I have posted for some time on the delusional madness that is rampant in Iran’s leadership. The President of Iran thinks he is in final contact with the last Prophet, leading the way for his arrival and 70 virgins all around. The apoclyptic vision of martyrdom is absolutely scary when you add nuclear weapons to this guy’s list of play things. RCP has an article up explaining our situation, we either face Iran on our terms or there’s:

That’s the meaning of Iran’s de facto declaration of war against Israel–which is, ultimately, a new war Iran is waging against the US. Iran is so desperate for war with the West that it is bringing the war to us, openly and willfully initiating a regional conflict that may soon involve three of Iran’s proxies–Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria–fighting against America’s proxy, Israel.

The danger for us is that, in seeking to avoid an unavoidable war with Iran, we have allowed Iran to start the conflict on terms that it believes will be most favorable to it.

We need to keep control of the terms in this dance. We cannot let Iran start manipulating us into awkward and exposed positions that they can exploit. The fact is we need some regional allies outside of Israel. The economic blockade should begin immediately in order to put Iran off balance. They could be toppled from within, but the pressure will take time to build up. Given what we are seeing with the Iran’s forward forces we cannot stand by much longer. For what else are Hezbollah and Hamas but Iranian forces? The IIranians themselves include these forces in all their threats of reprisals. Who are we to argue against how they see these groups. Iran has inflitrated Lebanon and Syria and Gaza. Time to roll them back by straving them out.

Addendum: I want to address one more thing which LJ Strata and I were discussing last night in a rare moment of watching Hannity and Colmes (yep, we rarely watch it). And that was the supposed conundrum of elected terrorists:

Worse, the Palestinian Authority is the one area where we have tolerated the creation of a new Islamist terrorist regime, on the grounds that it is “democratically elected.”

This is no more of a conundrum than Rep William Jefferson or Randy Cunningham. People are offered to benefit of the doubt when elected to lead. The idea we are bound to recognize a terrorist leadership is as silly as we are required to recognized a leader who takes bribes. The crime of the individual doesn’t stain the process of his election. The Palestinians elected crooks and killers and the US is under no obligation to treat them otherwise. We treat them as duly elected crooks and killers and we pull back all support. Since we cannot take them out of office and try them, we are free to ignore them and the people who elected them when it comes to our largesse. The fact some people have confused the process of elections with the actions of criminal simply illustrates the trap of relativism. If there is no scale there is not differentiating. Of course people remove scales when they cannot solve a problem. By removing the differentiation between two points they are not forced to chose (and therefore be responsible for their choice). The fact that this mental time-out has permeated stale democracies focused on retaining power is not surprising. In calm seas don’t rock the boat. In rough seas, you better at least think about some offsetting actions in order to counter the beating and possible capsizing. It is a different skill set that can sit absolutely still and make no waves than required to take quick and progressive action to survive. The left in this country is losing because the environment of the world is changing. And Darwin was right. Those who cannot adapt succeed. Strength helps, but is not the key since strength unused is just another form of deadly paralysis.