HOTDAM II: Jesus and AA

HOw To Dismantle an Atomic Mullah, or, as it has been classified, Operation HOTDAM; continues with the second in the multi-part series:
PHASE II
Lessons from Jesus and AA

Now that we know what we do not have to worry about when dealing with Iran, we begin Phase II with a little help from, of all places, Alcoholics Anonymous. Where Phase I was more a survey of the landscape, Phase II is our actual first "step", and like AA, the first step is to admit that we have a problem.

The end of Phase I sees Halliburton, only half-jokingly, called a possible hindrance to removal of the mullahs. Building on that, we will soon find out if our President has the guts to stand up to bureaucracy and special interests like he has stood up to the "evil doers". Unlike those that Bush called out with his now famous "Bring it on" challenge, the new enemy of the Bush doctrine has sustained almost no casualties and is rapidly preparing for its own insurgency, on its own terms, and on battlefields of its choosing.

The State Department, although headed by a Bush favorite, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, is saturated with bureaucrats. Entrenched behind their desks and their own contexts, the soldiers of sated, multi-layered, management are much like the Japanese on Okinawa. Prepared to fight to the death for a losing cause, and so deeply rooted in ideology (and concrete bunkers) as to ignore what is right before their eyes. The Department of State and her fighters have undoubtedly forged alliances with other branches of the government; coalitions of the ensconced and self assured, we might call them. These enemies of freedom have infiltrated our institutions at all levels and pose a grave risk to everyone, especially, as their bad luck would have it, the Iranian people.

The Iranian citizens face all manner of injustice at the hands of the mullahs. Those who facilitate or even ignore the cruelty inflicted by the clerics of Tehran are duplicitous in their bloodshed. The Brotherhood of Bureaucracy and the Apostles of Appeasement have won many battles over the years, earned numerous concessions for dictators, tyrants and thugs, all in the name of stability; and because of this, America has been seen, many times rightly so, as hypocritical. Should George W. Bush back down now, at this critical moment, this Sternzeit der Menschheit(doesn't German just flow off the tongue?), freedom may again fall to the dark forces who pray to the gods of stability "uber alles". The people of Iran would become simply a line item to be totaled when calculating the overhead of our foreign policy. Left out to dry like yesterday's Kurdish laundry.

America can not be a hypocrite today. She put boots on the ground in two foreign countries in the name of freedom, should she distance herself from that worthy endeavor, and wander into the revival tent of hypocritical Saint Stability, America may never again be seen as a beacon of freedom and hope. George W. Bush professes his faith in Jesus, who taught ""No one, when he has lit a lamp, covers it with a vessel or puts it under a bed, but sets it on a lamp stand, that those who enter may see the light." The lamp of freedom has been lit, what W. does with it will tell us whether he is a hypocrite in the service of capitalists and bureaucrats or a man of deep faith who believes that freedom is "God's gift to mankind".

Recent history has shown us that people, as a whole, everywhere, value trust; and that they do not trust hypocrites. Far too long, America has been captive to the hypocrites of stability. "Better to sell out the Kurds than risk stability in the region or the coalition." We can almost hear the circle of influence whisper to the first President Bush. Today these same people and those who think like them will be urging President George W. Bush to talk to the mullahs, "freedom is a great reason to go to war, but it's not a viable foreign policy" they'll say. When, in fact, it is the only real foreign policy of any true substance.

Recent history has also taught another very important lesson, and it is this; people, on the whole, everywhere, value basic human freedoms. Free from state enforced religions, free to speak out, and ensured of the basic human rights, the world's citizens would turn current reality on its head.

The people of the middle east have seen their own Berlin wall collapse: the Taliban is out of power in Afghanistan, the Iraqis risked their lives to take part in the world's most important mass expression of faith in freedom, and the people of Iran are poised for their own brand of regime change. This momentum is America's best weapon and the world's greatest hope in the war between those who wish for a peaceful coexistence and those who would forcefully apply, state mandated Islamofascism. Squandered, and this powerful wave of momentum will be almost impossible to re-establish.

Bowing to the pressure of bureaucracy and continuing to recognize and deal with the tyrants of Tehran will convince the world that America is still run by hypocrites. "Bush II is no better than his father" will be their disheartened cry, as the veil is lowered over the middle east for decades again. George W. Bush says he is a recovered alcoholic. We will shortly discover if he learned anything in that struggle. The first step in dismantling an atomic mullah, is to admit that you have a problem and then to decide that you want to dismantle one.