be wiped off the map.

Is this over the top hyperbole? Who knows. But it’s disturbing because it’s plausible. What deterrence stands against it right now?

That brings up the second answer mentioned above. Reasons to be concerned about this fill the pages of a book I recommend to you, particularly now. It’s The U.N. Exposed; How the United Nations Sabotages America’s Security by Fox Newsman Eric Shawn.

The United Nations is broken. That is no longer a partisan issue.

That’s from Shawn’s introduction. He quotes a bi-partisan task force that investigated the U.N., led by former Democratic Senator George Mitchell and former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a task force “that recommended an overhaul of the crippled institution.”

Gingrich makes clear that the U.N.’s most pressing challenge is global security…”The longer we use words to disguise and to hide and to avoid, the greater the danger that regimes are going to end up using weapons of mass destruction, and then we will look back with horror at events that are radically more dangerous than 9/11…

“I’m really worried about the Iranians. [They] are being about as clear as they can humanly be. They get nukes, they intend to wipe out Israel.” The Security Council has taken, he said, “no action that has any meaning in the real world. If we lose Tel Aviv one morning, looking back on a U.N. Security Council resolution will not be very useful.”

“How many meetings of the Security Council to arrange a meeting do we need?” he asks.

Exactly. I asked that for several months on “The Right Questions.” It’s getting even darker now in the Middle East. Keep your eye on Iran.