Lookaround 3: Barack and appeasement

Instapundit

MEMO TO THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN: When somebody condemns appeasement, it doesn't help things to jump up and yell "Hey, he's talking about me!"

The first root of Barack's reaction is the left's conviction: "War is never the answer."

While it is true that every disagreement can be solved via discussion: sometimes you might be killed before discussion has sufficient opportunity to resolve things. In such situations, you have the right and the duty to defend yourself.

The second root of Barack's reaction are the dueling perceptions of the threat faced by the U.S.

The right believe Iran and Jihadis threaten Israel and the U.S. (and the larger West) due to Muslim fundamentalist religious conviction. The left believe a) Iran doesn't threaten us, and b) Jihadis only threaten us out of anger at misguided U.S. foreign policy, and c) Jihadis only number in the thousands, or maybe the tens of thousands.* The American left cannot fathom a mindset which values conquest and subjugation over mutual accommodation.

From these roots spring the left's belief that the Bush Administration has not properly negotiated with Iran. It does not matter to the American left - if they even know it - that the E.U. Three have negotiated with Iran for four years, and that the E.U. Three have already offered Iran the exact carrots Barack says he would offer Iran. It does not matter to the American left that American diplomats have taken over negotiations from the E.U. three, and that American diplomats are attempting to negotiate agreement with Iran. The left cannot fathom that death may come to us before discussion has had sufficient opportunity to resolve disagreement.

Therefore, Barack can grandly announce he will offer Iran the carrots which have already been offered, and the media and the left pretend Barack is bringing some new idea to the situation. That Barack would weaken both American bargaining power (via taking the American military threat to Iran off the table) and internal Iranian dissent (via legitimizing Ahmadinejad in the eyes of both Iranians and the world) is either not understood or not acknowledged.


* Gallup recently completed a four year survey of worldwide Muslim opinion. Gallup announced that 91 million Muslims are radicalized. Though Gallup doesn't specifically make this claim, we may assume - based on how these Muslims answered poll questions - these radicalized Muslims would, in the right situation, help to attack the West.

Gallup misrepresented their own results ... via arbitrarily terming all other Muslims "moderates." Under questioning, a Gallup spokesperson admitted an additional 360 million Muslims believe the 9/11/01 attacks on America were justified. We may assume these 360 million Muslims would willingly provide some type of logistical assistance to the 91 million Muslims who are willing to actively attack the West. 360M + 91M = 451M fundamentalist Muslims (out of a worldwide population of 1.1 billion Muslims).

Our strategy is to use democracy to help the 649M moderate Muslims de-radicalize or de-legitimize the 451M fundamentalist Muslims. To prevent U.S. nukes from some day falling on Middle Eastern cities: moderate Muslims must decisively prevail over fundamentalists in the struggle for the soul of Islam. Moderate, peace-loving Muslims must decisively dominate the religion.