"The house we hope to build is not for my generation but for yours. It is your future that matters. And I hope that when you are my age, you will be able to say as I have been able to say: We lived in freedom. We lived lives that were a statement, not an apology."


Monday, June 15, 2009

The Iranian Presidential Election

You have to wonder what the mullahocracy of Iran was thinking in fixing the presidential elections of last week in such an egregiously blatant manner. Without question the incumbent shares their values perfectly, but what interest of theirs does that really promote? They are the ones who run the country, not the president. So then why sacrifice so much for so little in return? Standing idle while the "reformist" candidate got elected would have only advanced the mullahs' development of a nuclear arsenal. It would have encouraged President Obama – a person overly credulous with dictators and despots – to engage in some vain diplomatic effort (the same kind that has been a failure for years now) meant to prevent them from developing nuclear weapons.

Instead, they forced in the incumbent and inflamed simmering popular discontent while simulatenously providing the international community with a greater awareness of their true nature as a regime. Going forward that community will be less willing to engage the regime and its puppet president (or one would hope) which at the very least does not help advance their program of nuclear development.

Essentially, what the mullahs have done is to decline the opportunity to lead the world along a futile path of diplomacy (which advances the mullahs' interests) a little while longer and have instead stirred up a hornet's nest for no appreciable gain. We can only hope that at some point the United States et al can now find some way to stop such a clueless enemy which has – in all truth – been playing us and our friends for fools.

Saturday, June 06, 2009

Review: POST-CAPTAIN (AUBREY-MATURIN #2)

Post-Captain by Patrick O'Brian

A little bit of a step-down from Master and Commander. Far too little ink spent on tales of adventure on the sea by Captain Aubrey and Dr. Maturin and too much spent on unending love triangles between them and hapless women on land. The latter half of the novel did improve in this regard though and its conclusion (after the soap opera was resolved) left me eager to read the next installment of the series.

Friday, June 05, 2009

Ponce de Leon Obama

Given that peace between the Israelis and Palestinians has been the equivalent of the fountain of youth for American presidents for the past two decades (it is that which is desperately sought but never found) it comes as no surprise that the current president has committed himself to the same venture. But what he will soon realize is that the same impediment that thwarted the efforts of his predecessors will do the same to him. It is something which is out of his control, something that even the most finely crafted, sonorously delivered, and heartfelt speech cannot remedy. It is the simple fact that the powers that be in the Palestinian territories still do not stipulate to the one inescapable precondition for peace: acceptance of Israel's right to exist. President Obama and anyone else can try as they may, but without such a stipulation from the Palestinians no two-state solution and no meaningful peace can be realized.

Nothing can overcome this obstacle, including efforts to pressure the Israelis into more concessions. They have made their fair share of such since the failed Oslo Accords and have received little in return. At this point the onus is upon the Palestinian political leadership and people. Peace between Israeli and Palestinian will occur only when the latter is sincerely willing to accept a state situated side-by-side with the former, abandoning forever the effort to push Israel into the sea. It seems self-evident that two sides cannot co-exist peacefully when one side does not recognize the right of the other to exist in the first-place.