President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran stated on Wednesday, October 26 that the goal of his nation and of Islam in general is to "wipe Israel off the map." In his viewpoint, and that of all the Arab terrorist movement representatives who attended the anti-Zionist conference in Tehran this past week, Israel will soon be destroyed by a new wave of terror and that terror must receive full support of Muslims everywhere. Those Muslims who make peace with Israel or even recognize Israel's right to exist will "burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury" - which of course means that regimes not fully intent on Israel's destruction should be made targets as much as Israel. Shortly after his inflammatory speech, there was a round of condemnation from the Europeans and the Americans and a resolution criticizing Iran was passed in the UN. On Friday, October 28 Iran's president repeated his call for Israel's destruction during "Al-Quds Day" - a nationwide celebration in Iran where massive crowds call for the destruction of the Jewish state, burn US and Israeli flags, etc. Iran clearly doesn't care about what the Europeans, the Americans or the UN in general has to say about Israel's right not to be the target of a nation's desire to make Israel vanish.

Israel is starting diplomatic efforts to get Iran expelled from the UN. Israel's ambassador to the UN, Danny Gillerman, is currently trying to summon enough support. Of course, he will fail. Only a minority of nations feel strongly enough about how completely immoral Iran's regime is to vote for Iran's expulsion from the UN. I believe Iran is trying to flex its diplomatic muscle on the world stage. The Iranian regime wants to see how far they can push, how much power and desire to destroy they can present and still not face any real action from the international community. I think Iran sees that the EU, the US, and the UN have no real courage to stand up to Iranian ambitions. Iran's nuclear program is advancing unabated, the Iranian regime is one of the top supporters of terrorist movements worldwide, and the world has yet to take any concrete steps to alter the current situation. At the current rate, Iran believes, and they have good reason, that they will acquire a nuclear arsenal, the terrorist movements they support such as Hizbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and various Al-Qaeda off-shoots will all continue to grow and strengthen, and the world will not do a single thing about it.

For the sake of the safety of the state of Israel, in which I have a personal stake, and for the sake of Westerners everywhere being able to live their lives free from fear of terrorism, Iran must be checked. Not with condemnations or toothless UN resolutions, but with concrete measures by Western nations, with the support of as many non-Western nations as possible. The following is the action plan the West should follow:

1) Pour money, training, weapons and logistical support into Iranian resistance movements who are fighting the dictatorial regime.

2) Bomb communication and military installations of the Iranian regime, including all suspected nuclear development sites.

3) Avoid sending any Western troops to Iran, aside from special forces units sent there to help train and arm the democratic resistance movements.

4) Provide advice and support in the eventual democratization of Iranian society.

If this is done soon, there will be no Iranian nuclear threat and there will be no Iranian support for terrorism. Terrorist movements lost a lot of support with the fall of the Taleban regime in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. Of course, those two areas are now in a state of flux, there are thousands dead and the situation is far from ideal. However, in a net benefit analysis, the ability of Islamic terrorists to wreack havoc worldwide has been weakened. By applying the above action plan to Iran, the goal of weakening Islamic terror will be furthered all the more. Syria will most likely start to inwardly collapse and if not, the above action plan is applicable to the Syrian regime as much as to the Iranian one.

The only real downturn of causing violent upheaveal in these radical Islamic societies is the increase in the price of oil. Energy costs are the only economic bottom line that is affected by unrest in the Middle East. Of course, energy cost increases eventually creep their way down the production chain into consumer goods and thus an overall increase in the cost of living will be created in the West as tyrannical societies transform into something resembling democracies. Or, they can transform into fractious, violent states with poor law and order and struggling institutions. Either way, aside from energy price increases, the West will not be adversly affected.

This downside can be counteracted by decreasing the dependence on oil that so plagues Western societies. Alternative sources of energy must be found, sources that can be exploited without having to rely on imports from unstable regions. Wind and solar power and hydrogen fuel cell technology are possible solutions that have already been extensively researched and have provided very money-efficient answers in many European countries and some parts of the United States. There is no reason to think that if concerted effort and resources are poured into developing alternative energy sources, that science cannot think up even more cost-efficient ways to power our advanced societies without relying on oil.

This move away from oil has to happen concurrently with the destruction of the Iranian and Syrian regimes. Eventually, the Saudi regime will fall as well, but it isn't likely that the West will be able to act in as invasive a way as in Syria and Iran because Saudi control of the oil market is much too strong as of yet. However, with alternative energy sources developing and Western purchases of oil decreasing, the Saudi regime will eventually find its hitherto bottomless pit of money become smaller and smaller.

I am a realist and I believe that if the West embarks on the path I have just described, Middle Eastern societies will find themselves in violent turmoil for a long time. But violence is quite normal as an aspect of political and societal change in societies that are in the dictatorial/feudal stage of development. Middle Eastern countries today are societally in the same place as European countries were in the 17th century. Europe was at that time still quite feudal in nature, with privileged sectors of society ruling over improverished masses. Nations and the despotic kings that reigned over them held their dominions together by taking advantage of religious strife and by striking out at their enemies on a continual, territorially aggressive basis. This is the approximate stage of development that the Middle East is in today, except that the levels of violence are not quite as extensive as they were in 17th century Europe.

I know that there are Western policy makers who concurr with my point of view, but unfortunately as of today they do not hold a solid and unassailable majority in any Western government. In Europe, if there are any policy makers and intellectuals who hold the above opinions, they are in a hopelessly small minority. I can only hope that my philosophy of conservative realism will grow in the West, because if it does not, Western civilization will face a slow but certain decline.

The comment by Faizal was anti-semitic. Did I say something to arouse such hate? I don't think so. Voicing right of center political views is perfectly reasonable. And I never said anything about kicking Arabs out of anywhere. No educated person would harbor Faizal's views.

To those of you who have read one of the comments (posted twice by a reader of my blog), it is clear that Travis Johnson of the 82nd Airborne in Kandahar, Afghanistan is a right-wing Christian, most likely Evangelical. People familiar with this particular branch of Protestantism, can understand this post quite easily, but it would be interesting to hear what someone living outside the US thinks of those types of viewpoints. But, it must be noted that not all right-wing Evangelicals believe as Travis does. Although many do, and I have to concede quite a few points to many of their arguments.

At this point, I do not know if I subsribe to the views of Evangelicals, but I am also far, far from convinced by the ideas espoused by the liberal, left-wing secularists who dominate most of Western Europe and the denser metropolitan areas of the US. To me, their complete atheism and slowly eroding value system are indicative of some worrying shortcomings that can be damaging to societies. Communists are the furthest left in the liberal spectrum, and it is clear that they have severely damaged numerous societies the world over. Some of those societies are only now, generations later, starting to recover their basic rights and develop something resembling economic viability. The remaining post-communist countries are in a grave social, political and economic situation. Russia being a prime example. I'll write more on that later.

Looks like I have a reader - Claude. He left a comment to my first blog. Are you French, Claude? Either that or Belgian, or a French-speaking person residing in some other European country. You said the EU has power within the UN. This may be true, but the UN has only helped the world in one area - increasing AIDS education. Aside from that, the UN has done nothing besides act as a forum for countries big and small, important and unimportant, democratic and tyrannical, just and unjust to talk, talk and talk some more. Since the creation of the UN, this worthless organization has done NOTHING about dozens of brutal, genocidal wars that have been happening in Africa. The UN was created to prevent war, yet it has watched Africa be a warzone for the last 40 years, ever since the European colonial powers left the Africans to their own affairs. That's just one failing. Another is the recently discovered corruption in the oil-for-food program, where UN officials pocketed billions of dollars. Of course, since the UN is investigating itself, I can assure you that this stolen money will never be recovered.

As regards Israel, the UN has passed hundreds of resolutions condemning Israel and none condemning the Arabs. This is because there are over 30 Moslem countries in the world, and they can team up to trash Israel whenever they feel like it. The UN has never condemned Arab terrorism against Israeli civilians and it has never condemned the Arabs for starting the 1948, the 1967 and the 1973 wars. The UN has never condemned Hizbollah's attacks on Northern Israel that precipitated Israel's invasion of Lebanon, but were ever so quick to condemn the invasion itself, even though only a mental midget would not understand Israel's intrusion into Lebanon as self-defensive. The UN has never condemned the PLO as a terrorist entity, and of course it has never declared any of the avowedly and admittedly murderous Arab organizations as terrorist. This is such a glaringly obvious double-standard, that to look upon the UN as impartial and fair is nothing short of idiotic. Israel is viewed as the aggressor and the Arabs as innocent victims. In the eyes of the Europeans, who almost exclusively support the Islamic viewpoint in the UN, Israel nothing more than a fascist state. In reality, Israel is the Middle East's only democracy and Arab citizens of Israel enjoy the highest standard of living and the most political rights of any Arabs in the entire Middle East. Not only that, but Israeli Arabs aren't even required to abide by the obligations that Jewish Israelis have to undertake. The most important of these is military service. In fact, surveys done by multiple organizations show that Israeli Arabs consciously choose to stay in Israel and prefer Israel to any of the Arab countries. You can do the research yourself folks, just use Google.

Soon the French, the Germans, the Belgians, the Italians and others in the EU will feel the wrath of Arab terror. Over the years, the Europeans will realize that Israel is defending itself against a terrible form of warfare and condemning Israel is indicative of short-sightedness and good dose of utter stupidity, mixed in with a bit of the standard anti-semitism.

As for Claude's comments that most Jews are greedy and concerned with the accumulation of wealth, that's just typical anti-semitism. Some Jews are greedy, but so are a percentage of people in every culture and religion. The capitalist instinct depends on an individual's personality, not on his nationality. It would be nice if the next person to leave a comment on my blog did not harbor stereotypically anti-semitic notions. But in 2005, with Israel scaring the Arabs with its infinitely superior military and annoying the Europeans with its very existance, maybe anti-semitism is so prevalent that I may be asking for too much.

Ah, my first blog. I don't know where this blog will go content-wise and who will read it. I am not going to start by talking too much about myself, that'll come out in later posts. The immediate future promises to be interesting. In a few months I'll be hopping on a JFK-Tel Aviv flight. I've been to Israel before, three times. This time it'll be less of a trip, and more of a long-term living arrangement. If all goes by plan, I'll be studying Hebrew in Ulpan Etzion in Jerusalem, getting my Hebrew level from converstational to semi-fluent. While there, I'll be motivated to write on Israeli life, Israeli politics, Israeli society, and probably on non-Israeli issues as well.

For now, I am still in the US of A, the world's only superpower. Ah, so nice to live in a hegemon. Although, these days, especially from the economic perspective, the hegemony doesn't seem like it'll last for too much longer. The government is getting too big and too cumbersome, and there's no way to check it's growth, as the body politic of the US is pretty much locked out of governing this country. The party duopoly has a stranglehold on Washington DC, and only major corporations have the financial ability to buy the lobbying power necessary to have any voice in government. I am no left wing nut, but it does take so much money to influence government behavior that it's hard to claim Joe Voter really has any voice at all.

On the other hand, capital for personal consumer purposes or for business activities flows like water in the US. So long as that holds true, and so long as the government continues to have the lowest amount of regulation in the Western world, the US economy will continue to be a powerhouse. The challenge from the EU is a total joke. But more on that in a later post.