The most wicked surprise in American history came Dec. 7, 1941, when Japan launched its attack on Pearl Harbor.
Before the day that will live in infamy, isolationists ruled America.
Their delusional pacifism contributed directly to the deaths of thousands of American sailors and soldiers, who had to fight unprepared (not to mention, to the death of millions of others in Europe).
Delusion has grave consequences.
Right now, the US is deluded over Iran.
Deluded that sanctions will stop Iran from acquring nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them.
The only debate in the US is how much to sanction Iran, and in what way. Are our sanctions tough enough, or comprehensive enough? The asking of these questions may be compared to the rearranging of the deck chairs on the Titanic. Either way, the ship is going down.
Either way whatever the sanction the US is preparing itself, and the rest of the world, to go down before a nuclear Iran.
How can we say this? How do we know that it is delusional to fine-tune the sanctions against Iran.
One word answer: Syria.
Syria is sanctioned much more than Iran.
Much more universally.
And much more strongly.
Results?
Zip. Zero.
Syria continues its policy of murdering unarmred dissidents the same as before.
Middle East countries, bent on an irrational or hateful path, pay no attention to world opinion, to sanctions, to the suffering they catalyze for their own people.
In Syria, the sanctions bite every day. And the murder of dissidents continues as if there were no sanctions.
By the time the attack on Pearl Harbor came, it was too late.
The US was already behind behind in its own armaments production, in its own military conscription plans, in its own war-based economic footing, in its own diplomacy.
We paid the price.
Not nearly so high a price, however, as we will pay for waking up one morning, surprised, to learn that sanctions against Iran did not stop it from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
It seems that we learned nothing from Dec. 7, 1941. It lives in infamy and political sterility.
Copyright © 2011 by the Intermountain Jewish News
