The Smell of Doom

In European history, there is a detectable trend of leadership which on the face does not appear suicidal but nonetheless arrives inexorably at self-destruction. They march to doom by convincing themselves that inching toward conflict is still peace. In our recent episode, the devil with which the deal is being made is Iran, more specifically the mad mullahs and their lunatic representative, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In game theory, you try to play out the course of events to figure out what move you should make now. Apparently, the Europeans never thought that Iran would thumb it's nose at them and seem wholly unable to grasp the dire consequences of a nuclear Iran. Is it any wonder that Russia and China have no problem with Iran developing nukes? Russia has, of course, seen the folly that a nuclear Islamic state will inevitably point its weapons at Moscow, which after the US is the major nemisis of the fanatical muslim movement. Can we guess how this will end? Israel will have to take matters into their own hands and they will not play nice. The upset of the oil market which the Europeans wanted to avoid at all costs (and the Iranians could guess this) would happen anyway except with the added feature of a regional nuclear conflict. A conflict which will inevitably have to involve many participants.

Charles Krauthammer has a good piece on this topic. However, to understand the mindset of the self-delusional, read this Guardian article where in the last line, the author states : "If ever there were a realpolitik demanding to be 'hugged close' it is this one, however distasteful its leader and his centrifuges. If you cannot stop a man buying a gun, the next best bet is to make him your friend, not your enemy. "

I think the millions of dead Russians, victims of Stalin's deal with Hitler, would argue otherwise if they were alive. If a man announces he wishes to kill someone and everyone stands around as he gets a gun and loads it, are they complicit in the inevitable shootout?

The Aftermath of Katrina

From the Opinion Journal's Best of the Web comes an excellent synopsis of the race problem in America. It refers to a wholly self-indulgent article from the Black Commentor.

It is disappointing that Whites and Blacks see the events of Katrina so differently and I'm inclined to think that the color of the victims had absolutely nothing to do with the FEMA response. I'm more disconcerted at how Nagin has received a pass from the political black community. Can you imagine what the outcry would have been had a White Republican been the mayor? And as the BC complains that "fiscal responsibility" is code for "don't spend money on black people", they completely ignore the large transfer of wealth that goes from white to black every year. Or in this particular case, they refuse to even consider that New Orleans receives the highest per capita federal spending above local revenues than any other place in the country.

I'm afraid that what we see here is something akin to the Arab response to any event in the middle east. Since the possibility of your world view being wrong is too horific to consider, every situation is inevitably interpreted in familiar "victim" rhetoric. What I see from the results of the poll are not that Blacks think that Whites are responsible but rather that Whites have to be responsible. Among Whites there is much more diversity of opinion. It reminds me of what Mohammed Atta's father said when told that his son was a terrorist: The Jews must have been responsible.

Two quotes: "Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from the sense of their inadequacy and impotence." Eric Hoffer
"Societies sunk into deep shame tend to reject historical truth and the need to reconsider pointless resentments." Edwin Roberts