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Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review August 28, 2006 / 4 Elul, 5766

Just one dog in the hunt

By Michael Goodwin


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | I woke up early one day last week and turned on the TV to see if the Iranian madman had blown up the world. The networks were talking about the weather and the cables were in an endless ad pod. I guessed we were still alive.


Count me as another sucker in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's game of Scare the World. His belief in an Islamic "end of days" scenario, combined with threats to wipe Israel off the map and give the world a "surprise" yesterday, had the Internet buzzing and many of us jumpy. He had turned his promised response to demands that Iran stop enriching uranium into a global death watch.


That the day came and went without a Big Bang was a relief, but not entirely surprising. Why would Ahmadinejad end the game when he's raking in oil gazillions and having fun? Whoever heard of him before he started acting like a crazy man with a knife on the subway?


Besides, things are going his way. His client terror groups, Hezbollah and Hamas, are running two governments, and he is stirring the pot in Iraq. Major nations are bidding against themselves to see what incentives it will take for him to padlock his nuke plants. The Great Satan - that would be us - and the Little Satan - Israel - are weakened because of our failures in Iraq and Israel's in Lebanon.


In poker, losers whine and winners say deal. So it is in this ultimate-stakes showdown. Ahmadinejad is a winner, for now, and he wants to keep playing.


That's why his response to the incentive package was bound to be a delay, a bid for more time to make more mischief. But the rest of the world better get serious in a hurry because Iran cannot be permitted to become a nuclear power. If it doesn't stop the enrichment process, it will have enough material for a bomb in short order. How short is unclear, but the time is close enough that endless delays risk Armageddon with someone who welcomes it.


Whatever the details of yesterday's response, Iran's intentions are already crystal clear. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the nation's latest fearsome-sounding "supreme leader," said Monday Iran would "forcefully" continue its nuclear program. Another Iranian government official told of plans to start a related heavy water plant and international inspectors were turned away from a facility, violating the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Over the weekend, Iran held war games and test-fired missiles.


Any sane person would conclude that Iran is on a collision course with the world. But the United Nations is not made up of sane people, so U.S. Ambassador John Bolton will have a hard time in coming days. With the official deadline of Aug. 31 for Iran to suspend its nuke activities, Bolton must herd the Security Council toward imposing tough economic sanctions.


But China and Russia, with large commercial ties to Iran, are not enthusiastic and France remains occupied by the French. They can be expected to surrender soon.


So the Iranian front, like most of World War III, is left to the U.S. and Great Britain. Germany and Israel are ready to help, but we are basically on our own in ending Iran's follies.


It's a familiar but tiring picture. The dangers of letting Iran go nuclear are obvious. But much of the world is happy to sit on its timid butt and let Uncle Sam do the hard work. All the better to criticize us later.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and the media consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.




Michael Goodwin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the New York Daily News. Comment by clicking here.


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