The Foundation for Constitutional Democracy

Перевод Аркадия Гинзбурга. Translation by Arkadiy Ginzburg.

Иран находится в состоянии войны с Соединёнными Штатами и Израилем в течение тридцати лет – с момента Итранской революции, начатой аятоллой Хомейни в 1979 году. Я осмелюсь предсказать, что эта революция чревата самыми серьёзными последствиями в истории человечества. Иран – это эпицентр международного терроризма. Его конечная цель, однако, состоит в том, чтобы восстановить Персидскую империю и распространить ислам шиитского толка на весь мир. И это не просто фантазия.

Иран сейчас контролирует южный Ирак, включая Басру, из которой Ирак отправляет свою нефть через Ормузский пролив. Весь Ирак достанется Ирану, как только американцы покинут страну. Между тем, Иран оказывает решающее влияние на Сирию. Подчинённая Ирану Хезболла фактически управляет Ливаном. Хамас – это другая иранская марионетка, и Тегеран направляет свои взоры на контролируемую Фатх’ом Палестинскую автономию.

По всеобщему признанию, Иран контролирует мировой поток нефти, проходящий через Персидский залив. Этот народ с населением 70 миллионов человек может вызвать крушение всей мировой экономики. Если экономическая мощь Ирана будет поддержана наличием ядерного оружия, которое находится в процессе разработки, то Иран будет контролировать и Средний Восток, и много чего ещё. (more…)

Alexander Hamilton was regarded by no less than Talleyrand as the greatest statesman of his age, greater than Pitt, Fox, and Napoleon. Hamilton was not only George Washington’s Secretary of the Treasury, he was, in effect, Washington’s “prime minister.” He wrote most of Washington’s “Farewell Address,” widely regarded as America’s greatest state paper.

Hamilton’s state papers on Manufactures and on a National Bank contributed greatly to America’s ascendancy as the most powerful nation on earth. No less significant are his contributions to The Federalist Papers, whose essays on presidential government are unsurpassed in depth and clarity. Would that Israel had statesmen to assimilate Hamilton’s wisdom and apply it to the reconstruction of Israel’s decrepit system of multiparty cabinet government.

But I have another reason for speaking of Hamilton, especially now in the context of a secret war that has been going on between the United States and Iran since 1979.

Let’s first go back to 1793, when France was under the Directory, which in fact was a military dictatorship. The issue arose as to whether the United States should accord the French government diplomatic recognition. (more…)

Edited transcript of the Eidelberg Report, Israel National Radio, November 17, 2008.

John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is a man of superlative intellect, political integrity and moral clarity. Germany’s President Angela Merkel told President George W. Bush, “I like your ambassador to the UN more than I like mine…. I understand [him] much better than my own. I’ve been thinking about having your ambassador represent Germany.”

What follows is based very much on Chapter 12 of Bolton’s book Surrender is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad (2007). The chapter is entitled “Iran in the Security Council: The EU-3 Finds New Ways to Give In.” EU-3 stands for Britain, France, and Germany—three members of the European Union. Despite Bolton’s heroic efforts, the EU-3 failed to obtain Security Council resolutions calling for serious sanctions against Iran’s nuclear weapons program, a program that violated the International Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Unfortunately, Bolton was encumbered by Colin Powell, secretary of state during George W. Bush’s first term, and Condoleezza Rice, who succeeded Powell during Bush’s second term. Neither of these secretaries of state possessed an adequate understanding of Iran. Iran is the key player of the “axis of evil.” Iranian control of the oil flowing through the Persian Gulf would make it a superpower if this nation of 70 million people produced nuclear weapons. Imagine how Islamism would skyrocket throughout the world if Iran obtained, through its proxies, control of Jerusalem. (more…)

Iran has been at war with the United States and Israel for thirty years—ever since the Iranian Revolution initiated by the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979. I dare say this is the most far-reaching revolution in human history. Iran is the epicenter of international terrorism. Its ultimate goal, however, is to restore the Persian Empire and spread Shia Islam throughout the world. This is not a mere fantasy.

Iran now controls southern Iraq, including Basra from which Iraq ships its oil through the Strait of Hormuz. All of Iraq will fall to Iran once the Americans leave. Meanwhile, Iran is gaining decisive influence on Syria. Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah, virtually rules Lebanon. Hamas is another Iranian proxy, and Tehran has its sights on the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority.

Of global significance, Iran controls the world’s spigot of oil flowing through the Persian Gulf, This nation of 70 million people can wreck the world’s economy. If Iran’s economic power is backed by nuclear weapons—in process of development—Iran will control the Middle East, and much more. (more…)

Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, says, “Every [American] citizen interested in our survival as a free and safe country should read [Norman Podhoretz] World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism, 2007, 2008.”

I fully agree, and would only add, please do so before the November election.—Paul Eidelberg

Former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich and former CIA Director R. James Woolsey express the highest praise for Norman Podhoretz’s book World War IV: The Long Struggle Again Islamofascism (NY: Vintage: 2007, 2008).

Iran, a nation of 70 million people, is the epicenter of Islamofascism. Its government may deploy nuclear weapons in less than a year. Senator Barack Obama regards Iran as a mere “nuisance.” This is enough to indicate that an Obama presidency would be disastrous.

Obama is so infatuated with his oratorical skills that he thinks he can persuade Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to halt Iran’s development of nuclear weapons. The junior senator of Illinois Obama ignores the fact that five years of American and European diplomacy and sanctions have only given Iran five more years to develop a nuclear arsenal. (more…)

Former CIA covert operative Robert Baer asserts that Iran, an Islamic nation of 70 million people, is building an empire in the Middle East, believing it should be the “citadel of Islam.” He warns that Iran is probably months away from war with Israel. That’s the message of his new book, “The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower.”

Baer argues that Iran so situated that it may have more ability to alter America’s destiny than China or Russia. “With Chinese Silkworm missiles pointed toward the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has the ability to cripple the world economy in a matter of minutes by shutting down the flow of oil. That’s even before it gains a nuclear missile.”

Apparently, Baer regards Iran not as a messianic terror group such as al-Qaida, but as a nation with imperial aspirations like the former Soviet Union. “Historic compulsions inspire Iran’s leaders to re-create a Persian empire throughout the Middle East and Central Asia.”

This is dangerously misleading. Islam has always been a messianic terrorist entity with imperial aspirations. In his superb book Islamic Imperialism, Efraim Karsh documents Islam’s world-historic aspirations as follows: (more…)

Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin may lose the November election unless they speak like real mavericks and distinguish their political positions more sharply from those of their mediocre opponents. They are trailing in the polls for several reasons. The most decisive reason is their own mediocre performance. They are preoccupied too much with bread-and-butter issues on which they cannot score many points. Most significant, however, is their avoidance of the paramount issue confronting America, an issue that transcends the present economic crisis but which can arouse and inspire most Americans.

America is at war. To win this war we need to understand ourselves as well as the enemy. This is a two-fold task that McCain and Palin have failed to address in a serious way.

The enemy is not Islamic extremists that have hijacked Islam. Brave women such as Dr. Wafa Sultan, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Brigitte Gabriel, born and raised respectively in Syria, Somalia, and Lebanon, have shown that the enemy is simply Islam, a bellicose religion whose disciples have slaughtered 270 million “infidels” since the time of Muhammad. (more…)

Identifying the enemy is a precondition of fighting and winning any war—and the United States and Israel are at war with the same enemy. Indeed, the strategic issue of the presidential election, the issue that most clearly divides Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain, is precisely their different views of the enemy. It may even be said that Obama lacks any serious conception of the enemy!

Perhaps no one has understood the enemy of the United States better than Lee Harris. His book Civilization and Its Enemies is a classic, and unless its insights are internalized by the next President of the United States, Western civilization, now on the slippery slope, may perish.

Harris mentions two kinds of enemies. “First, the enemy is someone whom we have mistreated and oppressed. Second, the enemy is someone who demands to be recognized for his superiority.” The second describes Islam, which regards all “infidels” as sub-human.

If the enemy was simply an oppressed group fighting to have equal recognition of his status vis-à-vis other groups, his enmity could be eliminated or gradually abated by granting him the status he is seeking. (more…)

A. Introduction

1. Israel is confronted by implacable foes. This is not well understood or acknowledged by many who profess support for Israel, most importantly, the President of the United States. By advocating a Palestinian state, Mr. Bush reveals that he—like countless others, including Jews—does not understand the nature of Islam, He foolishly calls Islam “a religion of peace,” even though it is obviously a religion of war, a religion whose believers have slaughtered some 270 million people since Muhammad. War or jihad has been the driving force of Islam for fourteen centuries. Islam is inherently implacable. This makes Islam an enemy of civilization as brilliantly articulated in Lee Harris, Civilization and its Enemies (2004).

2. As an implacable foe, Islam is animated by a hatred that can only be described as demonic—a hatred that cannot be assuaged, a hatred rooted in satanic evil. It is this hatred that impels Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to vow, again and again, to wipe Israel off the map. Such, however, is the moral decline of Western civilization, that the supposedly religious President of the United States allows this despot to enter the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave to address the United Nations.

3. Note the irony: the religious toleration for the most intolerant of religions in a country that excludes the Ten Commandments as well as the Menorah from the public sphere. (more…)

Three months from now, American citizens will be voting for the next President of the United States. They will be faced by the choice of voting for Senator John McCain or for Senator Barack Obama. This may well be the most momentous decision of their lives, for in the next few years Iran, if not prevented, will have nuclear weapons. With such weapons and the range of its current launching systems, Iran will dominate not only the Middle East and its enormous oil reserves, but also pacifist Europe on which the economy and therefore the way of life and even the survival of the United States ultimately depend.

So what should be going through the minds of Americans before they vote for Senator McCain or for Senator Obama?

To begin with, let us consider how one of America’s Founding fathers, James Wilson, thought about the general subject of voting.

James Wilson of Pennsylvania was one of six men who signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. His contribution to the deliberations of the Federal Constitutional Convention of 1787 was second only to that of James Madison. He was also the principal draftsman of Pennsylvania’s own constitution of 1790. (more…)

I never cease to be amazed and humbled by the number of pundits who, without any classified information, confidently prognosticate on global affairs, especially on the United States and Israel. So what is a political scientist like me to say when asked whether the U.S. or Israel is going to bomb Iran to prevent its development of nuclear weapons?

Almost any person who takes 9/11 seriously and has heard about Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s boast of a world without America and Israel, should be able to see that a nuclear-armed Iran would be a mortal threat to Western civilization. It requires no political scientist to see that a nuclear Iran would control the vast oil reserves of the Persian Gulf and cow an already cowed Europe. This, he would see, would be enough to devastate the American economy and bring the last bastion of freedom and human dignity to a miserable end. As for Israel, one nuclear strike would doom it to oblivion. Exit Judaism as well as Christianity.

Hence, I am asked: “Will Israel or the United States launch a preemptive attack on Iran, the epicenter of Islamic imperialism—horror of horrors that makes the imperialism of Nazi Germany appear as a minor affair in world history?” (more…)

Former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton recently raised the question of a possible Israeli attack on Iran. Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Bolton urged the US to aid Israel before, during, and after such an attack—if it should take place.

This may mean that Bolton does not believe a US attack on Iran is in the cards. Indeed, pundits report that Washington is opposed to an Israeli preemptive strike because it would “destabilize” the region. And what would a nuclear armed-Iran do to the region—especially now that Vladimir Putin (allied with Iran) is restoring the Cold War, largely by means of Russia’s oil and gas resources on which Europe is dependent?

What does all this mean for Israel? The continuance of a Kadima-led government can only spell further disaster—and not only because Kadima is committed to territorial retreat from Judea and Samaria. That very commitment signifies that the leaders of that ersatz party do not have the guts to deal with the Iranian threat. (more…)