Right Wing Nut House

Reading commentary from liberals and Muslim groups like CAIR on the King hearings regarding the radicalization of Muslims in America, one is shocked by the over the top, exaggerated, hysterical rhetoric being used to describe it.

It’s “McCarthyism.” It’s “Islamophobia.” It’s Hitlerian, bigoted, racist - it’s every hand wringing, frothing at the mouth adjective you care to use to describe an effort to discover why young Muslim American men have traveled to Pakistan or other countries to receive terrorist training from al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups — and why some of them have turned to violent jihad.

Counter arguments don’t stand up to scrutiny, as I point out in my latest article at FrontPage.com:

In fact, the list of radicalized, home-grown terrorists is a long one. The question isn’t why we are looking at the problem, but why anyone in their right mind would oppose the effort in the first place?

The attacks on Rep. King are as vicious as they are unfair. The New York Times, in an editorial dripping with self-righteousness, blatantly calls him a bigot. Says the Times: ”His refusal to tone down the provocation despite widespread opposition suggests that he is far more interested in exploiting ethnic misunderstanding than in trying to heal it.”

In fact, the Times won’t even grant King the benefit of the doubt regarding any radicalization of Muslims in America. It editorializes, “Mr. King, a Republican whose district is centered in Nassau County on Long Island, says the hearings will examine the supposed radicalization of American Muslims.”

The “supposed” radicalization of American Muslims? This is the CAIR position lock, stock, and barrel. The unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation trial promote the idea that Americans mistake extremists for devout Muslims and that preaching jihad against the West doesn’t necessarily mean that violence is being promoted. Any effort to say otherwise is met with cries of “Islamophobia” or “racism.”

In an article in the New York Daily News on February 28, CAIR accused King of all sorts of vile offenses, including “hold[ing] hearings on the alleged ‘radicalization’ of American Muslims” and lying about the lack of cooperation between the Muslim community and law enforcement when it comes to terrorism investigations.

Despite CAIR’s caterwauling, police and federal agents confirm King’s assertion. A New York Daily News article quoted local and federal law enforcement officials declaring that King was right about the lack of cooperation from Muslims in terror investigations, although they also point to similar attitudes toward tipping police from other ethnic communities. The point being, CAIR is wrong and they know it. Their goal is not to improve communication between Muslims and the FBI, but rather to stoke the flames of distrust so that their people see a greater need for a “Muslim civil rights group” to protect them from the police and the Feds.

What marks the rhetoric of the left as they seek to bury King (who has done himself no favors by playing fast and loose with some of the facts), is the blizzard of straw men they set up portraying King in the most unflattering ways, and then heroically knocking them down, cheering themselves all the way.

One day, I’d like to have an argument with a lefty where Eugene McCarthy and Adolf Hitler don’t make an appearance.

My latest offering is up at FrontPage.com and in it, I examine the incredible support being shown for Qaddafi by Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, and the relative silence of other Latin American leftists about the slaughter going on in Libya.

A sample:

The bloody horror being visited on his own country by Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi keeps getting more and more surreal as the days pass and the body count mounts. The dictator’s actions in so brutally cracking down on challenges to his 41-year rule have drawn the condemnation of almost the entire planet. Even President Obama finally bestirred himself to criticize the massacre of protesters. But there are those who just can’t bring themselves to side with unarmed demonstrators being mowed down by helicopter gunships and bombed into oblivion by modern jet fighters. While the rest of the civilized world are gagging at Qaddafi’s bloodlust, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega telephoned the Libyan leader to “express his solidarity” as this Washington Post article states.

The reason for the calls? Ortega says that Qadaffi, ‘”is again waging a great battle’ to defend the unity of his nation” and that ‘”it’s at difficult times that loyalty and resolve are put to the test.”‘ Ortega shouldn’t really worry about Qaddafi’s “resolve.” The despot’s thugs and mercenaries are demonstrating that quality every day when they break into homes armed with swords and hammers, hacking and bludgeoning people to death. And how much of a “battle” can it be if Qaddafi’s air force is bombing civilians in the streets? Ortega is unconcerned; he blames the Libyan people getting shot down in cold blood for their own predicament, saying “There is looting of businesses now, there is destruction. That is terrible.”

One can only marvel at Ortega’s train of logic that shows concern for looted businesses and destruction - caused at least partly by Libya’s own air force - but not for women and children jumping off of bridges to avoid African mercenaries who are massacring everyone in sight.

Ortega is not the only leftist Latin leader who has expressed, if not solidarity, then at least understanding of Qaddafi’s actions. The mummified Fidel Castro is taking a “wait and see” attitude toward events in Libya. In a column published Tuesday, Castro wrote, “You can agree or not with Gadhafi. The world has been invaded by all sorts of news … We have to wait the necessary time to know with rigor how much is fact or lie.”

Good advice from the master of propaganda and deceit. It appears that Castro is perfectly willing to wait and see if reports of mercenaries from Chad and Nigeria roaming the streets of Benghazi shooting unarmed people in the head are true or not. Evidently, video evidence is just not good enough.

Why is it leftist dictators and not right wing strongmen who sympathize outright or stay silent otherwise in the face of such extraordinary bloodletting? In the radical Marxist universe that these thugs live in, there is no moral framework of right and wrong, only what works. In that sense, they can dismiss 10,000 Libyans dying as long as the greater good is served by keeping Qaddafi in power.

My latest is up at FrontPage.com and the subject is the utter cluelessness of a man who is supposed to know what’s happening in the world.

I don’t know why James Clapper said that the Muslim Brotherhood was a “largely secular” organization that “eschews violence.” The first proposition is radically wrong while the second is radically naive. Even reporters covering Egypt were searching for words to describe how off base Clapper was in his statements.

His is a special kind of incoherence that either reflects the shockingly ignorant consensus of our intelligence community or he is going easy on the Brotherhood because we may have to deal with them as part of any new government in Egypt. Either way, we’re in trouble. The Brotherhood has not “eschewed” violence. They made a tactical decision to de-emphasize their reliance on it. Few who know the Brotherhood agree with Clapper. That ought to seal his fate right there.

Time for Clapper to spend more time with his family. He should go - today.

A sample:

Examining Clapper’s remarks before the Intel Committee, one can’t help but be astounded, and not a little bewildered at his cluelessness about the Brotherhood. It’s not like the Islamists are trying to hide the nature of their organization, their goals, their history, or their reason for being.

As former CIA operations officer Brian Fairchild writes, there are no secrets between the Brotherhood and the rest of the world. Muhammad Mahdi Akef, the supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, from 2004-2010 repeatedly made clear the religious nature of his organization. He said on December, 11, 2005, “The Muslim Brotherhood is a global movement whose members cooperate with each other throughout the world, based on the same religious worldview — the spread of Islam, until it rules the world.”

Akef went on to say, “[W]e are in the global arena, and we preach for Allah according to the guidelines of the Muslim Brotherhood. All the members of the Muslim Brotherhood in the international arena operate according to the written charter that states that Jihad is the only way to achieve these goals.”

This is the organization Mr. Clapper referred to before the Intelligence Committee as “largely secular.”

Again, it’s not as if the spooks have to dig very deeply to ferret out the truth about these extremists. Here’s a quote from Akef in which he makes it crystal clear that Clapper’s contention that the Brotherhood has “eschewed violence” to be slightly premature. On August 17, 2004, he stated: “Islam considers the resistance to be Jihad for the sake of Allah and this is a commandment, a personal obligation [fardhayn] incumbent on all of the residents of the occupied countries. This commandment takes precedence over all other religious duties. Even a woman is obligated to go to war, even without her husband’s permission, and youth are permitted to go out and fight.”

How very peace-loving of them.

My latest is up at FrontPage.com titled “Spy versus Pakistan” in which I detail the case of American diplomat Raymond Davis who is languishing illegally in a Pakistani jail as the result of his involvement in a shooting incident where two young men were killed on January 27th.

It should be noted that all we know about Mr. Davis does not add up. But the only thing that concerns us should be his legal status in Pakistan. Given that the consulate in Lahore where he was working has identified him as a “diplomat,” Pakistan should respect international law and give him immunity.

A sample:

The Pakistani court ruled that Davis must remain incarcerated for another 8 days while the police investigate the matter further. Police sources have already admitted that the incident appears to be a cut and dried case of self-defense. The windows on Davis’s car were shot out and a gun was found lying next to one of the dead robbers.

But the Pakistani people are unconvinced. The families of the victims want Davis brought up on terrorism charges and news about the incident has been on the front pages for a week. Opposition politicians are demanding that Davis be tried for murder and there have been several protests at the jail where Davis is being held.

The Pakistani people are already up in arms over what they see as American interference in Islamic justice. Recent efforts to spare the life of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman condemned to death for blasphemy, brought thousands of protesters into the streets demonstrating in favor of the law. Reform efforts collapsed when one of the major sponsors of the effort was gunned down. And recent drone strikes that have accidentally killed Pakistani tribesmen have received a great deal of coverage. In short, one of the most anti-American countries in the world has found even greater cause to increase its animosity toward the U.S.

The Pakistani High Court will determine whether Davis is entitled to immunity. But there are elements to this story that don’t quite fit, suggesting complexity to Davis and the incident itself that defies explanation.

Indeed, some of the background for Davis reads “intelligence” pretty strongly:

Pakistani authorities claim that Davis is ex-Special Forces, having served in Afghanistan for 4 years. His take-down of the two robbers was an awesome display of coolness under fire. Six of the seven shots from his pistol found their mark despite Davis taking fire from the thugs.

Then, there was this curious piece of information offered by Dawn in their first report on the shooting:

A senior police officer told Dawn that Raymond David was among four people who were detained by security personnel near Lahores Sherpao Bridge on Dec 9, 2009, when they were trying to enter the Cantonment area in a vehicle with tinted glasses. They were armed with sophisticated weapons. The intervention of the US consulate led to their release, the officer recalled.

There’s more. UPI is reporting that the two men who were killed by Davis were intelligence operatives connected to the ISI, the Pakistani intelligence service. An anonymous security official told Pakistan’s Express Tribune that “[t]hey found the activities of the American official detrimental to our national security.” He also hinted that the ISI was very upset over American accusations that it had helped facilitate the Mumbai massacre in 2008.

WaPo intel blogger Jeff Stein talked to a former State Department security specialist who thinks Davis might have been the victim of an intelligence double cross. Questions about his exact duties at the consulate as well as why he was armed and driving a rented car in one of the most dangerous areas in Lahore also hang over Davis.

None of this should matter. He may very well be some kind of intelligence agent, or contractor. But he has a diplomatic ID and that should suffice. Instead, he is sitting in a Pakistani jail waiting on the High Court to rule on his status.

My latest article is up at FrontPage.com and it is about the curious disconnect both parties exhibited between reality and politics.

Neither side made much mention at all of our entitlement crisis.

And a crisis it is.

Cosmetic gambits like “spending freezes” and “doc fixes” can’t even begin to address the danger. This is political gamesmanship and it should anger us that the politicians know it but do it anyway. It’s not that the crisis is hidden, or has come upon us suddenly. We’ve known for decades where we were headed, but Washington chose the easy way: the politicians ignored the problem, kicking the can down the road, assuming they would be well into retirement — living off their extravagant congressional pensions — before history forced our hand.

The can has now been kicked into a cul de sac and there’s no way we can start kicking it back down the road. It may not be our fault, but we’re the ones who are going to have to pay for all of these promises so recklessly made by previous generations. One way or another, a solution will be found — or imposed — on us. Those are the only alternatives. Either the politicians will find the political courage (that they won’t get credit for) to start cutting and slashing at the monster or the monster will solve our problem for us by devouring us.

A few bare bones numbers are needed to prove that this is not hyperbole or political exaggeration. If we were to fulfill the promises made to every American from those born as I write this to the oldest citizen regarding Social Security and Medicare, it will cost us at least $130 trillion. Long before then, the entitlement crunch will have destroyed our economy. By 2016, 71% of the federal budget will be dedicated to paying entitlements of one form or another, the vast percentage of that being Social Security and Medicare.

There are 78 million baby boomers set to retire over the next 30 years, all expecting that monthly Social Security check for the rest of their lives. The significance of this is a matter of demographics. The number of workers paying into Social Security was 5.1 per retiree in 1960; this declined to 3.3 in 2007 and is projected to decline to 2.1 by 2035. We are currently in hock to the Social Security Trust Fund to the tune of $2.5 trillion. This number is expected to rise to $3.8 trillion by 2019. But by 2015, payments to Social Security beneficiaries will begin to exceed tax receipts. And by 2037, payments to recipients would start declining automatically – whether we wanted them to or not. The Trust Fund would be exhausted and Congress would be unable to tap any other revenue streams from the government to pay for it.

I erred in the year that Social Security’s payments to beneficiaries would exceed tax receipts. It’s not 2015. It’s this year.

Ain’t that lovely?

There are only two ways this is going to end and neither is without massive pain. The first is, we find the courage to confront the crisis and make the painful adjustments necessary to salvage our future. Or, we do nothing and get rid of the problem when the economy collapses.

Matt Welch writes that we “don’t do big things” anymore.

Here’s a reality check: We will not have high-speed rail within Segwaying distance of 80 percent of the country, ever. We will not get 80 percent of our electricity from “clean energy sources” by 2035, unless someone far outside the halls of government invents a snail that eats trash and poops hydrogen. Obama won’t veto every bill that arrives on his desk with earmarks–re-watch that part of the speech last night; no one believed him.

Why won’t these things happen? Because, as Rep. Paul Ryan rightly emphasized last night, the only real policy issue in America right now is that we are on the verge of fiscal catastrophe because cannot afford the government we’re paying for today, let alone the one we’re promising for tomorrow. And the president, though he is much more serious on this issue than a huge swath of his political party, is nonetheless not remotely serious about this issue. Vowing to cut $400 billion over 10 years (a plan that, judging by the two people clapping when he proposed it, will likely be cut to ribbons if it survives through Congress), at a moment when the deficit for this year is more than three times that, indicates that Democrats (and a helluva lot of Republicans as well) are hunkering down in our awful status quo–half-heartedly tinkering around the edges of spending, making incremental changes this way and that, then launching new moonshots and redoubling old impotent efforts. Politicians have put us on the precipice of financial ruin, and they show no indication of doing a damned thing about it.

[...]

There are more than a quarter million people working at the Departments of Agriculture and Commerce. Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security combined nearly pass the half-million mark. And at a moment of grave fiscal peril, we continue to spend half the planet’s money on defense, with Obama et al expecting thunderous applause for snipping out “tens of billions” from future defense spending growth. We continue to arrest 800,000-plus people a year for smoking or trading a plant that makes you want to eat Pop Tarts.

No, these people are not serious about the task at hand. The state of our union, as measured by the competence of people in power, is a f***ing disgrace.

It would be the biggest thing America has done since Apollo if we could attack the entitlement problem successfully. It will require the same amount of effort, despite the obvious fact that it isn’t very sexy, nor will it excite the American people.

In fact, it will have the opposite effect. In order to tackle Medicare and Social Security unfunded liabilities, no less than a drastic alteration in the way Americans think about government will have to take place. Old people will be scared and angry. Younger people might feel betrayed. The only ones who will be grateful are those yet unborn or in their infancy who will have vestiges of these programs to help them when they get older.

One big adjustment Americans are going to have to make is they are going to be paying more for their own health care. Hopefully, this will make everyone realize that there is no free lunch and that a kind of self-rationing protocol where people will only use the health care system when they truly need it will gradually take hold. The “fee for service” model will have to go and other ways to reimburse doctors and hospitals for their work will have to be found.

As for Social Security, there will probably never be a political consensus to privatize it - no matter how bad it gets. The program is much easier to deal with, however, simply by raising taxes and/or increasing the retirement age. That might buy us a few decades. Eventually, even that bandaid won’t be enough and we’ll be back to where we are today. Why some kind of means test, where those who are tapping another pension, or whose income without Social Security is above a certain level could receive less is a mystery. We have means tests for all kinds of entitlements and Social Security should be similarly administered.

Every year we delay adds a few trillion to our unfunded liabilities - now standing at $130 trillion. Here’s Bruce Bartlett on what we have to look forward to:

To summarize, we see that taxpayers are on the hook for Social Security and Medicare by these amounts: Social Security, 1.3% of GDP; Medicare part A, 2.8% of GDP; Medicare part B, 2.8% of GDP; and Medicare part D, 1.2% of GDP. This adds up to 8.1% of GDP. Thus federal income taxes for every taxpayer would have to rise by roughly 81% to pay all of the benefits promised by these programs under current law over and above the payroll tax.

Times’s up, Congress, Mr. President.

I have a piece up this morning at FrontPage.com on the fall of the Lebanese government.

A sample:

What appeared to be the last straw was the failure of a joint Syria-Saudi Arabian initiative to broker a compromise between the two parties. Indeed, the issue is so intractable and the positions of the adversaries so set in stone, that a compromise always appeared to be out of reach. When this became obvious on Tuesday night, Hezbollah jacked up the pressure by demanding that the cabinet, which hadn’t met since December 15th of last year, meet to vote on the issue while threatening to walk if this demand was not swiftly met. The majority March 14th party refused to convene a cabinet meeting with a gun to its head, at which point it became just a matter of time before Hezbollah made good on its threat.

The opposition chose the present moment to make their move as Prime Minister Hariri was in Washington meeting with President Obama. The timing could not be coincidental as the opposition ministers announced their resignations at the same time that Hariri and Obama were holding talks. Mustapha Allouch, a senior member of Hariri’s Future Movement, told AFP that the opposition wanted “Hariri to enter the meeting with the US president as an ex-premier or as head of a caretaker government.”

Hariri cut short his visit to Washington and will return to Lebanon to consult with his coalition about what to do next, after stopping off in France for talks with French President Nicholas Sarkozy.

[...]

And so Lebanon’s descent into the Iran-Syrian orbit continues unabated as Hezbollah’s grip on the throat of the tiny country gets stronger and Syria circles around the carcass like a jackal waiting to pounce once the prey stops struggling. It’s a far cry from the heady days of the “Beirut Spring” just 5 short years ago when such high hopes were ignited by massive protests that kicked the Syrian army out of Lebanon and elections brought independent-loving democrats to power.

Now, many of those politicians are either dead, or cowed by events. And the people of Lebanon are on edge today wondering how long – or if – the peace will last.

I have an article published at FrontPage.com today about the stand off between Costa Rica and Nicaragua, and how the incident is helping President Daniel Ortega in boosting his popularity ahead of the elections next year.

A sample:

Back in Managua, Ortega’s political fortunes rose dramatically. As recently as late last summer, former deadly foes from the Sandinista government of the 1980s and the Contra rebels had joined forces to present a united opposition of sorts to Ortega’s authoritarian government. These oddfellows had differing reasons for opposing the president, but found common ground in their agreement that Ortega was attempting to subvert the constitution in order to set up a dictatorship. Coupled with Ortega’s broad based unpopularity, there seemed to be a chance that Ortega would be confronted with the choice of stealing the election next year or going down to ignominious defeat.

The conflict with Costa Rica has changed that calculus. Whipped into a nationalistic frenzy by the Ortega government, the middle class has united behind the government, joining the Sandinistas and the desperately poor in supporting the president. Business leaders, formerly critical of Ortega’s naked power grab, have joined with university students to back the government. Opposition newspapers have cooled their rhetoric and have been praising Ortega’s stand. And perhaps most surprising of all, the National Assembly, only recently attacked by Ortega thugs, passed a unanimous resolution pledging full support for Ortega and his dispatching of troops to the border.

This support contrasts with the near civil war that broke out earlier this year following Ortega’s machinations with the Supreme Court. Sandinista judges overturned the presidential succession ban in return for an executive order from Ortega allowing them to stay in their offices beyond their own constitutionally mandated date of retirement. These are the same judges who will rule on any legal challenges during the 2011 election.

When the opposition squawked, Ortega sent his Sandinista thugs to the Supreme Court where opposition judges were forcibly removed. The action precipitated the forced marriage between the Sandinista faction that still believes in “revolutionary change” and the Contra faction that seeks adherence to constitutional principles. In the confusing and conflicted world of Nicaraguan politics, there are other factions from both sides who are serving in Ortega’s government, including a faction led by the legendary Eden Pastora, the charismatic Contra leader during the 1980’s who leads the small military force squatting on Calero island.

Not surprisingly, Ortega is being bankrolled by Hugo Chavez, who has engineered a very complex business arrangement that has placed more than a billion dollars in Ortega’s hands so that he can spread some wealth to the rural poor people in Nicaragua. The company that Ortega controls which is dispensing this largess has its fingers in several important sectors of the economy, thus giving him enormous leverage. It’s a carbon copy of the way Chavez was able to seize power and given the way in which Ortega has manipulated the Costa Rican crisis, will probably end up working in Nicaragua as well.

My latest article is up at FrontPage.com and in it, I agree with John Kyl and other Republican senators that there simply isn’t enough time in the lame duck session of Congress to address the numerous questions that need clarifying before senators from both parties can make an informed judgment to advise and consent to the New START treaty.

A sample:

The problem isn’t so much with the treaty itself, but with the politics being played by Democrats and the Obama administration. The president wants to ram the treaty through the Senate before the new congress is seated in January, fearing the influx of 10 new GOP senators will make ratification more difficult. He is willing to do this while questions regarding the president’s commitment to modernizing our nuclear force, pursuing a robust missile defense program, and ensuring the Russians don’t renege are being raised even by the treaty’s GOP supporters.

On top of all this, the administration has made the strategic blunder of overselling the importance of the treaty, speaking in apocalyptic terms about the failure to ratify the document in the lame duck session. Vice President Biden, not known for his rhetorical restraint, said on Wednesday, “Failure to pass the New Start treaty this year would endanger our national security,” adding that failure to ratify the treaty would mean there would be, “no verification regime to track Russia’s strategic nuclear arsenal,” and that it might affect our relations with Russia on other, strategically vital matters such as imposing sanctions on Iran and the war in Afghanistan.

There are questions about the treaty’s verification standards, which the Obama administration has so far failed to address to the satisfaction of Kyl and other Republican senators. Some of the more robust verification procedures in the old START treaty have been scrapped while others have been altered. According to the Heritage Foundation’s Baker Spring, F.M. Kirby Research Fellow in National Security Policy, there are major flaws in the treaty’s verification regime:

* A narrowing of the requirements for exchanging telemetry on missile tests,
* A reduction in the effectiveness of the inspections,
* Weaknesses in the ability to verify the number of deployed warheads on ICBMs and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs),
* Abolition of the START verification regime governing mobile ICBMs, and
* A weakening of the verification standards governing the elimination of delivery vehicles.

The treaty is supported by our entire military establishment. Indeed, the main sections of the treaty are fine - as far as arms control treaties go. But the devil is in the details and clarifying verification issues, asking questions about our ability to continue a missile defense program, and the administration’s failure to adequately address force modernization means that there just isn’t sufficient time in the lame duck session to get it all done.

Obama’s unseemly haste in this regard has more to do with politics, his own miserable standing in the polls, and his desire to make history rather than satisfying even those GOP senators who would be inclined to vote for New START. I sincerely hope that all of these questions can be answered in the 112th Congress so that all senators can weigh the merits of the treaty in its totality, rather than submit to White House pressure to get this done quickly.

My latest article is up at Frontpage.com and in it, I detail the worldwide reaction of disgust at the Fed’s “Quantitative Easing (2)” and how it is affecting our relations with other industrialized nations.

A sample:

As other nations see it, the dollar is more than just the US’s currency, it is also the world’s reserve currency. This benefits the US economy because the greenback is constantly being propped up by the rest of the world, which doesn’t want to see the value of other currencies plummet. When the Fed takes drastic action, like creating money and pouring it into the financial system of the US, the resulting flood of cash makes central bankers nervous about inflation and governments worried about the export sectors of their own economies.

How long will the dollar be used as the world’s backstop currency? Not very long if China has anything to say about it. Zhou Xiaochuan, head of the People’s Bank of China, set off a wave of unease last year when he almost casually suggested that the world’s financial system could do better if it wasn’t using the dollar as a reserve currency. In a speech last Friday, Zhou revisited that theme:

We can understand the Fed’s QE2 policy, from the angle that it wants to revive the U.S. economy and increase employment. But the problem is the dollar is the global reserve currency…It may not be the right choice for the global economy, though it is a good option for the U.S. economy.

China is, itself, under the gun for its own currency manipulation, but this kind of challenge coming from a nation with an economy the size of China’s will bear watching in Seoul and the months ahead.

China’s jawboning is only the tip of the iceberg. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Germany has been even more vociferous in opposition to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s QE schemes.

Back in the saddle after a prolonged bout with a very nasty bug. Here’s a piece posted today on FrontPage.com where I take a look at Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s triumphal visit to Lebanon and what it means for freedom and independence in that tiny country:

It would have been unthinkable just a couple of years ago: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was welcomed in Lebanon on Wednesday for a visit that demonstrated just how far the Lebanese democracy has fallen and how fast the enemies of freedom have risen.

Ever since the Doha Agreement of 2008, in which Hezbollah achieved with guns what it couldn’t achieve with the ballot box, the arc of power and influence of the democratic “March 14th Alliance” has been waning. In Qatar, the Western-friendly coalition made up largely of Sunnis, Christians, and Druze reluctantly agreed to give the Hezbollah-led opposition enough cabinet ministers in government to give them veto power over the majority’s policies. In effect, the hard-won election of 2005 that had given the democrats nominal control was canceled, and the wolf was invited inside where he then proceeded to make himself at home.

Even the parliamentary elections last year that saw another victory by the March 14th coalition was eventually watered down as the “Spirit of Doha” and once again brought the Hezbollah opposition into a government partnership. The political motto of Lebanon — “No victors, no vanquished” — rings hollow today as Hezbollah has bullied and threatened its way to dominance.

There is no doubt that Hezbollah has reached the zenith of its power and influence in Lebanon. By demonstrating a willingness to press its advantages, as well as hold the specter of violence over the heads of the March 14th Alliance, the government now marches to the beat of Hezbollah’s drums. There is something pathetic in all of this if one considers the high hopes of the Lebanese people when the March 14th Alliance first took power in 2005. Since that time, compromise after compromise with the enemies of freedom have sapped the will to resist the constant pressure of Hezbollah and its Iranian masters. In the end, most of the leaders of the March 14th forces have either resigned to the inevitable or are maintaining a lower profile.

This is the backdrop of Ahmadinejad’s triumphal visit to Lebanon. With a newly confident and assertive Syria, and Lebanon’s Hezbollah in de facto control of the country, the minions of the Iranian president now present a united front against Israel and Western interests in the Levant.

I’ll probably have more on this over the weekend.