Christians United for Israel There Goes the Neighborhood
December 15,
2010
Filed under: All Posts ‹ brogsblog
As we celebrated Thanksgiving
last month, the German newspaper Die Welt published an article making a
profoundly troubling claim. This kind of report from such a reliable
newspaper should have sparked national concern and launched an international
inquiry. Yet most of us had no idea this article even
appeared.
Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (AP Photo)
What Die Welt reported
citing Western sources was that Iran is planning to place
medium-range missiles capable of reaching the United States on Venezuelan
soil. More specifically, the article claims that when Venezuelan President
Hugo Chavez visited Iran in October, the two nations signed an agreement under
which:
* Venezuela will allow Iran to establish a missile base
on its territory to be manned by both Iranian and Venezuelan
officers.
* The base will house
Iranian Scud-B, Scud C and Shahab 3 missiles.
The Scud missiles both B
and C are relatively short range and threaten only Venezuelaıs already
nervous neighbors. But the Shahab 3 missiles are able to reach the United
States from Venezuela. In short, if this article is correct, the United
States will soon join Israel and Europe in living within Iranian missile
range.
A comparison to the 1962
Cuban missile crisis is not only obvious, but instructive. At the time, the
power that posed the greatest threat to American security the Soviet
Union sought to place missiles in our backyard so as to be able to
threaten our major population centers. Today, the nation that currently poses
the greatest threat to American security Iran is seeking to do
exactly the same thing.
Yet while the threats are
similar, the reactions appear to be entirely different. As soon as he had
solid intelligence that the Soviet Union had placed ballistic missiles in
Cuba, President Kennedy demanded their removal. Although the Soviet Union was
already a nuclear power with a massive conventional army capable of
overrunning Europe, we did not hesitate to draw a red line around our
hemisphere. The world stood at the brink of a nuclear war until these missiles
were removed.
It stands to reason that, had President Kennedy known about
the Soviet plans sooner, he would have acted sooner. Had we received reports
of an agreement between the Soviets and Cuba to deploy these missiles, our
government would have communicated to the Soviets in no uncertain terms that
such a move would not be tolerated. Signals would have been sent. Lines in the
sand would have been drawn.
Yet the only thing resolute
about our reaction to this report about Iranian missiles is our determination
to ignore it. True, itıs possible that our intelligence agencies know that
this information is false. It is also possible that tough signals are being
sent through back channels to prevent this agreementıs implementation. But
after years of feckless failure to stop Iranıs march towards nuclear weapons,
one cannot be faulted for doubting whether such moves are in fact taking
place. There are too many leaks these days of the old kind and the
³wiki² kind to allow for perfectly silent diplomacy. Silence too often
correlates with inaction.
Every schoolchild learns
about the Monroe Doctrine, almost two hundred years old, under which the
United States declared that any intervention by foreign powers in the affairs
of the Americas would be viewed as an act of aggression requiring U.S.
intervention. As President Kennedy himself noted, ³The Monroe Doctrine
means what it has meant since President Monroe and John Quincy Adams
enunciated it, and that is that we would oppose a foreign power extending its
power to the Western Hemisphere, and that is why we oppose what is happening
in Cuba today.²
Yet today Iran plots and
plans with Venezuela, and we remain largely silent. Have we abandoned the
Monroe Doctrine? Have we opened our hemisphere to our enemies? We donıt yet
know for sure. But the fact that such an article could spur so little debate
and concern is deeply troubling. And where thereıs no smoke, we should not be
surprised to discover that there is no fire.
The prospect of a nuclear
Iran has just gotten even more dangerous. And much more personal.
David Brog is the executive director
of Christians United for Israel and author of a new book, In Defense of Faith: The
Judeo-Christian Idea and the Struggle for Humanity.