Although I dont agree with a lot of what he says, here is Podhoretz, advisor to President Bush and Mayor Guilliani, on why the US should take out Iran's nuclear plants.
A provocative article no doubt that provides an insight into the thoughts of those advocate this style of diplomacy.
##########
Source :
http://www.opinionjournal.com/federation/feature/?id=110010139OPINIONJOURNAL FEDERATION
The Case for Bombing Iran
I hope and pray that President Bush will do it.
BY NORMAN PODHORETZ
Wednesday, May 30, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
Although
many persist in denying it, I continue to believe that what Sept 11,
2001, did was to plunge us headlong into nothing less than another
world war. I call this new war World War IV, because I also believe
that what is generally known as the Cold War was actually World War
III, and that this one bears a closer resemblance to that great
conflict than it does to World War II. Like the Cold War, as the
military historian Eliot Cohen was the first to recognize, the one we
are now in has ideological roots, pitting us against Islamofascism, yet
another mutation of the totalitarian disease we defeated first in the
shape of Nazism and fascism and then in the shape of communism; it is
global in scope; it is being fought with a variety of weapons, not all
of them military; and it is likely to go on for decades.
What follows from this way of
looking at the last five years is that the military campaigns in
Afghanistan and Iraq cannot be understood if they are regarded as
self-contained wars in their own right. Instead we have to see them as
fronts or theaters that have been opened up in the early stages of a
protracted global struggle. The same thing is true of Iran. As the
currently main center of the Islamofascist ideology against which we
have been fighting since 9/11, and as (according to the State
Department's latest annual report on the subject) the main sponsor of
the terrorism that is Islamofascism's weapon of choice, Iran too is a
front in World War IV. Moreover, its effort to build a nuclear arsenal
makes it the potentially most dangerous one of all.
The Iranians, of course, never
cease denying that they intend to build a nuclear arsenal, and yet in
the same breath they openly tell us what they intend to do with it.
Their first priority, as repeatedly and unequivocally announced by
their president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is to "wipe Israel off the
map"--a feat that could not be accomplished by conventional weapons
alone.
But Ahmadinejad's ambitions are
not confined to the destruction of Israel. He also wishes to dominate
the greater Middle East, and thereby to control the oilfields of the
region and the flow of oil out of it through the Persian Gulf. If he
acquired a nuclear capability, he would not even have to use it in
order to put all this within his reach. Intimidation and blackmail by
themselves would do the trick.
Nor are Ahmadinejad's ambitions
merely regional in scope. He has a larger dream of extending the power
and influence of Islam throughout Europe, and this too he hopes to
accomplish by playing on the fear that resistance to Iran would lead to
a nuclear war. And then, finally, comes the largest dream of all: what
Ahmadinejad does not shrink from describing as "a world without
America." Demented though he may be, I doubt that Ahmadinejad is so
crazy as to imagine that he could wipe America off the map even if he
had nuclear weapons. But what he probably does envisage is a diminution
of the American will to oppose him: that is, if not a world without
America, he will settle, at least in the short run, for a world without
much American influence.
Not surprisingly, the old American
foreign-policy establishment and many others say that these dreams are
nothing more than the fantasies of a madman. They also dismiss those
who think otherwise as neoconservative alarmists trying to drag this
country into another senseless war that is in the interest not of the
United States but only of Israel. But the irony is that Ahmadinejad's
dreams are more realistic than the dismissal of those dreams as merely
insane delusions. To understand why, an analogy with World War III may
help.
At certain points in that earlier
war, some of us feared that the Soviets might seize control of the oil
fields of the Middle East, and that the West, faced with a choice
between surrendering to their dominance or trying to stop them at the
risk of a nuclear exchange, would choose surrender. In that case, we
thought, the result would be what in those days went by the name of
Finlandization.
In Europe, where there were large
Communist parties, Finlandization would take the form of bringing these
parties to power so that they could establish "red Vichy" regimes like
the one already in place in Finland--regimes whose subservience to the
Soviet will in all things, domestic and foreign alike, would make
military occupation unnecessary and would therefore preserve a minimal
degree of national independence.
In the United States, where there
was no Communist Party to speak of, we speculated that Finlandization
would take a subtler form. In the realm of foreign affairs, politicians
and pundits would arise to celebrate the arrival of a new era of peace
and friendship in which the Cold War policy of containment would be
scrapped, thus giving the Soviets complete freedom to expand without
encountering any significant obstacles. And in the realm of domestic
affairs, Finlandization would mean that the only candidates running for
office with a prayer of being elected would be those who promised to
work toward a sociopolitical system more in harmony with the Soviet
model than the unjust capitalist plutocracy under which we had been
living.
Of course, by the grace of God,
the dissidents behind the Iron Curtain and Ronald Reagan, we won World
War III and were therefore spared the depredations that Finlandization
would have brought. Alas, we are far from knowing what the outcome of
World War IV will be. But in the meantime, looking at Europe today, we
already see the unfolding of a process analogous to Finlandization: it
has been called, rightly, Islamization. Consider, for example, what
happened when, only a few weeks ago, the Iranians captured 15 British
sailors and marines and held them hostage. Did the Royal Navy, which
once boasted that it ruled the waves, immediately retaliate against
this blatant act of aggression, or even threaten to do so unless the
captives were immediately released? Not by any stretch of the
imagination. Indeed, using force was the last thing in the world the
British contemplated doing, as they made sure to announce. Instead they
relied on the "soft power" so beloved of "sophisticated" Europeans and
their American fellow travelers.
But then, as if this show of
impotence were not humiliating enough, the British were unable even to
mobilize any of that soft power. The European Union, of which they are
a member, turned down their request to threaten Iran with a freeze of
imports. As for the U.N., under whose very auspices they were
patrolling the international waters in which the sailors were
kidnapped, it once again showed its true colors by refusing even to
condemn the Iranians. The most the Security Council could bring itself
to do was to express "grave concern." Meanwhile, a member of the
British cabinet was going the Security Council one better. While
registering no objection to propaganda pictures of the one female
hostage, who had been forced to shed her uniform and dress for the
cameras in Muslim clothing, Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt pronounced
it "deplorable" that she should have permitted herself to be
photographed with a cigarette in her mouth. "This," said Hewitt, "sends
completely the wrong message to our young people."
According to John Bolton, our
former ambassador to the U.N., the Iranians were testing the British to
see if there would be any price to pay for committing what would once
have been considered an act of war. Having received his answer,
Ahmadinejad could now reap the additional benefit of, as the British
commentator Daniel Johnson puts it, "posing as a benefactor" by
releasing the hostages, even while ordering more attacks in Iraq and
even while continuing to arm terrorist organizations, whether Shiite
(Hezbollah) or Sunni (Hamas). For fanatical Shiites though Ahmadinejad
and his ilk assuredly are, they are obviously willing to set sectarian
differences aside when it comes to forging jihadist alliances against
the infidels.
If, then, under present
circumstances Ahmadinejad could bring about the extraordinary degree of
kowtowing that resulted from the kidnapping of the British sailors,
what might he not accomplish with a nuclear arsenal behind him--nuclear
bombs that could be fitted on missiles capable of reaching Europe? As
to such a capability, Robert G. Joseph, the U.S. Special Envoy for
Nuclear Non-Proliferation, tells us that Iran is "expanding what is
already the largest offensive missile force in the region. Moreover, it
is reported to be working closely with North Korea, the world's No. 1
missile proliferator, to develop even more capable ballistic missiles."
This, Joseph goes on, is why "analysts agree that in the foreseeable
future Iran will be armed with medium- and long-range ballistic
missiles," and it is also why "we could wake up one morning to find
that Iran is holding Berlin, Paris or London hostage to whatever its
demands are then."
As with Finlandization,
Islamization extends to the domestic realm, too. In one recent
illustration of this process, as reported in the British press,
"schools in England are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to
avoid offending Muslim pupils . . . whose beliefs include Holocaust
denial." But this is an equal-opportunity capitulation, since the
schools are also eliminating lessons about the Crusades because "such
lessons often contradict what is taught in local mosques."
But why single out England? If
anything, much more, and worse, has been going on in other European
countries, including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Denmark and the
Netherlands. All of these countries have large and growing Muslim
populations demanding that their religious values and sensibilities be
accommodated at the expense of the traditional values of the West, and
even in some instances of the law. Yet rather than insisting that, like
all immigrant groups before them, they assimilate to Western norms,
almost all European politicians have been cravenly giving in to the
Muslims' outrageous demands.
As in the realm of foreign
affairs, if this much can be accomplished under present circumstances,
what might not be done if the process were being backed by Iranian
nuclear blackmail? Already some observers are warning that by the end
of the 21st century the whole of Europe will be transformed into a
place to which they give the name Eurabia. Whatever chance there may
still be of heading off this eventuality would surely be lessened by
the menacing shadow of an Iran armed with nuclear weapons, and only too
ready to put them into the hands of the terrorist groups to whom it is
even now supplying rockets and other explosive devices.
And the United States? As would
have been the case with Finlandization, we would experience a milder
form of Islamization here at home. But not in the area of foreign
policy. Like the Europeans, confronted by Islamofascists armed by Iran
with nuclear weapons, we would become more and more hesitant to risk
resisting the emergence of a world shaped by their will and tailored to
their wishes. For even if Ahmadinejad did not yet have missiles with a
long enough range to hit the United States, he would certainly be able
to unleash a wave of nuclear terror against us. If he did, he would in
all likelihood act through proxies, for whom he would with
characteristic brazenness disclaim any responsibility even if the
weapons used by the terrorists were to bear telltale markings
identifying them as of Iranian origin. At the same time, the opponents
of retaliation and other antiwar forces would rush to point out that
there was good reason to accept this disclaimer and, markings or no
markings (could they not have been forged?), no really solid evidence
to refute it.
In any event, in these same
centers of opinion, such a scenario is regarded as utter nonsense. In
their view, none of the things it envisages would follow even if
Ahmadinejad should get the bomb, because the fear of retaliation would
deter him from attacking us just as it deterred the Soviets in World
War III. For our part, moreover, the knowledge that we were safe from
attack would preclude any danger of our falling into anything like
Islamization.
But listen to what Bernard Lewis,
the greatest authority of our time on the Islamic world, has to say in
this context on the subject of deterrence:
MAD, mutual
assured destruction, [was effective] right through the cold war. Both
sides had nuclear weapons. Neither side used them, because both sides
knew the other would retaliate in kind. This will not work with a
religious fanatic [like Ahmadinejad]. For him, mutual assured
destruction is not a deterrent, it is an inducement. We know already
that [Iran's leaders] do not give a damn about killing their own people
in great numbers. We have seen it again and again. In the final
scenario, and this applies all the more strongly if they kill large
numbers of their own people, they are doing them a favor. They are
giving them a quick free pass to heaven and all its delights.
Nor are they inhibited by a love of country:
We do not worship
Iran, we worship Allah. For patriotism is another name for paganism. I
say let this land [Iran] burn. I say let this land go up in smoke,
provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world.
These were the words of the
Ayatollah Khomeini, who ruled Iran from 1979 to 1989, and there is no
reason to suppose that his disciple Ahmadinejad feels any differently.
Still less would deterrence work
where Israel was concerned. For as the Ayatollah Rafsanjani (who is
supposedly a "pragmatic conservative") has declared:
If a day comes
when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in
possession . . . application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything
in Israel, but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim
world.
In other words, Israel would be destroyed in a nuclear exchange, but Iran would survive.
In spite of all this, we keep
hearing that all would be well if only we agreed--in the currently
fashionable lingo--to "engage" with Iran, and that even if the worst
came to the worst we could--to revert to the same lingo--"live" with a
nuclear Iran. It is when such things are being said that, alongside the
resemblance between now and World War III, a parallel also becomes
evident between now and the eve of World War II.
By 1938, Germany under Adolf
Hitler had for some years been rearming in defiance of its obligations
under the Versailles treaty and other international agreements. Yet
even though Hitler in :"Mein Kampf" had explicitly spelled out the
goals he was now preparing to pursue, scarcely anyone took him
seriously. To the imminent victims of the war he was soon to start,
Hitler's book and his inflammatory speeches were nothing more than
braggadocio or, to use the more colorful word Hannah Arendt once
applied to Adolf Eichmann, rodomontade: the kind of red meat any
politician might throw to his constituents at home. Hitler might sound
at times like a madman, but in reality he was a shrewd operator with
whom one could--in the notorious term coined by the London Times--"do
business." The business that was done under this assumption was the
Munich Agreement of 1938, which the British Prime Minister Neville
Chamberlain declared had brought "peace in our time."
It was thanks to Munich that
"appeasement" became one of the dirtiest words in the whole of our
political vocabulary. Yet appeasement had always been an important and
entirely respectable tool of diplomacy, signifying the avoidance of war
through the alleviation of the other side's grievances. If Hitler had
been what his eventual victims imagined he was--that is, a conventional
statesman pursuing limited aims and using the threat of war only as a
way of strengthening his bargaining position--it would indeed have been
possible to appease him and thereby to head off the outbreak of another
war.
But Hitler was not a conventional
statesman and, although for tactical reasons he would sometimes pretend
otherwise, he did not have limited aims. He was a revolutionary seeking
to overturn the going international system and to replace it with a new
order dominated by Germany, which also meant the political culture of
Nazism. As such, he offered only two choices: resistance or submission.
Finding this reality unbearable, the world persuaded itself that there
was a way out, a third alternative, in negotiations. But given Hitler's
objectives, and his barely concealed lust for war, negotiating with him
could not conceivably have led to peace. It could have had only one
outcome, which was to buy him more time to start a war under more
favorable conditions. As most historians now agree, if he had been
taken at his own word about his true intentions, he could have been
stopped earlier and defeated at an infinitely lower cost.
Which brings us back to
Ahmadinejad. Like Hitler, he is a revolutionary whose objective is to
overturn the going international system and to replace it in the
fullness of time with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the
religio-political culture of Islamofascism. Like Hitler, too, he is
entirely open about his intentions, although--again like Hitler--he
sometimes pretends that he wants nothing more than his country's just
due. In the case of Hitler in 1938, this pretense took the form of
claiming that no further demands would be made if sovereignty over the
Sudetenland were transferred from Czechoslovakia to Germany. In the
case of Ahmadinejad, the pretense takes the form of claiming that Iran
is building nuclear facilities only for peaceful purposes and not for
the production of bombs.
But here we come upon an
interesting difference between then and now. Whereas in the late 1930s
almost everyone believed, or talked himself into believing, that Hitler
was telling the truth when he said he had no further demands to make
after Munich, no one believes that Ahmadinejad is telling the truth
when he says that Iran has no wish to develop a nuclear arsenal. In
addition, virtually everyone agrees that it would be best if he were
stopped, only not, God forbid, with military force--not now, and not
ever.
But if military force is ruled out, what is supposed to do the job?
Well, to begin with, there is that
good old standby, diplomacy. And so, for 3 1/2 years, even predating
the accession of Ahmadinejad to the presidency, the diplomatic gavotte
has been danced with Iran, in negotiations whose carrot-and-stick
details no one can remember--not even, I suspect, the parties involved.
But since, to say it again, Ahmadinejad is a revolutionary with
unlimited aims and not a statesman with whom we can "do business," all
this negotiating has had the same result as Munich had with Hitler.
That is, it has bought the Iranians more time in which they have moved
closer and closer to developing nuclear weapons.
Then there are sanctions. As it
happens, sanctions have very rarely worked in the past. Worse yet, they
have usually ended up hurting the hapless people of the targeted
country while leaving the leadership unscathed. Nevertheless, much hope
has been invested in them as a way of bringing Ahmadinejad to heel. Yet
thanks to the resistance of Russia and China, both of which have
reasons of their own to go easy on Iran, it has proved enormously
difficult for the Security Council to impose sanctions that could even
conceivably be effective. At first, the only measures to which Russia
and China would agree were much too limited even to bite. Then, as Iran
continued to defy Security Council resolutions and to block inspections
by the International Atomic Energy Agency that it was bound by treaty
to permit, not even the Russians and the Chinese were able to hold out
against stronger sanctions. Once more, however, these have had little
or no effect on the progress Iran is making toward the development of a
nuclear arsenal. On the contrary: they, too, have bought the Iranians
additional time in which to move ahead.
Since hope springs eternal, some
now believe that the answer lies in more punishing sanctions. This
time, however, their purpose would be not to force Iran into
compliance, but to provoke an internal uprising against Ahmadinejad and
the regime as a whole. Those who advocate this course tell us that the
"mullocracy" is very unpopular, especially with young people, who make
up a majority of Iran's population. They tell us that these young
people would like nothing better than to get rid of the oppressive and
repressive and corrupt regime under which they now live and to replace
it with a democratic system. And they tell us, finally, that if Iran
were so transformed, we would have nothing to fear from it even if it
were to acquire nuclear weapons.
Once upon a time, under the
influence of Bernard Lewis and others I respect, I too subscribed to
this school of thought. But after three years and more of waiting for
the insurrection they assured us back then was on the verge of
erupting, I have lost confidence in their prediction. Some of them
blame the Bush administration for not doing enough to encourage an
uprising, which is why they have now transferred their hopes to
sanctions that would inflict so much damage on the Iranian economy that
the entire populace would rise up against the rulers. Yet whether or
not this might happen under such circumstances, there is simply no
chance of getting Russia and China, or the Europeans for that matter,
to agree to the kind of sanctions that are the necessary precondition.
At the outset I stipulated that
the weapons with which we are fighting World War IV are not all
military--that they also include economic, diplomatic, and other
nonmilitary instruments of power. In exerting pressure for reform on
countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, these nonmilitary instruments
are the right ones to use. But it should be clear by now to any
observer not in denial that Iran is not such a country. As we know from
Iran's defiance of the Security Council and the IAEA even while the
United States has been warning Ahmadinejad that "all options" remain on
the table, ultimatums and threats of force can no more stop him than
negotiations and sanctions have managed to do. Like them, all they
accomplish is to buy him more time.
In short, the plain and brutal
truth is that if Iran is to be prevented from developing a nuclear
arsenal, there is no alternative to the actual use of military
force--any more than there was an alternative to force if Hitler was to
be stopped in 1938.
Since a ground invasion of Iran
must be ruled out for many different reasons, the job would have to be
done, if it is to be done at all, by a campaign of air strikes.
Furthermore, because Iran's nuclear facilities are dispersed, and
because some of them are underground, many sorties and bunker-busting
munitions would be required. And because such a campaign is beyond the
capabilities of Israel, and the will, let alone the courage, of any of
our other allies, it could be carried out only by the United States.
Even then, we would probably be unable to get at all the underground
facilities, which means that, if Iran were still intent on going
nuclear, it would not have to start over again from scratch. But a
bombing campaign would without question set back its nuclear program
for years to come, and might even lead to the overthrow of the mullahs.
The opponents of bombing--not just
the usual suspects but many both here and in Israel who have no
illusions about the nature and intentions and potential capabilities of
the Iranian regime--disagree that it might end in the overthrow of the
mullocracy. On the contrary, they are certain that all Iranians, even
the democratic dissidents, would be impelled to rally around the flag.
And this is only one of the worst-case scenarios they envisage. To wit:
Iran would retaliate by increasing the trouble it is already making for
us in Iraq. It would attack Israel with missiles armed with nonnuclear
warheads but possibly containing biological or chemical weapons. There
would be a vast increase in the price of oil, with catastrophic
consequences for every economy in the world, very much including our
own. The worldwide outcry against the inevitable civilian casualties
would make the anti-Americanism of today look like a lovefest.
I readily admit that it would be
foolish to discount any or all of these scenarios. Each of them is,
alas, only too plausible. Nevertheless, there is a good response to
them, and it is the one given by John McCain. The only thing worse than
bombing Iran, McCain has declared, is allowing Iran to get the bomb.
And yet those of us who agree with
McCain are left with the question of whether there is still time. If we
believe the Iranians, the answer is no. In early April, at Iran's
Nuclear Day festivities, Ahmadinejad announced that the point of no
return in the nuclearization process had been reached. If this is true,
it means that Iran is only a small step away from producing nuclear
weapons. But even supposing that Ahmadinejad is bluffing, in order to
convince the world that it is already too late to stop him, how long
will it take before he actually turns out to have a winning hand?
If we believe the CIA, perhaps as
much as 10 years. But CIA estimates have so often been wrong that they
are hardly more credible than the boasts of Ahmadinejad. Other
estimates by other experts fall within the range of a few months to six
years. Which is to say that no one really knows. And because no one
really knows, the only prudent--indeed, the only responsible--course
is to assume that Ahmadinejad may not be bluffing, or may only be
exaggerating a bit, and to strike at him as soon as it is logistically
possible.
In his 2002 State of the Union address, President Bush made a promise:
We'll be
deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events,
while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and
closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most
dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive
weapons.
In that speech, the president was
referring to Iraq, but he has made it clear on a number of subsequent
occasions that the same principle applies to Iran. Indeed, he has gone
so far as to say that if we permit Iran to build a nuclear arsenal,
people 50 years from now will look back and wonder how we of this
generation could have allowed such a thing to happen, and they will
rightly judge us as harshly as we today judge the British and the
French for what they did and what they failed to do at Munich in 1938.
I find it hard to understand why George W. Bush would have put himself
so squarely in the dock of history on this issue if he were resigned to
leaving office with Iran in possession of nuclear weapons, or with the
ability to build them. Accordingly, my guess is that he intends, within
the next 21 months, to order air strikes against the Iranian nuclear
facilities from the three U.S. aircraft carriers already sitting nearby.
But if that is what he has in
mind, why is he spending all this time doing the diplomatic dance and
wasting so much energy on getting the Russians and the Chinese to sign
on to sanctions? The reason, I suspect, is that--to borrow a phrase
from Robert Kagan--he has been "giving futility its chance." Not that
this is necessarily a cynical ploy. For it may well be that he has
entertained the remote possibility of a diplomatic solution under which
Iran would follow the example of Libya in voluntarily giving up its
nuclear program. Besides, once having played out the diplomatic string,
and thereby having demonstrated that to him force is truly a last
resort, Mr. Bush would be in a stronger political position to endorse
John McCain's formula that the only thing worse than bombing Iran would
be allowing Iran to build a nuclear bomb--and not just to endorse that
assessment, but to act on it.
If this is what Mr. Bush intends
to do, it goes, or should go, without saying that his overriding
purpose is to ensure the security of this country in accordance with
the vow he took upon becoming president, and in line with his pledge
not to stand by while one of the world's most dangerous regimes
threatens us with one of the world's most dangerous weapons.
But there is, it has been
reported, another consideration that is driving Mr. Bush. According to
a recent news story in the New York Times, for example, Bush has taken
to heart what "officials from 21 governments in and around the Middle
East warned at a meeting of Arab leaders in March"--namely, "that
Iran's drive for atomic technology could result in the beginning of 'a
grave and destructive nuclear arms race in the region.' " Which is to
say that he fears that local resistance to Iran's bid for hegemony in
the greater Middle East through the acquisition of nuclear weapons
could have even more dangerous consequences than a passive capitulation
to that bid by the Arab countries. For resistance would spell the doom
of all efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, and it would
vastly increase the chances of their use.
I have no doubt that this ominous
prospect figures prominently in the president's calculations. But it
seems evident to me that the survival of Israel, a country to which
George W. Bush has been friendlier than any president before him, is
also of major concern to him--a concern fully coincident with his
worries over a Middle Eastern arms race.
Much of the world has greeted
Ahmadinejad's promise to wipe Israel off the map with something close
to insouciance. In fact, it could almost be said of the Europeans that
they have been more upset by Ahmadinejad's denial that a Holocaust took
place 60 years ago than by his determination to set off one of his own
as soon as he acquires the means to do so. In some of European
countries, Holocaust denial is a crime, and the European Union only
recently endorsed that position. Yet for all their retrospective
remorse over the wholesale slaughter of Jews back then, the Europeans
seem no readier to lift a finger to prevent a second Holocaust than
they were the first time around.
Not so George W. Bush, a man who
knows evil when he sees it and who has demonstrated an unfailingly
courageous willingness to endure vilification and contumely in setting
his face against it. It now remains to be seen whether this president,
battered more mercilessly and with less justification than any other in
living memory, and weakened politically by the enemies of his policy in
the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular, will find it
possible to take the only action that can stop Iran from following
through on its evil intentions both toward us and toward Israel. As an
American and as a Jew, I pray with all my heart that he will.
Mr. Podhoretz is
editor-at-large of Commentary. His new book, "World War IV: The Long
Struggle Against Islamofascism," will be released by Doubleday on
Sept. 11. This essay, in somewhat different form, was delivered as an
address at a conference, "Is It 1938 Again?," held by the Center for
Jewish Studies at Queens College, City University of New York, in
April.