Iran: The Existential Threat
06 September 2014
By Ken Blackwell
Nothing could be more damaging to America’s long-term security interests than
aligning with the murderous regime of Tehran in any way for any purpose. The
phrase that best describes the theocratic regime in Tehran is hostis humani
generis—enemies of all mankind. This Latin term is applied in international law
to terrorists, pirates, and slave traders. It fits this regime’s rule well.
Iran is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. It is a major persecutor
of religion. In today’s Iran, Christians, Jews, Baha’i, Zoroastrians, and
minority Muslim sects are actively suppressed and terrorized. Pastor Saeed
Abedini was sentenced to eight years in a filthy prison, beaten and abused for
“threatening the national security of Iran.” His crime: He started an orphanage!
Our own State Department reports on the full range of human rights abuses in
Iran. These include:
“disappearances; cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, including
judicially sanctioned amputation and flogging; politically motivated violence
and repression, such as beatings and rape; harsh and life-threatening conditions
in detention and prison facilities, with instances of deaths in custody;
arbitrary arrest and lengthy pretrial detention, sometimes incommunicado;
continued impunity of security forces; denial of fair public trials, sometimes
resulting in executions without due process…”
Nor should it be forgotten that Iran publicly hangs homosexuals. Add to this
catalogue of abuses even more from the State Department:
“…Violence against women, children, ethnic and religious minorities, and
lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons based on perceived sexual
orientation and gender identity;”
What other evidence is needed to label them justly “enemies of all mankind?”
The regime’s savagery is real and growing. No other nation so regularly calls
for the physical elimination of the United States or its neighbor, Israel. No
other nation is so actively seeking nuclear weapons.
Do we dare to dismiss their genocidal threats as bluster?
In Paris this week, groups of Iranian exiles, U.S. and European
parliamentarians, military experts, and diplomats will meet to discuss ways to
neutralize or change the regime in Iran.
Event organizers have announced that American participants include Gen. George
Casey, Michael Mukasey, Marc Ginsberg, Amb. John Bolton, Gov. Ed Rendell, and
Frances Townsend. Topics will include: deteriorating human rights situation in
Iran, Tehran’s nuclear weapons program, and the fate of Iranian refugees at Camp
Liberty in Iraq.
If this conclave can reach consensus, and , if they can persuade the Western
democracies to take concerted action, we may yet avert the most terrible
conflict since the Second World War.
Every day the Mullahs’ regime spinning centrifuges bring them a step closer to
having a nuclear weapon. Iran’s former president, Mahmoud Ahamdinejad publicly
declared he could foresee “a world without the United States.” And he dismissed
Israel as “a two-bomb country.”
The Washington Post earlier this month informed us of the stalling of nuclear
talks with Iran:
Iran says such experiments--detailed in documents obtained by Western spy
agencies--never occurred, but it has refused to allow IAEA officials near the
site since 2005. Satellite photos in recent weeks have shown major renovation
underway at the site, with several buildings razed and soil removed near the
place where the alleged test chamber once stood. Iran has consistently said that
its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, not making weapons.
The report, which was carried by the “nuclear watchdog” group, was seemingly
muffled by this dismissive treatment. Who will hear a watchdog whose bark is so
dangerously disregarded?
Iran’s regime must change or be changed. There is no peace, no safety possible
with such a cohort of “enemies of all mankind.” This is why we must look to the
Paris talks this week as a key indicator of Western resolve.
We will observe in July one hundred years since Europe’s leaders marched “like
sleepwalkers” over the cliff and into the cataclysm of the Great War.
That devastating world war left empires shattered, civilizations in ruins, and
unleashed the forces of Arab nationalism and religious and ideological fury.
It cost the world twenty million dead.
But that is a lower estimate of what Iran might do if it obtains nuclear
weapons. There is no crisis—not Ukraine, not Nigeria, not Sudan, not the
Israeli-Arab conflict—that is more threatening than the Iranian Mullahs with
nuclear weapons.
The cause is mankind. Nothing less.
This and other articles by Ken Blackwell can be read at
Townhall.com
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