Terrifying, sobering and essential article in The Business points out that Ariel Sharon’s illness could not have occurred at a more dangerous time for a world that is in denial over Iran:

Iran’s intensification of its nuclear programme – last week it announced it was ending its freeze on nuclear fuel research – comes as a confluence of forces increases the risk of an explosive clash in the region: an erratic and imperialistic Russia under President Putin has taken sides with Iran, further undermining any Western leverage with Iran; the same is true of China, whose reflexive and outdated anti-Americanism includes signing energy deals with Iran; and the collapse of the Bush administration as a force for stability and progress in the Middle East after the Iraqi debacle and a series of domestic scandals. The EU has long cosied up to dangerous dictators in exchange for commercial contracts. It is now also in the grip of a debilitating pacifism, which it will not abandon, even though its diplomatic efforts to bring Iran to the bargaining table have been a complete failure. That should surprise nobody; but add to EU impotence the complicity of Beijing and Moscow plus the power vacuum in Washington and you are left with a stark conclusion: there is nobody left to tame Iran.

Indeed, the opposite is true: Iran can count on some powerful allies, above all Mr Putin, whose impact in the Middle East is baleful. Consider the following: on Christmas Eve, Russia’s military commanders were engaged on a mission almost entirely ignored by the Western media – the deployment of the newest version of a deadly nuclear missile, the Topol M. It is fired almost into space, then descends on its target like a bullet. It is designed to penetrate America’s missile shield, paraded by the US navy two months ago when it destroyed a test missile some 100 miles above the Pacific Ocean. The arms race did not die with the end of the Cold War; now it is back on with a vengeance. In 2004 Russia conducted 15 ballistic missile test launches, more than any year since the Soviet era. Last year 28 tests were carried out. The Christmas Eve deployment of the Topol M along the Volga River shows Mr Putin is serious.

The significance of this for Iran? Simple: this renewed (albeit barely reported) renaissance in US-Russian rivalry threatens to spill over in the Middle East, thanks to Iran. Russia has confirmed a deal to sell TOR-M1 surface-to-air missiles to Iran. The most advanced system available, it uses mobile launchers to shoot down multiple targets such as missiles or planes. Also on Christmas Eve, the Kremlin offered to process uranium for Tehran, a deal which has since been rejected by Iran, preferring to do it itself. Moscow has also refused to condemn Tehran’s nuclear programme, arguing that it should be handled by the toothless IAEA rather than the UN Security Council…
On 14 December, President Ahmadinejad denied the reality of the Holocaust in a speech broadcast on Iranian TV: 'They have created a myth in the name of the Holocaust', he said. Last October, Mr Ahmadinejad chaired a 'World Without Zionism' conference, complete with banners demanding Israel be 'wiped off the map'. Given the views of their president, few of the viewers of Jaam-e Jam 2 Iranian TV on 20 December will have been surprised to hear two analysts denying the existence of crematoria at Auschwitz, refusing to believe that there could possibly have been 6m Jews in Europe during the Second World War and claiming that it had long been proved that Jews had murdered hundreds of British and French children in the 19th century and drunk their blood before the Passover holidays.

With re-heated Nazi propaganda rife on Iranian TV, an official policy of Holocaust denial and presidential calls to wipe Israel off the map, it beggars belief that Western bien pensants can still think that Iran poses no threat to world peace. The chattering-class line is that Iran’s rabid anti-Semitism is just the meanderings of a few hotheads. The same sort of people said much the same about Hitler in the 1930s. When a powerful country’s leaders spout and encourage fascist drivel it is as well for the democracies to take it at face value and act accordingly, until there is good reason not to. That is the lesson of history, which too many in the West seem determined to forget.

Read it all.

Posted by melanie at January 9, 2006