When Will the West Wake Up?

Fox News

Six-power talks with Iran ended abruptly on Saturday in Istanbul. According to the Associated Press, the talks were "meant to nudge Iran toward meeting U.N. Security Council demands to stop uranium enrichment...with Tehran shrugging off calls by six world powers to cease the activity that could be harnessed to make nuclear weapons." (To continue reading about the collapse of six-power talks, click here.)

The Iranian hostage crisis ended 30 years ago this week. Yet even after all this time -- and four separate sets of U.N. sanctions -- Iran is still concealing its nuclear program and adamantly refuses to address the issue. I cannot put it more simply: The West needs to wake up or all is lost.

It is time we realize that the Iranian leaders are only looking to buy time until when they are nuclear armed.

For literally three decades, the West has failed to understand the political structure of Iran and the mindset behind the radicals ruling Iran. That failure has cost hundreds of thousands of lives of innocent Iranians aspiring for freedom and too many lives of American heroes fighting for democracy and freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Every U.S. administration since the onset of the Islamic Revolution in 1979 in Iran tried in vain to negotiate with the Iranian rulers; every one has failed.

In the last 30 years Iran’s leaders have pursued their aggressive policies against the West with a focus on increasing their military capability. The Revolutionary Guards have expanded their missile program with the collaboration of North Korea and China. They now have the largest inventory of ballistic missiles in the Middle East, which are capable of targeting all of Israel, every U.S. base in the Middle East and every capital in Western Europe. The Guards are also working on intercontinental ballistic missiles with the help of North Korea under the guise of their space project.

Most alarming is the Iranian nuclear program, which started in the mid-80s with only one goal — to obtain the nuclear bomb. Today Iran is ever closer in achieving that goal. It is just a matter of time before they have the capability to weaponize warheads on their ballistic missiles.

Iran has enough enriched uranium for three nuclear bombs. They are involved in joint research and development on weaponization with North Korea.

The leaders of Iran continue their terrorist activities around the world and their ongoing support of terrorist groups including Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Al Qaeda and others in Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Africa. If Iran acquires the nuclear bomb, proliferation will become a nightmare and every terrorist organization in the world could be armed with such weapons of mass destruction.

The idea of changing the behavior of the Iranian leaders is as much a fantasy as believing that watered down sanctions will force them to negotiate.

The failure of our approach is reflected in our misunderstanding the ideology of the radicals ruling Iran. They literally take everything from the Koran, which demands the annihilation of the infidels and Islam’s conquest of the world, with martyrdom celebrated as the greatest achievement under the rule of Allah.

We have to understand that when Iranian leaders call for the destruction of Israel, America and the West, they really mean what they say. Prophecies call for Islam to conquer the world and those prophecies drive the actions of the Iranian leaders. They believe that Allah has empowered them and America will not be able to do anything about it.

We cannot allow history to repeat itself. Today we are facing an evil much worse than we did in 1938.

Appeasement and vacillation do not work. World peace, global stability and millions of lives are on the line.
America must stop this menace. It needs leaders who value the very principles that make our enemies despise us.

The Iranian leaders pose the gravest danger of 21st century. Our first priority should be to stop these radicals in their tracks and to help Iranians free themselves from this evil.

The Iranian people are the most Westernized in the region and a new regime in Iran will transform the world: Much of worldwide terrorism will end; Iraq and Afghanistan will become much more stable; Lebanon will become more independent without the influence of Hezbollah; Israel will be more secure and there will finally be hope for peace between Israel and Palestinian leadership. We will witness positive effects throughout Central Asia and Latin America without Iran’s influence, and finally, no more appeasing China and Russia over Iran.

It’s simple. All we need do is support the Iranian people in their aspirations for freedom. Do not appease their leaders. Do not negotiate with them.

The current regime is already showing signs of coming apart. To the lawmakers in the 112th Congress and to the members of the Obama administration, I urge you -- help widen that crack! Help embolden Iranians to take their country back. They are looking for your support.

We would do well to remember the words of President Reagan, who took office 30 years ago this week, to the nation on the night of our bombing of Libya's terrorist facilities in 1986:

"There is no security, no safety, in the appeasement of evil. It must be the core of Western policy that there be no sanctuary for terror. And to sustain such a policy, free men and free nations must unite and work together."