Infantile Nation
by Patrick J. Buchanan
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Does this generation possess the gravitas to lead the world?
Considering the hysteria that greeted the request of Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to lay a wreath at Ground Zero, the answer is no.
What is it about this tiny man that induces such irrationality?
Answer: He is president of a nation that is a “state sponsor of terror,” that is seeking nuclear weapons, and is moving munitions to the Taliban and insurgents in Iraq.
But Libya was a “state sponsor of terror,” and Col. Khadafi was responsible for Pan Am 103, the Lockerbie massacre of school kids coming home for Christmas. And President Bush secretly negotiated a renewal of relations in return for Khadafi giving up his nuclear program and compensating the families of the victims of that atrocity. Has Ahmadinejad ever committed an act of terror like this?
Richard Nixon went to Moscow and concluded strategic arms agreements while Moscow was the arms supplier of the enemy we were fighting in Vietnam that used, at Hue, mass murder as a war tactic.
Nixon went to Beijing to toast Mao Zedong, the greatest mass murderer in history, responsible for the deaths of 37,000 Americans in Korea, who was, in 1972, persecuting and murdering dissidents in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution run by his crazed wife, and transshipping Russian weapons into Vietnam.
And Nixon is today hailed as a statesman for having gone there.
In 1959, President Eisenhower rode up Pennsylvania Avenue in an open convertible with Nikita Khrushchev, Stalin’s gauleiter in Ukraine, who, three years before his tour of the United States, had sent tanks into Budapest to butcher the patriots of the Hungarian Revolution.
What has Ahmadinejad done to rival these monsters?
It would be an obscenity, we are told, if Ahmadinejad were allowed to place a wreath at Ground Zero. This is a public relations stunt that should never be permitted.
That the Iranian president has PR in mind is undoubtedly true. Much of what national leaders do is symbolic. But that wreath-laying would have said something else, as well.
It would have said that, to Iran, these Americans were victims who deserve to be honored and mourned and, by extension, the men who killed them were murderers. Bin Laden celebrates 9-11. So do all America-haters. By laying a wreath at Ground Zero, the president of Iran would be saying that in the war between al-Qaida and the United States, he and his country side with the United States.
How would we have been hurt by letting him send this message?
To the hysteriacs, Ahmadinejad is the new Hitler and we are all at Munich, and we should behave like Churchill and gird for war.
This is absurd.
True, as The Washington Times charges, Ahmadinejad invited David Duke to Tehran to a conference of Holocaust deniers, and his minions chant, “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”
But every mob in the Middle East shouts such slogans. And Duke was the Republican candidate for governor of Louisiana in 1991 and got a majority of the white vote. And Holocaust deniers meet regularly in the United States. Yet, we seem to survive.
Far more serious was the threat of Khrushchev in 1956 to rain down rockets on Britain in the Suez crisis and his “We-will-bury-you” rant. Still, JFK met him in Vienna and negotiated a test-ban halt.
Far more serious was Mao’s talk, after the Cuban missile crisis, of accepting “300 million dead” in a nuclear war—talk that scared even Khrushchev. Fidel Castro reportedly urged the Russians to fire their rockets rather than give them up. Those were deadly serious times.
Hitler could destroy the Jewish population of Europe because he was able to conquer Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals. Iran has no air force or navy we could not dispatch in a week and no nukes. Israel has 200 to 300 nuclear warheads and, if it believed its survival was at stake, could turn Tehran into toast in 10 minutes.
Why does Iran want nuclear weapons if it doesn’t want to use them? For the same reason Israel wanted them: deterrence.
After seeing what America did to its non-nuclear neighbor Iraq, which had done nothing to America, and after hearing Bush call them an axis-of-evil nation and prime candidate for U.S. pre-emptive strikes, a not-unreasonable ayatollah might conclude they need nuclear weapons, or the Americans will be dictating to them forever.
America and Iran have great differences, but also common interests. Among the latter, no Taliban in Kabul, no restoration of a Sunni Baathist dictatorship in Baghdad and support for the present governments. Iran cannot want a Sunni-Shia war in the region, which would make her an enemy of most Arabs, and she cannot want a major war with America, which could lead to the destruction and breakup of the nation where only half the people are Persians.
That is plenty to build a cold peace on, if the hysteriacs do not stampede us into another unnecessary war.
COPYRIGHT 2007 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
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1 Comment by Chris Hewlett on 25 September 2007:
I agree with Pat. I think we all sound like a bunch of yapping yorkies nipping at the ankles of those of whom we don’t approve. We should grow up. The president of Iran’s visit would be my dream of how to deal with Moslems. Give them a temporary visa, let them have their say, and put them back on the plane to go home. If only we could treat all Moslems this way.
2 Comment by Lee on 25 September 2007:
The dearth of gravitas in this matter begins with the physically mature but mentally juvenile president of the university that invited the Iranian president to speak. His introduction speech sounded like it was written by Bush. The rest of the coverage sounded like it came from a colony of Israel. The infantileness that modernism spawns that Weaver wrote a chapter on in his Ideas Have Consequences has become a plague.
3 Comment by Simon Newman on 25 September 2007:
“Has Ahmadinejad ever committed an act of terror like this?”
Well the IRG did those synagogue bombings in Argentina. I agree though it’s hard to claim that Iran is any worse than any number of other Muslim state-terrorists.
4 Comment by Simon Newman on 25 September 2007:
“How would we have been hurt by letting him send this message?”
It would have made it harder to attack Iran. Bush-Cheney and the neocons don’t want Iran as an ally against Al Qaeda, which Iran would be willing to sign on to, they want Iran bombed, the more the better. Apparently this is something to do with Israel’s perceived self-interest vs Hezbollah, Syria & Iran. If I thought this was correct I’d have some sympathy with the Likudnik view, but judging by Iraq, it’s only going to make things worse for the USA and thus ultimately for Israel too.
5 Comment by robert m. peters on 25 September 2007:
While driving to a small college last evening to teach an evening German class, I heard an excerpt from the “encounter” between the President of Columbia University and the President of Iran. I was utterly appalled that the President of Columbia, who must lay some claim to being a gentleman and a scholar, was practicing such shallow pseudo-intellectual demagoguery in order to placate the politically correct assemblage and to ingratiate himself to the two dominate forces in modern academia – the New Left with their polymorphous perversity of feminism and gay rights and the Neo-Conservatives with their warmongering and pro-Israeli-government mantra.
In the sixties, I was a student at the very college to which I was driving last night. At that time, however, no longer, the college, for good or for bad, was a bastion of conservatism at a time when radicalism had taken over many campuses (think Herbert Marcuse). Each week, students were compelled to attend chapel on Tuesday and an assembly on Thursday during which some guest speaker would address us. I recall that the historian, considered to be a liberal, Henry Steele Commanger, spoke to one of the assemblies. Many of the students were incensed that this icon of liberalism had been invited to speak on our campus. There were protests and some rather nasty fliers appeared all over campus. However, our college President, Dr. G. Earl Guinn, a true gentleman and a scholar as well as an eloquent speaker, rose before Dr. Commanger addressed us and firmly but gently set the tone by reminding us that as the Church is a sanctuary for matters of faith and spirit so the university, an institution begotten by the Church, is a sanctuary for ideas. Although Dr. Guinn was a Baptist, he borrowed a metaphor from our Catholic brethern. He said that the college over which he was President and in which we were students was a confessional for ideas, no matter how controversial, and that Dr. Commanger had of his own free will entered into our confessional and that we would render to him every respect and all attention. Although in his address Commanger did not hesitate to avow his premise which was countervailing to the one which prevailed on our campus, he acknowledged and showed gratitude for the atmosphere which Dr. Guinn had set.
Of course, there are those who will say, and they will be correct, that the New Left and the Neo Cons will abuse and will not honor the university as a confessional of ideas; however, I take the position that our enemies do not determine our standards. Over time, perhaps a long time, those standards will prevail.
Yesterday, what the President of Columbia did was his reward. In getting his reward from the media, from the fickle mass of students, from the New Left and from the Neo-Cons he, compromised his integrity, his scholarship and his claim to be a gentleman if he had ever made it; and he desecrated the notion that a university is a confessional of ideas.
6 Comment by Johan Dieckmann on 25 September 2007:
My deepest gratitude to Robert M. Peters for his post here.
7 Comment by Iliya Pavlovich on 25 September 2007:
Does this generation possess the gravitas to lead the world?
I’ll answer only the opening lines of Mr. Buchanan’s article (and I’ll “borrow” from Mr. Peters):
Absolutely NOT, however this is only the tip of the iceberg when we conclude that “the New Left with their polymorphous perversity of feminism and gay rights and the Neo-Conservatives with their warmongering and pro-Israeli-government mantra.” The social developement in North America lacks terribly in comparison to Europe. Some essential degree of “maturity” (not necessarily POLITICAL maturity) gets reached by the age of 30 or so, and many of us (Americans) go through a myriad of infantile gymnastics well into our 40s, 50s and even 60s. I don’t feel like giving names and examples – it will spoil my lunch. We all know who they are. Just look at Clinton’s behavour in the office – would any mature adult (let alone, with some semblance of ethics) do that? Hell no.
The question is unfortunate, but the answers (the way I see them) are even more discouraging. Not that this is connected, but I have a nasty feeling this exactly why Hemingway took his own life – never mind the liquor. It is the dreadful realization that the world around us is very very very hopeless, and we are on a very long downward spiral.
8 Comment by Simon Newman on 25 September 2007:
IP:
“The social developement in North America lacks terribly in comparison to Europe.”
I live in Europe (UK) and from what I see there are few American vices that aren’t exceeded by those of Europeans, certainly amongst the political class. Re Clinton’s philanderings, most Eurotrash leaders don’t have their adulteries reported, but we do know that while Clinton was cavorting in the Oval Office, our own Prime Minister John ‘Back to Basics’ Major was having an affair with fellow cabinet minister Edwina Currie. Of the current Labour govt, the former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott had a well publicised affair with a secretary in his employ, a case at least as bad as Clinton’s – and Prescott paid no price other than some embarrassment.
9 Comment by Dana Thompson on 25 September 2007:
Pat neglects to mention the greatest damage done by the hysterical response of McCain, Romney, and other politicians to Ahmedinejad’s visit to the 911 site. Even after all these years, a large fraction of the population still believes there was a connection between the terrorist attack, and Iraq. What purpose do these politicians’ exaggerated responses serve, except to create another false association between 911 and Iran, in order to aid the public’s acceptance of a new unnecessary war?
Also Pat avoids an obvious comparison between Ahmedinejad and a prominent world leader. How many unprovoked wars of aggression against a peaceful nation has Ahmedinejad launched? I believe the proper word for Ahmedinejad’s moral stature is probably “pigmy,” but nonetheless he is a Hercules compared to the tiny homunculus in the Oval Office.
10 Comment by Aldebanlohoperaldi Huffghaffson on 25 September 2007:
“It would be an obscenity, we are told, if Ahmadinejad were allowed to place a wreath at Ground Zero. This is a public relations stunt that should never be permitted.
“That the Iranian president has PR in mind is undoubtedly true. Much of what national leaders do is symbolic. But that wreath-laying would have said something else, as well.
“It would have said that, to Iran, these Americans were victims who deserve to be honored and mourned and, by extension, the men who killed them were murderers. Bin Laden celebrates 9-11. So do all America-haters. By laying a wreath at Ground Zero, the president of Iran would be saying that in the war between al-Qaida and the United States, he and his country side with the United States.” -Pat
It’s known as an ‘olive branch’ … when we’re told to embrace our alleged foes’ pacific gestures … and an obscenity when we are told to reject such gestures. HOWEVER who is it doing the ‘telling’ … well, the media belonging to our Real enemies at home (who have corraled our own air-waves here at home and used their hegemony of them to brainwash most of us) and/or slap us down, when we awake momentarily. Today we here in America are the vanquished.
Frankly speaking we’re all the palestinians now… except for the minority ruling elite, most of whom by now are monsters and have been for decades. But for- the cosmetics – applied to their images by Their MEDIA. The funniest example of this is ruddy. he’s the one who allowed for 9/11 and then allowed for the cover up… but the [neocon] media spun him as the hero and america’s mayor. funny. HAHAHA – funny universe. did he ever take responsiblity and have shame for it happening on his watch as mayor. of course not… hahahaha… he just gets cell phone calls now from his wife at NRA meetings… infantile america. what a jerk. him and steve martin. except steve’s a clown by trade. ol’Sparky now run for el presidente.
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11 Comment by TJF on 27 September 2007:
It was a grave mistake to invite an irresponsible political thugh to speak at a university but a far graver one not to treat an invited guest with respect. The first mistake reveals the Columbia president as a huckster, the second shows him to be both a coward and a boor. On a minor note, we invited the nationalist William Hawkins to take part in a debate on exiting Iraq. Knowing what the rules are, Hawkins insisted on defending the war per se and then denounced his opponents (Peter Brimelow, Justin Raimondo, Kirkpatrick Sale) as unAmerican and jihadists. The final straw is that he has put a piece on the website of the unspeakable Horowitz denouncing his fellow-debaters, including those who took his own position. He then defended the neoconservatives as patriots.
My conclusion? I actually agree with Hawkins that hasty withdrawal i a mistake, but I must ruefully conclude that neoconservatism is a contagious disease: In adopting their position on the Middle East, Hawkins has adopted their bad manners, becoming as big a boor as David Frum or Norman Podhoretz. The reverse seems to have happened to Hitchens: As a professional boor, he loved the Podhoretzes’ bad manners and then fell in love with their bad principles.
12 Comment by Tobias Torgerson on 27 September 2007:
This is a strange article. Aren’t there any old-time Birchers around who denounced Eisenhower and Nixon for precisely the precedents that Buchanan cites? If those precedents were bad, then it would be bad to follow them today.
13 Comment by Philip Candido on 27 September 2007:
I don’t think Pat was arguing that there was nothing wrong with Eisenhower, Kennedy and Nixon’s scandalous meeting with world butchers, nor was he suggesting meeting with Ahmadinejad was great either. I think he was saying we shouldn’t get worked up over him in comparison to what was done in the past. People are rather hysterically building Ahmadinejad and Iran into something they are not, Hitler, Stalin, the new evil empire. It is true that Iran is not a great country and practices Shari’a law in all of its brutality. But they are not going to roll over Europe. There is no way they could destroy Israel, in spite of all their rhetoric, even if we pulled all of our money out of Israel, so long as an imbecile like Olmhert isn’t running them (note I’m not an Israeli supporter, I’m just making an objective observation about Olmhert based on his bungling of the Lebanon situation last year).
On the other hand, though I agree with almost everything Pat has to say, I question the bit about Ahmadinejad laying a wreath to show his solidarity with American victims. There is no doubt in my mind that he would say one thing while here, and go back to Iran to tell everyone that he had honored the Mujahadeen who struck a blow to the great satan. Iran is in fact a state sponsor of terror, we would not want to forget that Hezbullah is Iran’s stooge and they committed terrorist acts Beunes Aires and murdered many Christians in Lebanon. Its just that going to war with them is not justified anymore than Iraq, as they have done nothing to threaten Americans. There is no American interest in Persia. There is an interest to the elite bankers and politicians and that is oil. That is why all this has been drummed up as it has.
14 Comment by Tobias Torgerson on 27 September 2007:
Good points and thanks, Athana . . ., er, Mr. Candido. (I am edified by your blog.)
15 Comment by Kerry Smith on 3 November 2007:
“By laying a wreath at Ground Zero, the president of Iran would be saying that in the war between al-Qaida and the United States, he and his country side with the United States.”
Has Ahmadinejad said that he holds al-Qaida responsible for 9/11? He might believe that the CIA or the Mossad were the perps, in which case his laying a wreath would obviously not send the message described by Dr. Fleming.