Investor's Business Daily, April 17th, 2007
Terror State: Iranian-made arms meant for the Taliban have been seized in Afghanistan. Is there a terrorist group Tehran doesn't support? When will the world get serious about stopping this exporter of murder?
Vice President Dick Cheney often makes the point 20hat the global terrorist enemy the civilized world faces "wears no uniform" and its operatives "plot and plan in secret."
Quite true. But increasingly, the world is finding that those who provide much of the resources and political momentum for our enemies in this war wear the uniform of a government -- that of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the fanatic who denies the Holocaust, calls for Israel's destruction and believes Iran is divinely ordained to trigger an Islamic global apocalypse.
Iran has supplied Shiite militants in Iraq with roadside bombs that have killed our troops, and Sunni terrorists with weapons and intelligence support. Tehran has also long provided funding to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas and to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Joint Chiefs Chairman Peter Pace reports that powerful explosives and other munitions with markings proving them to be of Iranian manufacture were found in the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan in the past month.
Regarding the complicity of Iran's government, Pace said either Iran's leadership "knows what their armed forces are doing, or they don't know. In either case, that's a problem."
The major countries of the world might have solved the problem of Saddam Hussein had they joined in a concerted effort to isolate his regime from world trade. That mass murderer could have been forced to flee or been toppled, and there would have been no need for a U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Similarly, the world today could preclude military action against Iran by imposing watertight (or, more aptly, oil-tight) sanctions. This should have been done well over a year ago, yet consider:
In 2005, Germany, to its shame, was Iran's biggest trading partner; German exports to Iran last year were $5.5 billion.
During a trip to Pakistan last week, the Russian prime minister said Moscow backs Iran's right to produce nuclear energy -- little wonder since Russia has funded and built so much of Tehran's nuclear program.
Earlier this month, Iran and South Korea agreed to launch a joint investment committee, expanding their financial ties. South Korea's trade promotion council chief remarked that the recent United Nations Security Council resolution against Iran was unlikely to have any impact on Tehran-Seoul trade. South Korea currently has more than $10 billion invested in Iranian projects.
It was announced this month that "joint cooperation headquarters" will soon be established to coordinate economic and trade relations between Iran and another anti-American regime -- Hugo Chavez's Venezuela.
This month Pakistan's government announced it will allow its roads and highways to be used for Iran-China trade.
Much of the world is obviously steeped in self-delusion, acting as if the leading terrorist state building nuclear weapons is no cause for worry. Faced with this failure of international responsibility, it will become the job of the U.S. or Israel, or both, to take unilateral action and destroy Iran's nuclear facilities.
The alternative is to wake up one day to another 9/11 -- multiplied 1,000 times.
Copyright 2007 Investor's Business Daily, Inc.
