Victor Davis Hanson has a very pessemistic article out today on Iran’s rush to the end of time, The Apocalypse. Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s desire to take the world to God’s final judgment is real. He strangely cannot wait to place his name into history as the man who destroyed Israel, and the history itself as the human race is forced to face its maker. Making him the shortest “name in history” ever.

Given his apocalyptic rhetoric, we can understand why Ahmadinejad might want an arsenal of nuclear missiles. He’d be able to shake down a constant stream of rich European emissaries, threaten the Arab gulf states to lower oil production, neutralize the influence of the United States in the region–and, of course, destroy Israel.

While I agree with Hanson Iran is mad with the martyr’s madness, I disagree with his assessment of how the World, and especially the West, will react. We have to understand that Iran will not have the power to destroy the world, but the world has the power to destroy Iran. And maybe that is all we have to remind ourselves. First to Hanson’s worst case scenarios:

China and Russia will sell Tehran anything it cannot get from rogue regimes. Ultimately, Moscow and Beijing will probably veto any punitive action by the United Nations.

Impotent European diplomats will always defer to such an important global figure, “ruling out” force to stop the Iranian nuclear industry as they offer money and trade deals if Tehran will just act sanely.

The United States has a growing anti-war movement, and 180,000 of its troops are busy birthing democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq. And the unpredictable President Bush has less than three years in office anyway.

Too negative for my tastes. Russia and China understand the limited reach of Iran’s nukes. They cannot get to America or Europe. But they can reach China. So if Iran needs to threaten the world there are only a few countries within their reach.

Many in Europe could react had Hanson says. Especially the Chocolate states of France, Germany and Belgium. The eastern Europeans have stronger spines and I doubt are ready to lose the democratic freedoms they gained just recently in historic times.

And the US and Bush are all wrong. Our anti-war element will push the rest of us to take swift, severe action, nothing drawn out. If there is a feeling we cannot do something surgical, which takes time and dedication, we will probably not back off but escalate. Bush’s lame duck status makes this more likely – not less. And we can do the math.

If Iran has 1-10 nukes and starts vaporizing cities in the region, we will step in and neutralize them with such force no one will ever forget the message – for centuries. Survival is a strong instinct, and we have it in spades. The world constantly believes the US is incapable of digging down deep and doing what it takes to survive. Why this is given our penchant for guns and our cowboy image, not to mention we have done this twice before, escapes me. Somehow the fact we are serious about being peaceful and not running the world morphs in people’s minds as to some inability to pull the trigger when we have to.

Well, if France has the forthrightness and honesty to warn Iran that this game of nerves and war will go the distance, what makes anyone think we won’t?

Hanson may be doing us a disservice with this pessimism. I believe we mean it when we say Iran will not have nuclear weapons. I think we would attack with awesome force if one nuclear weapon went off in the form of an attack (verses testing). If Iran ever gets the impression we are not serious, then these apocalyptic nuts could easily come to a terrible conclusion – and make a decision we would all like them to not make.

Iran is heading for the bunkers to bring on their image of the perfect future.

Iran is moving its foreign currency reserves out of European banks as a pre-emptive measure against any possible U.N. sanctions over its nuclear program, the Central Bank Governor said Friday.

They are preparing to take us all with them. Sadly, I think they will be the ones making the trip pretty much alone.