Western Leaders Put on the Spot by Iranian's Words

Daniel Johnson, The NY Sun:

The president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has done us all a favor. By calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map" last week, he has put the leaders of the West on the spot. Even Adolf Hitler was never quite so frank about his genocidal intentions toward the Jews, to which the democracies notoriously turned a blind eye. Now, however, there is no excuse.

As it happened, Mr. Ahmadinejad's speech coincided with a European summit held at Henry VIII's favorite residence, Hampton Court. The old palace is said to be haunted by the ghost of Catherine Howard, one of the more unfortunate of the king's six wives; but it was the specter of the Holocaust that stalked the leaders of Europe gathered there last week.

Significantly, Prime Minister Blair was the only one of them to take the Iranian threat seriously. "Anyone in Europe, knowing our history, when we hear such statements made about Israel, it makes us very angry." Alas, he was the only one who did seem genuinely angry.

Rejecting mere diplomatic protests as inadequate, Mr. Blair hinted at military action: "The question people will be asking us is, 'When are you going to do something about Iran? Can you imagine a state like that with an attitude like that having nuclear weapons?'"

One might have expected the German chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, to have something to say about the threat of a second, this time nuclear, Holocaust. But Mr. Schroeder's mind was on other things: namely, snubbing his host. He turned up late for dinner and proceeded to denounce Mr. Blair's "neoliberal" (i.e., free market) policies.

Like other European states, Germany's only concrete reaction to Mr. Ahmadinejad was to carpet the Iranian ambassador. This proved to be a peculiarly pointless form of protest, since it emerged this week that about 20 of Iran's ambassadors are to be fired and replaced by tougher diplomats who support their president's barbaric line.

No, Mr. Ahmadinejad has put Europe's leaders to the test, and so far they have failed miserably. I was able to verify this for myself earlier this week at a meeting with the E.U. commissioner for external affairs, Benita Ferrero-Waldner. She is the nearest thing Europe has to a secretary of state.

When I asked what sanctions the European Union was prepared to use against Iran, she flashed me a lovely smile and talked vaguely about the possibility of suspending joint programs. It was clear that the E.U. has no concrete plans for sanctions against Iran, let alone military action.

Meanwhile, Iran's nuclear program is going ahead; the clock is ticking. As an Austrian born only three years after World War II, Mrs. Ferrero-Waldner's conscience might have been pricked by the thought of an "Islamic bomb" being dropped on the Jewish state. She could have spoken out as strongly as Mr.Blair.

Why didn't she? READ MORE

The answer, I suspect, throws light on Europe's ambiguous attitude toward Israel. Last year, Mrs. Ferrero-Waldner was the conservative candidate for the Austrian presidency. She will no doubt try again. An Austrian politician who hopes to end her career in the Hofburg, the old palace of the Habsburg emperors in Vienna that is now the president's residence, would be unwise to let herself be too closely identified with the cause of Israel.

Those with long memories will recall that in 1986 a former U.N. secretary-general, Kurt Waldheim, was able to win a presidential election in Austria, despite the fact that disclosures about his war record, which he had hitherto kept secret, had caused him to be placed on America's watch list of Nazi war criminals. Austria's only Jewish leader since 1945, Bruno Kreisky, reassured his electorate by making himself Yasser Arafat's closest ally in Europe.

Underlying these attitudes is the growth of the Muslim community. In almost every European country, the Islamic presence has made public opinion more hostile to Israel. Where once it was the swastika that overshadowed the continent of Europe, today it is the crescent; and in the shadow of the crescent, anti-Semitism flourishes.

When Mr. Ahmadinejad declared his intention to wipe Israel off the map, the leaders of the Muslim communities in Europe, like the Islamic states that support them, were conspicuous by their silence. This is hardly surprising. The spokesman of the Muslim Council in Britain, Sir Iqbal Sacranie, rejects a two-state solution for the Palestinians. He thinks Israel should indeed vanish from the map. In an interview for the Guardian last week, Sheik Yussuf al-Qaradawi, celebrated as the leading "moderate" Muslim theologian in Europe, praised suicide bombers who attack Israel.

Terrorism is a powerful weapon against democracies. Yesterday, Parliament debated new anti-terror measures, which include detention without trial for up to three months - a corpus. To significant limitation on habeas "balance" such measures of self-defense, freedom to criticize Islam and Muslims is also being curtailed. This article, for example, might well fall foul of the new Incitement to Religious Hatred Bill.

Yet low-level Muslim violence is now becoming so commonplace across Europe that it scarcely attracts attention. The riots on the outskirts of Paris that have been raging for six days now have forced France's interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, to bring in massive reinforcements. As with the riots in Birmingham last week, there is no specifically religious aspect to these disturbances, but the reluctance of many Muslims to cooperate with the police means that violence can erupt without warning.

These problems are so intractable that the British prefer not to think about them. Instead, we have been mesmerized by yesterday's resignation of David Blunkett from the Cabinet for the second time in a year. Mr. Blunkett, who is blind, was forced out as home secretary last December, but reinstated after the election in May as work and pensions secretary. Now he has gone again, this time presumably for good.

It is a personal blow for Mr. Blair, but he will survive, just as Mr. Bush has survived the loss of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. What should be keeping both Messrs. Bush and Blair awake at night are not scandals and resignations, but Mr. Ahmadinejad's chilling threats. The most dangerous link in the axis of evil is more dangerous than ever, and the West needs to keep at least one eye on the Terminator of Tehran.