At this point, a Mothra joke seems inevitable – but also lame. Frankly, I’m not sure there’s anything I can say that adds incite or comfort to anyone after such a horrendous event.

Living in Manhattan, I’m always reminded of man’s ugliness. But I’ve forgotten about the arbitrary viciousness of Mother Nature. Looking at the devastation, from my cozy apartment, I can only think that there was someone in Japan doing that exact same thing when the quake hit. Sitting at home, drinking tea, in boxers.

Then it’s over.

Disaster rarely calls ahead.

We are all vulnerable to the whims of catastrophe, and as far as I can tell, there’s little wisdom to be gained from it.

Well, other than info for future planning.

Yep – we all know life is precious. But it’s also a sentence featuring ever-more-brutal methods of mayhem, and the hell in Japan just added another exclamation point.

Anyway, you’d think there are no winners in this tragedy, but you’re wrong.

If there’s one man who’s smiling broadly throughout, it has to be Kaddafi, who’s own cruel behavior has been lost in all the grim tsunami coverage – his viciousness buried under so many other stories of suffering.

If there’s anything to be gained from this terrible weekend, it’s that maybe someone might send a drone to Tripoli, and we can blame it on the weather.

Tonight: Mike Baker and S.E. Cupp.

Plus other stuff.

—–

Tagline: Right and wrong no longer exist.

IMDB: “A psychological thriller centered around a black-ops interrogator and an FBI agent who press a suspect terrorist into divulging the location of three nuclear weapons sets to detonate in the U.S.”

So the U.S. and Iran just had what’s been called “significant” talks concerning Tehran’s nuclear plans. The goal for us, was two fold: to get Iran to “shift course,” and to prove President Bush was an idiot for not negotiating with a gentleman who denies the Holocaust and wants to wipe Israel off the map.

So how tough have we been so far?

Well, while administration officials said that gaining access to Iran’s uranium enrichment facility is super important, we sure as heck won’t walk away from the table if they refuse (which they haven’t). And let’s not go too fast on those sanctions either.

That’s just rude.

So essentially, we’ve not only met with Iran without preconditions, but also, without any measurable objectives. Meaning, we’re okay leaving the table with less than what we arrived with. Well, if you wanted to show a sharp break from the days of old, giving in is a sure bet.

Could you imagine using this logic in a playground? Imagine surrendering the reigns of leadership of a grade school, just so you can chat with the most weaponized, belligerent bully. “Look, we don’t like you threatening to kill the Jewish kids, or your continued work on your massive numchuk factory – but we’re pleased you’re here to listen. More punch? It’s the kind you like! Sharkleberry fin!”

The good news is – these talks only lasted one day. If they’d gone on any longer, we probably would have returned the Louisiana Purchase.

(Iran had it originally, right?)

Lastly, the state department warns against making a snap judgment – for we should “evaluate the willingness of Iran to engage on these issues.”

Which leads me to my final thought: how come no one ever questions our willingness to engage?

Tonight, we’ve got the great actor Robert Carlyle! Also Diana Falzone, Clayton Morris and Jonathan Hoenig. Other stuff, too!

There were about fifteen of us—bloggers mostly, including my good friend, the brilliant blogger, Omri Ceren of Mere Rhetoric—gathered in the Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills.

Ambassador Dore Gold

Ambassador Gold, looking like a sleepy walrus, spoke in measured, diplomatic tones. But he was fiercely passionate and profoundly knowledgeable about Iranian history, culture, and diplomacy, past and present.

Point by point, Gold emphasized his main thesis:

The Iranian nuclear threat is not just a danger to Israel and the Middle East, but to the West. International complacency, as the Iranians reach the nuclear finish line, warned Gold, is deeply disturbing. This is a subject that should be in the headlines every single day, instead we are confronted with quietism, and yawns expressing an attitude of: “So what?”

The international community, explained Gold, points to Pakistan and North Korea as unstable regimes that possess nuclear weapons and yet they have been contained. Thus, why not view Iran in the same light?

The weakness of this argument reflects a misreading of Iran’s long term strategic goals. Neither Pakistan nor North Korea are attempting regional supremacy. Pakistan is focused on its bottomless conflict with India, and North Korea has no plans to conquer Japan; the Norks, in fact, are focused on maintaining their iron grip on the reins of power.

Iran, on the other hand, is an imperialist Islamic theocracy seeking to export their Shia revolution.

For instance, the Mullahs consider Bahrain to be a lost Persian province, and they also lay claim to slices of Iraq that are home to a Shia majority, including the holy cities of Nadjaf and Karballah. And of course, Iran has threatened, numerous times, to wipe Israel off the map. Further, unlike Pakistan or North Korea, there is no deterrence with Iran.

The Mullahs are prepared to sacrifice millions in order to achieve their expansionist aims.

This was proven during the bloody eight-year war with Iraq. The Iranians recovered territory snatched by Iraq after just two years, but chose to continue warfare for six long years at the cost of hundreds of thousands of Iranian lives.

The Revolutionary Guard used children—wearing plastic keys to heaven around their necks—as human minesweepers.

A regime that so callously murders its own young—martyrdom operations—is, by definition, capable of anything in the name of Allah.

Hence, the calculus of Cold War deterrence—Mutual Assured Destruction—no longer applies.

“Remember,” said Ambassador Gold, “there were no Communist suicide bombers.” Contrast this to the Arab Muslim world where suicide bombers and their families enjoy enormous status.

Iran, emphasized Ambassador Gold, is the world’s greatest exporter of terror. Through various, well-funded proxy armies—Hizbullah, Hamas, etc.—the Iranians have been kidnapping, torturing and killing Americans and Israelis since Ayatollah Khomenei’s Islamic revolution in 1979. And the West has never punished the Iranians for their murderous behavior. Thus the Iranians are encouraged to keep killing for there is never any payback.

The West consistently views Iranian behavior and intentions through the prism of Western values. This is a mistake the West repeats over and over again, refusing to learn from past experience. Gold’s book is filled with footnoted facts about countless Iranian outrages.

Ambassador Gold emphasized that, contrary to popular opinion, every American administration, from Carter to Obama—including George Bush—has engaged Iran in vigorous diplomacy. And every single administration has been snookered by the Iranians, who consider it perfectly acceptable to lie to the enemy. The Islamic doctrine of taquia, elevates this behavior to a religious duty.

And make no mistake about it, the Iranians are intractable in their belief that the West, Christians and Jews, are the eternal enemy.

Time and again, the Iranians have skillfully used dialog and diplomacy to buy time in order to achieve their regional ambitions.

Ambassador Gold would not comment on Israeli military plans for Iran. Nor would he be drawn into commenting on American military cooperation with Israel.

But Gold was quite adamant on two points:

1. Iran is determined to cross the nuclear finish line.

2. Sanctions cannot work.

On my notepad, I scribbled one word in bold script at the end of the briefing: Sobering.

I have always believed that military action is the only option that will be effective against the Mullahs. It’s not a pretty option, but it’s far better than allowing this cruel state to achieve nuclear breakout.

Ponder this scenario: if Iran achieves nuclear capability, transnational Islamic terrorism will be sheltered by a nuclear umbrella, a deterrence—military and diplomatic—that will shield them from any consequences of their terrorist outrages. Further, nuclear weapons—suitcase dirty bombs—will proliferate among non-state Islamic terrorists, and nuclear blackmail will become coin of the realm.

This scenario could easily tip the balance of world power in favor of the Islamist radicals who are determined to subjugate the West and bring about a barbaric 7th century Caliphite.

The laughter you hear over the soundtrack are the Iranians snickering at the credulity of the West.

Currently, the Iranians mock Obama, correctly sensing an administration whose only strategy is: “More talk.”

The Europeans, gutless appeasers, have turned a blind eye. The Russians and the Chinese enable the Iranians at most every turn.

So once again, as with Iraq’s Osirik nuclear reactor, it’s up to Israel to protect itself—and Western civilization.

Copyright © Robert J. Avrech

Photo: © Robert J. Avrech

To be fair, I actually gave the President credit in this March 26th opinion piece entitled “Is President Obama Turning The Tables on Iran?” See, it occurred to me that the President might be undertaking a very brilliant strategy toward the Islamic Republic. If the President offers the Iranian regime nothing but carrots and gets nothing but sticks in return, then the regime is exposed as the hard case it really is. Nobody could say the President hadn’t tried every means at his disposal to make peace.

The BusHitler isn’t around for the regime to hide behind anymore. Just the opposite, in fact. President Obama has gone out of his way to accommodate the regime in Tehran, and it is unacceptable for the Iranian government to only respond with continued contempt and hostility toward America and the Obama White House. They then become exposed for all the world to see what they really are: a hard-line extremist dictatorship with absolutely no interest in diplomacy.

Yet if exposing the regime were the President’s goal, it has long been achieved. In the case of Roxana Saberi, the regime promised to release her ’soon’ on March 6th, a day after Secretary of State Clinton’s demand for her release. But instead of a timely let-go as promised, the regime not only continued to hold Roxana in Evin prison in defiance of international law and simple human decency, the charges against her escalated from buying a bottle of wine to reporting without press credentials to trumped-up charges of espionage, for which Roxana was sentenced to eight years in Evin prison in a fifteen-minute lawyer-free religious tribunal kangaroo court.

I’m sure many liberals and lefties consider the Iranian regime’s release of Roxana Saberi as a magnanimous humanitarian gesture and a hopeful sign, an opinion the President himself expressed. Yet there was nothing humanitarian at all about Roxana’s months-long unlawful detention in Evin. I remember the psychological deterioration. The hunger strike. Fears for Roxana’s safety, health, and well-being. The torment of Roxana’s parents throughout the ordeal, never mind for Roxana herself. The worldwide condemnation and outrage.

If Iran has been magnanimous here, it is only in the way an armed robber in Boston was once merciful to me as a teenager, taking everything I owned at gunpoint, but leaving me a dollar so I could catch a train back home to Cambridge instead of having to walk ten miles. And don’t think the regime released Roxana because they’re nice guys. The heat on the regime to release Roxana was nuclear. If there’s one thing dictatorships despise, it’s bad PR. Ruins their image.

For fascist dictatorships like Iran’s, as with Hollywood celebrities, Image Is All.

But Roxana was not the only glaring example of the Islamist Iranian government’s hostility and intransigence. After President Obama personally approved visas for the nine members of AMPAS and their historic cultural and diplomatic mission to Iran, Team Oscar was met fresh off the tarmac with heated and unreasonable demands for apologies and submission, even with complaints that thirty films currently in production in Tinseltown did not meet Mad Mullah standards.

Civilized nations don’t act like this. Olive Branch #1 slapped out of the President’s hand.

On March 20th, even as Roxana was still being held in Evin despite SOS Clinton’s demand for her release two weeks earlier, President Obama sent a video message of peace to the Iranian people. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, perhaps the most powerful official in Iran, responded to that diplomatic outreach by throwing Death To America rallies to remind the Iranian people that the Great Satan was just Under New Management.

Meet the new bosses. Same as the old. Olive Branch #2 slapped out of the President’s hand.

And on the day North Korea set off its second nuke, President Ahmadinejad reiterated that the West would receive absolutely no cooperation whatsoever regarding their shady nuke program. The President has since stated that Iran has a right to nuclear power, yet that is not the question here. Every nation should have the right to nuclear power. Even Japan, which has a ‘no nukes’ clause written into their Constitution, is currently operating 55 nuclear reactors for their energy needs.

Yet Japan does not find it necessary to place anti-aircraft missile batteries at their nuclear facilities, as Iran has at their nuclear site at Natanz and elsewhere. Nor has Japan, or any other nation, been caught with its pants down trying to use the New York banking system to finance the smuggling of bootleg nuclear components that have no peaceful purpose whatsoever.

The President has given Iran until the end of the year to comply with international demands to open their shady nuclear program up to inspection. Yet famed Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau testified to Congress on May 19th that Iran may be within six months of getting a nuke. At that point, the horse is out of the barn.

This takes us to yet another common talking point among liberals and lefties. If the United States and Israel can have nukes, why not Iran? The answer to me is very simple. When it comes to nuclear weapons, Sanity Matters. North Korea would sell nuclear and other WMD technologies to the highest bidder, and if Al Qaeda wins the auction, ka-ching! And Iran’s extremist leaders have sworn up and down that Israel is radioactive history just as soon as they get theirs.

Funny thing about libs, lefties, and Iranian nukes. If a radical Christian nation were racing to build illegal nukes, while at the same time promising nuclear Armageddon on a Muslim neighbor, they’d all be excreting bricks. But even all this is only scratching the surface of the horrors of the Islamist regime in Tehran. At home, they stone and hang women and young girls, murder bloggers, execute minors, hold mass hangings (as recently as May 15th), and hunt down and exterminate LGBTs.

Outside their borders, they fund and arm their terrorist proxies Hamas and Hezbollah to the teeth, and supply heavy weaponry to both Shiite extremist militias in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Iranian EFPs alone have killed hundreds of American and British soldiers in Iraq. Yet even despite this evidence of Iranian complicity in the spilling of yet another ocean of American blood, the Obama Administration invites Iran to the Afghanistan Conference in The Hague to discuss security with the regime that is backing all the killing, and undermining every allied effort to stabilize the region.

As a bonus, Iran has now successfully exported their own anti-gay pogrom to Iraq, much as Hitler exported his to Poland. Am I the only one seeing all this? Again, what’s the script? How many times do you have to be beaten and bloodied to realize that the storyline to date just ain’t working?

For those who think the upcoming elections in Iran could bring a new era of peace and democracy to that troubled nation, should a wave of so-called ‘moderates’ win hands-down, you don’t know Iranian politics. Moderates are routinely disqualified from the election process by Supreme Leader Khamenei and his Guardian Council of Mad Mullahs. Party Members in Good Standing only.

Example. Conservative reform candidate Mohsen Rezaei, now running against Ahmadinejad, is wanted by Interpol for his involvement as an Iranian ‘diplomat’ in the worst terror attacks in Argentina’s history. That warrant was issued on May 22nd. That’s the reform candidate? And regardless of any election outcome, the theocrats rule supreme in Iran, and can overturn any government decision or ruling by the Majlis, Iran’s Parliament, if deemed ‘un-Islamic’ by the Mullahs.

No separation of church and state in Islamist Iran. The church, in fact, IS the state.

No Hope for Change on that score anytime soon. Yet despite all the hostility, all the belligerence, all the horrific human rights violations, all the arming and funding of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban and our mortal enemies in Iraq, which is impeding our desire to detach ourselves from that mess, as in Mosul, where Iranian-funded militias are causing all sorts of bloody mischief, the President continues to consider Iran a worthy diplomatic partner. Based on what evidence, I ask you?

And now, he invites them to Fourth of July parties. What does he hope to accomplish with that? Reciprocal invitations of American diplomats to Death To America rallies in Tehran? Hell, the regime’s idea of the Fourth of July is lighting up the night sky with burning American flags and setting off fireworks on the US!

I really just don’t get this story at all, people. The Obama Plan For Iran seems to me a not well thought-out, incredibly naive, and ill-advised production that appears to be headed for a very tragic ending. Though no one in their right minds would advocate war with Iran, the President’s rose-colored glasses approach is leading us straight down that path. You don’t stop crime by taking all the policemen off the streets. You only invite chaos.

By acquiescing to Iran’s demand for ‘peaceful’ nuclear power, despite all the evidence to contrary, the President has practically assured war by leaving Israel no other choice but to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities out of pure self-preservation. Let’s face it, if Mexico were a fascist Islamist regime arming hostile neighbors who attacked us at every opportunity, was working on a shady nuke program, and was threatening our nuclear annihilation on a regular basis, what would YOU do?

President Obama now finds himself in the same position British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain found himself in at Munich in 1938, given all the glaring evidence. He can choose dishonor or war. If he continues to choose the former, he will get the latter. The Iranian regime to date has hit us with enough sticks to tell us in very clear terms that the carrots just ain’t working. Just like Chamberlain got pummeled. More pressure on the regime, not less, is what is called for here.

Hollywood Diplomacy isn’t working. Never has. Given the circumstances, I would even go so far as to demand the regime open up its nuclear facilities to international inspection and put an end to this impending threat of Iranian nukes once and for all, or cut off all their processed gasoline imports. See how fast nationwide gas rioting gets them moving in the right direction.

There are alternatives to war, like squeezing the regime until they cry uncle. But with each passing day, those alternatives grow fewer. You can practically smell the anxiety wafting over from Israel, and newly elected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has never been one to sit by with his thumb up his ass as an existential threat grows on Israel’s horizon.

The history is clear. When the Osirak reactor posed a mortal threat to Israel in 1981, Israeli jets took it out (ironically, the Iranians also took potshots at Osirak during the Iran-Iraq War). They likewise took out a suspect nuclear site in Syria last year. And I can guarantee you, the Israelis don’t give one hoot about what Obama would think about it. This is a matter of survival to them. Would you?

Even further muddying the storyline here are President Obama’s recent declarations regarding America being a major Muslim nation, and revelations of his own Muslim heritage he found so necessary to deny during his presidential campaign. Just where exactly do his sympathies lie in all this? As an American citizen watching this bizarre story unfold, I think that’s a very fair question.

How will it all end? Who knows what plot twists lie in store? I could be totally wrong, and I hope I am. But I’ve seen enough productions like this in the past to know that happy endings are rare.

Again, I ask you, Mister President: What’s the script? Because if you want me to back this production, I want to know where this story is going. There ain’t a filmmaker or studio in Hollywood that would invest in a Cecil B. DeMille-scale venture like this without knowing the endgame. Israelis aren’t the only ones vulnerable to dispositions of intense anxiety. And if the story ends tragically, like Michael Caine in “Dark Knight,” it will bring me absolutely no joy to tell you, “I told you so.”

But I already read the book.

In short, the world in general, and the Obama Administration in particular, are overlooking every horrific crime known to man, in order to establish ‘peaceful’ relations with fascist totalitarian regimes that not only actively seek our violent demise, but swear it loudly and publicly to the rafters every day.

I would call it Neville Chamberlain diplomacy, but that would be too generous. Even Sir Neville had seen enough of Hitler and Nazi Germany, after Hitler abrogated the Munich Agreement by invading the rest of Czechoslovakia, to know that the policy of appeasement with Hitler had been an abject failure. It seems today that the civilized world can’t get slapped in the face hard enough by Iran, Sudan and North Korea to realize it’s long past due to slap back. Hard.

Let us look at recent history with Iran. Let us bypass the Team Oscar olive branch slapped out of President Obama’s hand with the demand for apologies and submission by Ahmadinejad’s Foreign Minister, and go straight to President Obama’s peace video to the Iranian people.

The President’s heartfelt appeal to Iran was met with scorn, derision, and demands for diplomatic concessions and apologies for past wrongs. Nevermind Iran’s. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei not only dismissed President Obama’s overture, but later threw Death to America rallies in the streets of Tehran, to impress upon the Iranian people that the Great Satan was just under new management.

Here are some comparative statements that I found rather eye-opening during my research:

The first is a quote from Adolf Hitler in 1938, regarding Sir Neville and the Munich Pact:

“An impertinent busybody who spoke the ridiculous jargon of an outmoded democracy.”

This is a statement from Iran spokesman Hassan Qashqavi, regarding President Obama’s video:

“It seems that the repetition of the past U.S. administration’s accusations would be in contrast with the slogan of change.”

Here’s a follow-up statement by Ahmadinejad’s media adviser, Ali-Akbar Javanfekr, after the Obama peace video, no doubt with the blessing of leash-holder Mahmoud:

“Our people will never forgive the shooting down of an Iranian passenger airline over the Persian Gulf by a US warship.”

So much for apologies for past wrongs. Mr. Javanfekr, by the way, is referring to the incident in 1988 during the Iran-Iraq War in which the USS Vincennes, mistaking Iran Air Flight 665 for an F-15 fighter in a war zone, shot it down, killing all 290 passengers aboard.

A mistake we compensated Iran for, by the way.

My opinion? Since Iran killed 241 US servicemen in Lebanon in 1983, and has killed at least 170 more in Iraq that we know of, and even more in Afghanistan, I believe that puts us in the apology-demanding column. Again, that’s just me. And only me, it seems.

In addition, the US invites Iran to the Afghanistan Conference in The Hague, seeking their help in stabilizing Afghanistan, even as Iran not only supplies the Taliban with heavy weaponry, but also supplies EFPs to radical Shiite militias in Iraq and trains them in their use. Those EFPs have killed nearly 200 US soldiers, and have shredded many more. Brits, too. They even found an Iranian EFP factory in Sadr City last October. Not exactly what I’d call a trustworthy partner. But that’s just me.

Which brings us to this blackly ironic statement by Mr. Javanfekr:

“Iran enjoys good relations with the world community and its neighbors, but the US military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan is the only source of instability in the region.”

Yet despite all this glaring evidence of Iranian complicity in the mass murders of Allied soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s “Damn The EFPs and Full Speed Hollywood Diplomacy Ahead!”

On the hostage front, Roxana Saberi now enters Day 33 of her Hostage Crisis, Day 68 if you count all the days since her arrest without charge on Jan. 31st. Yet SOS Clinton, without citing the international laws and conventions Iran is violating vis-a-vis Roxana, or threatening diplomatic reprisal in the form of more sanctions, merely renews her futile demands for Roxana’s release, as she did a month ago on March 6th.

Much as former President Jimmy Carter renewed his futile demands for release of the 52 Iranian hostages for 444 days from 1979 to 1981. SSDD. Some have pointed out that Iran does not recognize Roxana’s dual Iranian-American citizenship. The real question is, do we?

Now we hear that the United States will be attending meetings with other nations in negotiating with Iran over their nuclear program, meetings the Bush Administration shunned as an exercise in futility. This, only days after raids on New York banks that uncovered a plot to smuggle bootleg nuclear materials to Iran, raids that have resulted in 118 criminal indictments.

Yet another case, among far too many, that clearly illustrate that Iran’s nuke program is not quite as peaceful as they would have us believe. But no. Let’s talk about eradicating nukes. Right up to Armageddon Day. Churchill had days like this.

Now that we’ve just barely scratched the surface on Iran’s criminal terrorist regime, let us turn to North Korea, yet another totalitarian nightmare worthy of Obama’s Hollywood Diplomacy. President Obama sternly warned North Korea not to launch its Taepo Dong II missile recently. Much as SOS Clinton sternly warned Iran to release Roxana Saberi. And with similar results. In other words, Thunderbirds Were Go for North Korea.

Though widely considered a violation of multiple UN resolutions, the world’s response could not be more tepid. In other words, it could not be more Hollywood. Both China and Russia oppose even strongly-worded statements of condemnation from the UN Security Council, like parents protecting a criminal juvenile delinquent son.

Wouldn’t be the first time. Russia and China could not be more enabling of North Korea than someone delivering a free truckload of Gentleman Jack to a reprobate alcoholic.  They also supply Iran and Sudan with all kinds of nice toys as well, in violation of their own endorsed sanctions.

With friends like China and Russia, who needs enemies?

And what has all this Jimmy Carter, Michael Jordan basketball and Hollywood Diplomacy over the years to Kim Jong-Il gotten us? A nuclear test, ballistic missile launches, constant threats of war, and now two American journalist hostages to be tried for espionage. Just like Roxana Saberi now. Boy, Iran and North Korea are just collecting Americans these days, aren’t they?

Yet another matter for stern Hollywood Diplomacy.

Like with genocidal Sudan, for instance. The International Criminal Court in The Hague issues a warrant for crimes against humanity to Dear Leader Omar Bashir, who then flouts that warrant by flying all over the Middle East to conferences in which he professes his innocence.

Yet no one lifts a finger to arrest him, or tries to force his aircraft down in order to bring him to the justice he more than deserves to face in The Hague, as has been done for hijacking terrorists in the past. And let’s face it. What Omar Bashir has done makes hijackers look like Romper Room.

In summary, Iran continues to kill American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, races toward building nukes, loads Hamas and Hezbollah to the gills with rockets and weapons, and continues its Hitler-like demands for apologies and concessions. And Hollywood Diplomacy is the answer. For belligerent North Korea, it’s once again the Hollywood Hills Sign. As it is for Sudan’s now-outlaw leader Omar Bashir, who continues his genocide unimpeded and with impunity, more than sixty years after the world said “Never Again!” after the horrors of the Holocaust in Europe.

Like Anette Benning praising women’s rights in the most misogynist and abusive regime to women on this planet, or Team Oscar totally papering over the Gay Holocaust in Iran in order to give Hollywood Diplomacy a shot, the civilized nations on Planet Earth do no favors to the cause of world peace and stability by playing the Hollywood Diplomacy fiddle as the world burns. Or soon will.

Ironically, it is the hated Israel, despised as far and wide as Winston Churchill once was, that is our only Obi Wan Kenobe Hope. They have no compunction about striking Hamas-bound Iranian weapons convoys in the Sudanese desert, or threatening to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities if Hollywood Obama doesn’t. They’ve done it before. I take them at their word. In fact, Israel is the ONLY nation on earth I can see whose word really means anything.

Before you go calling me a warmonger, I do not seek war. I would much rather see tougher talk and more strangling sanctions, even if they must be from international coalitions that do not involve Russia and China. I know South Korea and Japan would be fully on board. What can North Korea do? Threaten war? They do that every day, just like Iran!

As a veteran, I can tell you that no one hates war more than the soldier. But I can guaran-damn-tee you, Hollywood Diplomacy will only lead us straight into it, just as appeasement led us straight into war with Hitler. All the warning signs are there. Nobody sees them. Or worse, chooses not to, in order to give Hollywood Diplomacy yet another abysmal shot.

In closing, I leave you with the prophetic words of Winston Churchill, on the occasion of Neville Chamberlain’s ‘Peace In Our Time’ speech:

“He could have chosen dishonor or war. He has chosen dishonor. He will get war.”

I ask you. Who was right?

I can see what’s coming. Just like Cassandra. And like Cassandra, I am doomed to have all my warnings, based on the facts and history, go completely ignored until it’s just too damn late.

Perhaps that is the ultimate fate of humanity. To stumble, self-blinded, from one Armageddon to the next, until nothing is left but a dark spot in the universe where Planet Earth once stood. I hope that isn’t the case. Desperately! But I am not encouraged by what I see in the world today, and the history that seems to be repeating itself without end.

Or, perhaps, with an ending that is not quite Hollywood in nature.

A curious but encouraging footnote. It seems Gerald Warner of the Telegraph/UK has voiced the same opinion on all the above as I have, complete with Sudetenland references. Mr. Warner even one-ups me by calling President Obama “The rabbit in North Korea’s headlights.”

The Telegraph UK! Of ALL papers! Hope Spring’s Eternal.

THIS JUST IN: Gen. Odierno stated that the withdrawal of US troops from Iraqi cities like Mosul and Baqubah may be postponed, and may actually rise in number, given the dire circumstances there. One factor? Al Qaeda. Another? Iranian-funded militias modeled after Hezbollah. Need I say more?

The perpetually bumbling Obama administration wrote the wrong word on a gift for Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. It was a plastic red button on a black base with the Russian word “peregruzka” printed above it, as Politico.com reported:

GENEVA—After promising to “push the reset button” on relations with Moscow, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton planned to present Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with a light-hearted gift at their talks here Friday night to symbolize the Obama administration’s desire for a new beginning in the relationship. …

“We worked hard to get the right Russian word. Do you think we got it?” Clinton said…“You got it wrong,” Lavrov said, to Clinton’s clear surprise. Instead of “reset,” he said the word on the box meant “overcharge.”

Now, you’d think that if anyone would have enough communists around to get the right Russian word, it would be the Obama administration. Especially since it’s being mentored by the administration of the previous “black” communist in the White House. At least that one knew enough not to give his daughter a Russian name.

The piece de resistance in the Politico piece:

Despite the shoddy translation work on the U.S. side, Clinton and Lavrov emerged from their meeting a few hours later saying they had accomplished their initial goal—reducing the frostiness in U.S.-Russia relations that had taken hold by the end of the Bush administration.

Taken hold by the end of the Bush administration? I really hate to remind everyone, but it’s the Kosovo, Stupid. And that, my fellow Americans, was Bill Clinton. Remember that guy? The one who bombed Europe? As soon as a certain rape victim’s name graced the pages of the Wall St. Journal? For all the talk of how Bush alienated Europe — hello-oh: Clinton BOMBED it. At his wife’s command. That would be Hillary.

A few minutes later, [Lavrov] referred to the gift again, noting that he and Clinton had pressed the button together — a move that summoned up thoughts not of easing tension but of launching a nuclear strike.

That would be the *red* button on the *black* base. Red and Black: the colors of the flag of Greater Albania — on whose behalf the Clinton administration fired the first shots of the new Cold War.

Actually, a frontal view of the button shows the colors are red and yellow — those of the Soviet flag that the Obama/Clinton administration would no doubt love to see again:

(The black base is visible in the video here.)

Incidentally, neither Lavrov nor the Politico story suggested what the right word would have been for “reset”. While there is no perfect translation, the closest word is “obnoveet” (Noun form: “obnovenia”) — to renew.

The next day Hillary went on Turkey’s version of “The View” and spoke of how she first fell for Bill. I understand, Hillary. I like ‘em big and stupid too.