Right Wing Nut House

When Adolph Hitler was getting ready to invade Poland in August of 1939, he faced something of a dilemma. While he realized that both France and England would probably be forced to declare war on Germany for the violation of Poland’s sovereignty he was planning, his real concern was the reaction of the Soviet Union who had also given some security guarantees to the Polish state.

Hitler did not want to repeat what he saw as the Kaiser’s biggest mistake - Germany having to fight a two front war. And while he was fully prepared to invade Poland at any cost, he thought he saw an opening in late August to peel the Soviets away from the Anglo-French alliance. He sent his Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop to Moscow for what has to be considered the most cynical diplomatic move of the 20th century. Within a few days, Ribbentrop had negotiated a trade agreement on the most favorable terms to Germany along with a Non-Agression pact between the two tyrants. In addition, there was a secret protocol to the treaty that gave Hitler carte blanche to attack in the west and allowed Stalin a free hand in the Baltic. Hitler even threw in a large slice of Poland to sweeten the pot for Stalin.

The Nazi-Soviet Pact was signed on August 29 in Moscow. Less than 72 hours later, Hitler invaded Poland.

The non-agression treaty didn’t save Stalin, of course, as Hitler planned to break the pact just as soon as the military situation in the west was settled. After occupying most of Europe by defeating the French and bringing Great Britain to its knees, he ended up invading the Soviet Union in June of 1941.

Hitler used the non-agression pact with Stalin as a ruse to improve his military prospects in the west and allow him time for the strategic situation to ripen in the east.

And now both Iran and North Korea, the remaining members of the “Axis of Evil”, are saying they’ll give the United States what we want from them - no nukes - in exchange for security guarantees.

Does anyone else get the feeling that history may be repeating itself?

Both countries would be tough nuts to crack in a military sense. Both have large modern armies that would make invasion extremely costly. Only a coalition of Europeans and friendly Arab states would be able to take down Iran. And some similar coalition would be needed to overrun North Korea.

And yet the danger of either one of those nations getting their hands on weapons of mass destruction is so great that there is a sense of urgency in preventing them from achieving their goal. In the case of Iran, we’ve allowed the so-called EU3 composed of Great Britain, France, and Germany to negotiate with the radiocative Mullahs in Iran to stop their uranium enrichment program. Iran has continously refused to do this despite attractive trade concessions offered by the EU. Now apparently, the Iranians may be willing to forgo their enrichment program in exchange for certain “guarantees:”

Iran’s top nuclear negotiator said his European counterparts have proposed a guarantee that Iran will not be invaded if Tehran agrees to permanently halt uranium enrichment, the state-run news agency said Sunday.

Hasan Rowhani said the proposal is being discussed by Europeans and includes several important points such as “guarantees about Iran’s integrity, independence, national sovereignty” and “nonaggression toward Iran,” the Islamic Republic News Agency said Sunday.

“If Europe enjoys a serious political will about Iran’s nuclear fuel cycle, there will be the possibility of understanding,” the agency quoted Rowhani as saying in a letter to outgoing Iranian president Mohammad Khatami.

Does this mean that Iran would halt their drive to produce weapons grade atomic material? Not exactly:

Meanwhile, Iran’s top officials were to meet Sunday evening for a final decision on when to resume work at a reprocessing center in Isfahan, said Ali Agha Mohammadi, spokesman for Iran’s powerful Supreme National Security Council.

“Europe has only a few hours, up to when the council meets, for the proposal. If it does not arrive by that time, the council will discuss breaking the ice” on Iran’s stalled nuclear program, Agha Mohammadi told state-run radio.

Of course, the Iranians will be guided by the principals of non proliferation - for a while anyway:

“Today or tomorrow we will send a letter to the IAEA about resumption of activity in the Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facility,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi. “We would like to unseal the equipment and carry on the activity under the IAEA.”

Asefi said IAEA inspectors already were in Tehran, which means a short flight to the central Iranian city of Isfahan.

“Since our nuclear policy is transparent and legal, we will start activity upon delivering the letter to the IAEA, with the inspectors in attendance,” Asefi said.

Later Sunday, Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman for the Vienna, Austria-based IAEA, told the AP the agency had not received any official notification from Iran about resumption of activity at the Isfahan facility.

Given the cluelessness of the International Atomic Energy Administration (IAEA) in the past regarding Kim Jung Il’s “now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t” nuclear weapons program, is it any wonder we don’t have much faith in the Iranian statements regarding how benign their enrichment program is?

And speaking of the North Koreans, while the 6 party talks have resumed, Kim has already made it clear that the way to a nuclear free Korean penninsula is a guarantee by the United States not to invade:

Striking a peace treaty to replace the armistice that ended the 1950-1953 Korean War would resolve the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula, a spokesman for North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday.

The comments, carried by the North’s official KCNA news agency, came before a meeting of regional powers in Beijing on Tuesday for talks aimed at dismantling Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programmes in exchange for security guarantees and economic assistance.

“Replacing the ceasefire mechanism by a peace mechanism on the Korean peninsula would lead to putting an end to the U.S. hostile policy toward the DPRK, which spawned the nuclear issue and the former’s nuclear threat,” a foreign ministry spokesman said in the report carried by KCNA.

According to this very interesting analysis via the Army War College, the North Korean regime is building nukes to ensure its survival but also to prove itself a serious, grown up country that deserves more respect than it’s getting. As soon as they stop saying that Kim wasn’t born but that he “fell from heaven” then I’ll start taking them seriously.

That said, it’s obvious that North Korea too wishes that the United States military not invade. In exchange, they’re willing to forgo building nuclear weapons, sign a peace treaty, and generally act like good little members of the international community.

Or, they plan on lulling the United States and the rest of the world to sleep while they continue to evade the weak efforts of the IAEA to keep the lid on their nuclear program, something they have a lot of experience in doing.

The point here is that both Iran and North Korea have no incentive whatsoever to stop building nukes as long as the rest of the world goes along with their “non-agression” plans. Once the world community turns their backs on Kim and the mad Mullahs, I have no doubt that they plan to resume their weapons programs. In the meantime, the rest of the world gives itself a stiff neck by trying hard to pat itself on the back for it’s work in stopping the “Axis of Evil” from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as well as the ruling Guardian Council by all reports have just fixed a Presidential election so that a handpicked hard line terrorist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could be elected. Recent statements from the President-elect include a promise to carry the Islamic revolution to “every mountaintop” as well as his almost unnoticed campaign to militarize and radicalize the country by placing hard line allies in key positions.

Iran is preparing for a war and wants a treaty of “non-agression?”

The news that Iran will continue with its enrichment program will not sit well with the Israelis who have made it very clear that a nation that has consistently called for its destruction will not be allowed to build an atomic weapon. Nor can we in the United States afford the luxury of allowing a state that openly supports terrorist groups like Hamas and Hizbollah not to mention their demonstrated affection for al Qaeda to build a nuclear weapon that could end up in the hands of terrorists who wouldn’t hesitate using it against us.

The actions taken by Iran in the last few months would seem to indicate that any “non agression” treaty with them would ring as hollow as Hitler’s non agression pact with Russia. The same hold’s true with North Korea. The fact is, neither can be trusted. This is especially true if we’re forced to rely on international organizations like the IAEA to make sure those two nations are keeping their end of any bargain.

Will we delude ourselves about Iran and North Korea the same way that Stalin deluded himself about Hitler’s Germany?