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Jewish World Review Dec. 20, 2002 / 15 Teves, 5763

Michael Ledeen

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A Prophecy for the New Year --- Faster, please!


http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | 'll be traveling for the next ten days, but it the next round in the Iranian saga is pretty clear by now, so I thought I'd pass it on.

The hardliners in Tehran have decided that their only chance of survival is a massive crackdown on all forms of dissidence, so they are first going to give the useless President Khatami an offer he can't refuse: Either quit, or submit. They will give the pathetic "reformers" the back of their hands, and then bring down an iron fist on the students, the teachers, the trade unions, and even the dissident mullahs. Sad to say, even more brave Iranians will be rounded up, clubbed into submission, or tortured to death.

This may - but only may - remove all illusions in Foggy Bottom and in the appeasement capitals of Western Europe, and finally put some spine in the still-silent human-rights and feminist gangs in the West, and confirm President Bush's many accurate statements about Iran, from the "Axis of Evil" onward. And I hope it will finally convince my government that we must not stand idly by as the Iranian regime gets ever stronger, and unleashes a new wave of terror against the West.

There have been many signs that this is in fact going on right now. A week ago I wrote about a Palestinian terror group that had been rounded up in Germany, run from long distance (that is, Tehran) by a Jordanian by the name of Sarkawi. It turns out that Sarkawi also ran the assassination team in Jordan that killed an American diplomat in Amman a couple of months ago.

For those who still doubt that Sunni and Shiite terrorists work closely together, this story is yet another nail in that empty coffin.

On the domestic front, the iron fist is in full evidence. In the last couple of days there were demonstrations in Kermanshah after the bloody murder of a student. As other students poured into the town, the security forces stopped buses, and assaulted the students with razor blades, burned them with cigarettes, beat them with chains, and arrested a large number. Ditto in Tehran, where 150 students were rounded up and held against impossibly large bail.

Nothing yet in the Western press, but, of course, that is no surprise to us.

Meanwhile, the French have arrested some North African terrorists who were planning big operations over the holidays (what a pity that appeasement doesn't work as it's supposed to! If it did, France would be the safest country in the world today.). The French were tipped off to these people by some brave Muslim leaders, who informed French security forces that the North Africans had been trained in Iran and then infiltrated into France via their native countries.

So we face just what we deserve for our feckless inaction: an ever more ambitious and bloody regime in Iran, utterly devoted to our destruction, and churning along - as recent stories have made clear - toward nuclear weapons (notice the recent shipments from North Korea, the third member of the unholy trinity along with Iran and Iraq) and other nasty powders and spores.

As I wrote in The War Against the Terror Masters., we face a unified challenge, and we will have to fight a regional war (I'm sure you've read the accounts in the British press of Syria's covert assistance to Saddam in preparation for the war against the United States). Woe betide our strategists if they send our soldiers into Iraq without preparing to defend our flanks against the terror masters in Damascus and Tehran, fully funded by the Saudi royal family.

The terror masters believe they will have to fight us sooner or later, and they'd rather send their terrorist forces against us in Iraq than wait for us to move against them at our convenience.

Faster, please. We're already very late.


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JWR contributor Michael Ledeen is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of, most recently, The War Against the Terror Masters. Comment by clicking here.

Up

12/16/02: Scud Surrender: The "W" factor
12/13/02: The Heart of Darkness: The mullahs make terror possible
12/12/02: The Real War
12/09/02: Tom Friedman's Reformation: His Iran
11/26/02: How Tyrannies Fall: Opportunity time in Iran
11/22/02: The Blind Leading the Blind: The New York Times and the Iranian crisis
11/13/02: The Temperature Rises: We should liberate Iran first --- now
11/05/02: End of the Road: Iran's Mohammed Khatami, on his way out
10/29/02: The Angleton Dialogues, Contnued: What George Tenet doesn’t know
10/24/02: The Iranian Comedy Hour: In the U.S., the silence continues
10/16/02: Sniper, Saboteur, or Sleeper? Channeling James Jesus Angleton
10/01/02: The real foe
09/27/02: The Iranian String Quartet: The mullahs get increasingly nervous
09/25/02: The Dubya Doctrine
09/23/02: Intelligence? What intelligence?
09/12/02: America's revenge: To turn tyrannies into democracies
09/10/02: Iran & Afghanistan & Us: We'll have to deal with the mullahcracy, sooner or later
09/04/02: Iran, according to the Times: All the nonsense that's fit to print
08/21/02: Life and death of Abu Nidal tells us a great deal about our enemies
08/08/02: Can You Keep a Secret?: The media silence on Iran
08/06/02: Fantasy Reporting: The latest disinformation from the Washington Post
08/02/02: Propping Up the Terror Masters: Europe's Solana on tour
07/16/02: Bush vs. the Mullahs: Getting on the side of the Iranian freedom fighters
07/12/02: The State Department Goes Mute: It's official: State has no message
07/09/02: History being made, but the West appears clueless
06/05/02: Is George Tenet endangering peace in Israel?
06/03/02: Ridiculous, even for a journalist
05/20/02: So how come nobody's been fired yet?
05/14/02: Open doors for thugs
04/20/02: Iran on the Brink … and the U.S. does nothing
04/16/02: It’s the war, stupid … someone remind Colin Powell
04/08/02: Gulled: In the Middle East, Arafat doesn't matter
04/02/02: Faster, Please: The war falters
03/26/02: The Revolution Continues: What's brewing in Iran
03/18/02: Iran simmers still: Where's the press?
03/05/02: We can't lose any more ground in Iran
02/14/02: The Great Iranian Hoax
02/12/02: Unnoticed Bombshell: Key information in a new book
01/31/02: The truth behind the Powell play
01/29/02: My past with "Johnny Jihad's" lawyer
01/21/02: It's Munich, all over again
01/08/02: What's the Holdup?: It's time for the next battles in the war against terrorism
12/11/01: We must be imperious, ruthless, and relentless
12/06/01: Remembering my family friend, Walt Disney
11/28/01: The Barbara Olson Bomb: Understanding the war
11/13/01: How We're Doing: The Angleton Files, IV
11/06/01: A great revolutionary war is coming
10/25/01: How to talk to a terrorist
10/23/01: Creative Reporting: Learning to appreciate press briefings
10/19/01: Not the Emmys: A Beltway award presentation
10/15/01: Rediscovering American character
10/11/01: Somehow, I've missed Arafat's praise of the first stage of our war on terrorism
10/04/01: What do we not know?
09/28/01: Machiavelli On Our War: Some advice for our leaders
09/25/01: No Room for the U.N.: Keeping Annan & co. out of the picture
09/21/01: Creative destruction
09/14/01: Who Killed Barbara Olson?
08/22/01: How Israel will win this war
08/15/01: Bracing for war
08/09/01: More Dithering Democrats
08/02/01: Delirious Dems
07/31/01: Consulting a legendary counterspy about Chandra and Condit, cont'd
07/19/01: Be careful what you wish for
07/17/01: Consulting a legendary counterspy about Chandra and Condit
07/05/01: Let Slobo Go
05/30/01: Anybody out there afraid of the Republicans?
05/09/01: The bad guys to the rescue
05/07/01: Bye-bye, Blumenthal
04/20/01: Handling China
04/11/01: EXAM TIME!
04/05/01: Chinese over-water torture
03/27/01: Fighting AIDS in Africa is a losing proposition
03/14/01: Big Bird, Oscar, and other threats
03/09/01: Time for a good, old-fashioned purge
03/06/01: Powell’s great (mis)adventure
02/26/01: The Clinton Sopranos
02/20/01: Unity Schmoonity: Sharon is defying the will of the people
01/30/01: The Rest of the Rich Story
01/22/01: Ashcroft the Jew
01/11/01: A fitting close to the Clinton years
12/26/00: Continuing Clinton's shameful legacy
12/21/00: Clinton’s gift for Bush

© 2001, Michael Ledeen