I miss Saddam

So we have "peace" in Lebanon. Way to go, U.N. You're doing a bang-up job.

The terms of the peace agreement are already being broken. Hezbollah isn't exactly volunteering to be disarmed, and Lebanon's "army" sure as hell isn't capable of doing anything about it. France, meanwhile, after being some of the biggest pacifist blowhards at the U.N. meeting, is suddenly dragging its feet about sending troops. No great loss, though, as France hasn't had a military victory since Napolean marched on Russia. I'm not sure what U.N. troops would be doing there anyway, as they may not have the authority to fire on Hezbollah troops "engaged in warfare or gunrunning". Wow. So if they can't fire on troops engaged in warfare, when exactly can they fire? Only the U.N. could come up with an idea like that - troops that don't have the authority to fire their weapons. Why even give them guns? We can give them huge banners that say PLEASE STOP KILLING EACH OTHER. Or, even better, let's just send a division of cheerleaders to Lebanon. Scantily-clad ones, preferably, tempting Muslim boys to join in our Western decadence. Give them a reason to live instead of sacrificing their lives to a pointless jihad.

Saddam Hussein was a cruel and terrible leader. No question that Iraqis are better off without him, even though they can't find anything better to do with their new freedom than blow each other up. But he wasn't the real bad guy in the Middle East. While Saddam was prancing around, pretending that he had some nasty WMDs under the covers, Iran was actually gearing up for a fight. They armed Hezbollah with Russian weapons through Syria. Hezbollah created huge underground bunkers and weapons caches for a protracted battle with Israel. Meanwhile, they restarted their uranium enrichment program in an effort to make a nuclear bomb.

Side note: do you think that for one instant, these self-destructive terrorists would even hesitate to use a nuclear weapon against Israel? Israel knows this, and they will attack Iran if we can't find a way to stop the bomb-making. The campaign against Hezbollah was a pre-emptive strike, hoping to weaken the enemy on their flank so they could concentrate on a war with Iran. The whole invasion has been planned for months in joint discussions between Israel and Washington. War with Iran is coming, and sooner than you think.

Iran is the real bad guy in this region, the country that could do serious damage. They are skillfully manipulating diplomacy with Syria, Russia, China, Venezuela...buying themselves time to prepare for an all-out war with Israel, and ensuring that they have enough allies to make it painful for the U.S. to get involved.

Imagine, for a moment, if Iran's mortal enemy was still in power next door. Saddam's joke of an army had been giving them fits for decades, and they'd be a lot less anxious to pick a fight if he was still around. Imagine if we hadn't ruined our international credibility by lying about the presence of WMDs to justify a war with Iraq. Imagine if we hadn't inflamed Arabs all over the world by invading a country and occupying it, acting in accordance with their imperialistic views of America. Imagine if our troops weren't tied up in Iraq. We'd be in the perfect position to do some selected air strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities - with full international support - and have the military might to crush any response. Instead, we are spread thin, hated by the world, and public support for fighting in the Middle East is non-existent. We are exactly where the Iranians want us, and they are pushing their advantage.

Don't mistake the peace in Lebanon for a sign that the crisis is passed. The world is going to war, and we're going along with it.