History is, admittedly, the definition of hindsight. All we can do is try to learn from history's mistakes so that we, hopefully, do not repeat them. But it still baffles us how some of those mistakes could possibly have been made. Why did both the Union and the Confederacy both believe that the Civil War would be a walkover? Especially the latter, given that the North had over twice the population and the bulk of America's industrial base. Why did both sides of the First World War - the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Turkey) and the Entente Cordiale (Britain, France, Russia, Italy) - believe the exact same thing? Sure, there hadn't been a general European war in a century, nobody alive at the time had ever seen one, but how is it neither side ever considered the possibility and implications of a stalemate?
And then, contrariwise, how is it that Adolph Hitler wrote a manifesto (Mein Kampf) transparently laying out all his plans for taking over Germany, using Germany to conquer Europe and eventually the entire planet, fomenting and carrying out genocide against Jews and Slavs and other "subhuman" ethnic groups to make room (lebensraum) for the Aryan "master race," and then proceed to carry out that plan, systematically and by the numbers, in plain sight for so long without anybody ever bothering to even notice that it was happening before their very averted eyes? Yes, yes, the trauma of World War I put British and French leaders in a state of stubborn, active, aggressive denial, but the result, as Winston Churchill spent his 1930s "wilderness" years warning at the top of his lungs, was inevitably going to be a global conflagration even worse than the "Great War". And so it was.
But nobody listened, because nobody wanted to listen.
I think about this sort of thing when I come across stories like this one:
Iran's stockpile of nuclear fuel increased about 20% over the last eighteen months as high-stakes talks were underway – and despite the Obama administration’s claim the program had been "frozen."
Which they may or may not have known, but definitely wanted all of us to believe. And which nakedly indicates what I (and quite a number of others) have always said: That the mullahs are building their nuclear arsenal no matter what anybody says and are using these interminable "negotiations" to help themselves and use us to do it.
The spike was included in a report issued last week by by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations organization that monitors compliance with nuclear treaties.
Much to The One's teeth-grinding consternation.
The New York Times reports the agency’s inspectors reported finding no evidence Iran was hurrying to build a nuclear bomb, and said Tehran had halted work on facilities that could have given it bomb-making capabilities. [emphasis added]
Which means there's plenty of evidence Iran is hurriedly building their nuclear arsenal, but the mullahs did not and are not allowing the IAEA to "inspect" in any area where that glowing cat might get out of the proverbial bag.
We are, in other words, averting our eyes from what is taking place right before our eyes, because we most definitely do not want to know about it, because of what that would require us to do.
And so the mullahs keep building and building and building:
A major element of the deal, if it's completed, permits Iran to maintain a stockpile of about six hundred sixty pounds of nuclear fuel, less than would be needed to make a single weapon, the Times reports.
And that means Iran would have to get rid of more than nine tons of its stockpile in a matter of months, the Times notes. [emphasis added]
Let's do some basic arithmetic, shall we? Using the six hundred sixty pound number as the ceiling for how much nuclear fuel is needed to make a warhead, nine tons (18,000 pounds) of nuclear fuel would make some number less than twenty-seven nuclear warheads.
Gee, I can't imagine how the Iranians might "get rid of" that 96% of their nuclear fuel stockpile, can you? You know, the one to which they continue to merrily add no matter what anybody says and no matter how much "tough diplomacy" we practice.
Just so there's no possibility of misunderstanding: We are watching our enemy, which has for thirty-six years been shouting, "Death to America! Death to America!", build, right before our averted eyes, the means by which they will carry out this promise. And we're not only letting them do it, we're helping them to do so.
And we, the Churchills of the early twenty-first century, look helplessly on, as nobody listens, because nobody wants to listen. And the result will inevitably be a global conflagration even worse than World War II. And so it will be.
History is repeating itself again.
For the last time.
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