Debt Free

Today's the day Mohammad took the trek to the furthest mosque, way out in Jerusalem. Naturally such a difficult journey deserves commemoration, and that's just what Iranian president and current Middle Eastern Head Whack Job, Ahmadinajead (بعض [هيتلر] الثانية) is proposing. Or is he?

The whole thing actually got started when Farid Ghadry, head of the Reform Party of Syria, wrote a quick little ditty on the Media Line web site claiming that the U.S. State department take the night of the 22nd seriously. Why? Because that's the Night of the Sira’a and Miira'aj on the Islamic calender. The night Prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven from the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on a Bourak. After a little jaunt through heaven and hell, he made a graceful touchdown at Mecca.

What Ahmadinajead proposed is that, as an answer to the uranium question, he'd deliver a light in the sky over the site of Mohammed's ascension. He picked the date of his response, August 22^nd, to coincide with it. So he may be proposing a commemoration, but he really wants to lead the west, and the rest of the Arab world, down his little, predetermined path that culminates in his supreme control over all things in the region. If it takes a little fission demonstration, oh well.

His neighbors in the region should be even more afraid than those in the west, as his goal is subjugation of the whole peninsula, with some of the surrounding areas thrown in for good measure. He'll have the oil, demand for which isn't likely to ebb any time soon. Ahmadinajead is thus ensured a revenue source for years to come. China, whose demand for petro products is climbing, according to a CBO report, between 3.5% and 5.8% annually for the foreseeable future, will contribute mightily to those revenues. A major fly in the world's ointment is precisely this Chinese demand for oil and other petro products. Their ballooning economy depends on an unobstructed flow of crude from, among other places, Iran. Not wanting to let their economic engine misfire, they'll do what's necessary to ensure that flow.

So what we may be looking at in the not too distant future, is a shift in the economic and political order of things. A strange partnership of China and Iran, in bed together like two sex crazed teenagers that aren't really too enamored of one another, but are too physically attracted to each other to stop. For the Chinese, their insatiable demand for oil was initiated by the burgeoning development caused by their shift to becoming the world's producer. Who are they producing for? Well, the U.S. of course.

That is the conundrum facing the U.S. We are flat on our backs with the Chinese as well. Our demand for cheap goods has a long history, but as price pressures on marketers becomes ever stronger, and China's production capacity has become more sophisticated, the flow of Chinese goods through Bentonville, among other places, has reached epic proportions. American consumers are addicted to inexpensive Chinese products like a drug, and are unlikely to switch to Methadone any time soon. As the quality of Chinese goods improves, they continue to tighten their hold on American consumers.

So here's where we may be in a few years. Ahmadinajead, having made good on his promise to eliminate that thorn in his side, Israel, now runs the Middle East. The U.S., having grown into a left-leaning nation unwilling to fight for anything because someone might get hurt, now kowtows to His Nuclearness. China, having assumed the role of the world's preeminent economic and military power (using money they obtained from U.S. consumers), happily slurps up the Middle Eastern oil provided by Iran, courtesy of the Iranian Confederation of States, consisting of old Saudi Arabia, old Iraq, and old Kuwait (we're not going back there again). Syria, having no real oil, is Iran's buffer state to the west. Ahmadinajead uses his power to quell Sunni rebellion throughout the region, in a manner similar to Sadam's oppression of the Shia.

It is indeed fortunate that different attitudes existed in the U.S. 70 years ago, lest we be speaking Deutsch today. In today's political climate, we may never make the difficult choices necessary to be victorious against a powerful enemy. The tools and strategies we used to emerge on the side of victory in the Second World War would be eschewed by many on the left, and thus our defeat of evil in that time would be very much in doubt, much as it is today. Moral equivalence renders all life equally valuable, thus you cannot take life, when necessary, to ensure your survival.

To those on the far west side of the political spectrum, peace means only the absence of war, not the liberty necessary for a true peace. If Ahmadinajead continues his posturing, and the rest of the world allows him to negotiate his way into a nuclear arsenal, we can only hope someone ultimately steps up to the plate who can stop him. The only other alternative, if he continues to emulate Hitler in the 1930's, is to hope he too has his own Barbarossa, with similar results. If that fails, Ahmadinajead backed Muslim extremists could make our world a rather rough place.