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The rude reality of Iran, &c. -- By: Jay Nordlinger

Every now and then, reality breaks through dreamland, as in this bit of news: ?Iran on Wednesday test-fired an upgraded version of its most advanced missile, which is capable of hitting Israel and parts of Europe, in a new show of strength aimed at preventing any military strike against it amid the nuclear standoff with the West.? Iranian missiles that can hit Europe: Will this development concentrate the European mind, no matter what that mind thinks of Israel?

I have quoted from this report. It goes on to quote Britain?s prime minister Gordon Brown, who said that the Iranian test showed the need for tougher U.N. sanctions. Well, best of luck with that. Brown said, ?This is a matter of serious concern to the international community,? blah, blah, blah. And he made his statement, according to the report, ?after talks with U.N. chief Ban Ki-Moon in Copenhagen.?

That is just perfect. The panjandrums of the world were in Copenhagen to talk about global warming, and the alleged giant threat that comes from the same. But there is a definite threat, an urgent one: the threat of a nuclear Iran, and the threat of rising, armed Islamofascism generally. I remember being at a particular Davos meeting where everyone was gravely concerned about global warming, saying we had to act now now now. A nuclear Iran and its associated menaces seemed to be an afterthought, at best. In other words, the wolf was at the door -- but the world?s elites were looking past the wolf to some gauzy threat out in the blue.

I made this observation, at the time: Confronting global warming is relatively easy, because it means confronting good Western capitalists and industrialists. Confronting Islamofascism is much harder, for some: because it means confronting Third World radicals, about whom good Westerners harbor all sorts of myths and hopes.

In August, Ban-ki Moon said, ?We have just four months. Four months to secure the future of our planet.? What did he mean? He meant that there were four months until these climate talks in Copenhagen. If only the world?s elites felt half the urgency about a nuclear Iran. Our priorities, and sense of reality, seem terribly askew.

It is interesting to hear Iran?s defense minister, Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, on television -- on Iranian state TV. He said the following about his country?s new missile: ?Given its high speed, it is impossible to destroy the missile with anti-missile systems because of its radar-evading ability.? True? I wonder what the state of U.S. missile defense is at the moment -- and what it would have been if we had gone all-out after Reagan?s original call. I wonder, relatedly, how Israel is doing in this field.

One more thing, before I leave this subject. Iran?s new missile is called the Sajjil-2. And, according to the report I have linked to, ?the name ?Sajjil? means ?baked clay,? a reference to a story in the Quran, Islam?s holy book, in which birds sent by God drive off an enemy army attacking the holy city of Mecca by pelting them with stones of baked clay.?

These are interesting times, ladies and gentlemen, and, of course, all too interesting. (Pardon the triteness.)

Interesting times, for sure -- and what a peculiar year this has been in U.S. foreign policy. We see here that ?Pakistan has held up visas for U.S. diplomats, military service members and others, apparently because of hostility within the country toward the expansion of U.S. operations in Pakistan.? Huh. We hold up visas for our Honduran allies; our allies the Paks hold up visas for us. Again, a most peculiar year . . .

I love something that President Obama said on Tuesday: He said that ?we are on the precipice? of his health-care reform, or revolution. Precipice: Couldn?t have said it better myself.

Does the phrase ?Person of the Year? still fall strangely on your ears? Or are you used to it? Or have you never known anything else, really? I confess that I still wince, a bit, on hearing or seeing ?Person of the Year.? The headline yesterday read, ?Time magazine names Bernanke ?Person of the Year.?? ?Person? seems so . . . I don?t know: namby-pamby, doesn?t it? Years ago, I knew a man who had a mirror designed like a Time cover, complete with the words ?Man of the Year.? I wonder if they make a mirror with the words ?Person of the Year.?

Anyway . . .

President Obama has sat right down and written himself a letter -- or rather, has written Kim Jong Il a letter. A ?personal letter,? we learn in this report. The letter is ?part of an intense effort to draw [North Korea] back to nuclear disarmament talks.? Best of luck (as I said earlier about something else). Hard to know what to say to a person (not of the year) like Kim Jong Il. I think of Lady Astor, who allegedly said in the Kremlin, ?Nice to meet you, Mr. Stalin. When are you going to stop killing people??

The article I have cited says, ?Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton also sent personal letters to Kim, although not as early in their terms as did Obama.? Bush wrote Kim in December 2007; Clinton wrote him in October 1994. Clinton addressed his letter ?To the Supreme Leader of the DPRK? (?Democratic People?s Republic of Korea? -- what a crock). According to the article, ?. . . efforts early in Bush?s term to send a letter were stymied by an intense debate over whether to use an honorific such as ?his excellency? to address Kim.?

I wonder what they came up with, at the end of 2007. ?Hey, Gulag Guy?? And I wonder how Obama addressed his letter: ?Dear Dear Leader??

Anyway . . .

Speaking of Obama, foreign leaders, and protocol: A friend of mine said he had an idea of why our president skipped a lunch with the Norwegian king, while in Oslo to pick up his peace prize: He didn?t know whether to bow or not. This is a serious question, kind of: If you bow before one monarch, do you have to bow before them all? If you don?t, do you offend the subjects of that monarch? Obama has bowed before the Saudi king and the Japanese emperor. He has also bowed before Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, which throws everything off: Wen is not a monarch, just an ordinary Communist ruler.

Obama should explain his practices, his reasoning. And please don?t forget: George W. Bush was a clod, embarrassing us abroad and everywhere else. Everyone said so, right?

One more thing, before the next topic: A journalist -- someone in the White House press corps -- should ask Obama about his bowing: when he does it, before whom he does it, why he does it. In other words, what are the rules? You know? Maybe someone has asked this question, but I am not aware of it, and it would seem a natural -- a natural question, that is. And if The One is offended, well . . . Don?t American journalists live to offend the president? Didn?t they used to?

I don?t know whether you?re thinking of joining the Taliban, but, if so, consider this story headed ?For Westerners, it?s not easy to join the Taliban.? I will quote a bit: ?Unlike foreign recruits who found porous borders and easy entry into Iraq, potential jihad fighters heading to the Afghan-Pakistan border face forbidding terrain and closely watched travel routes as well as precision drone attacks. And they are often looked on suspiciously by insular Afghan militant groups who tend to depend on their own tribal members to enlarge their fighting ranks.?

Breaking into the Taliban ?often requires a long vetting process.? A U.S. counterterrorism expert is quoted: ?It?s like if you wanted to join the Mafia, you don?t get a meeting with the boss. You have to have someone vouch for you, you have to work through the ranks.? In Pakistan, ?they?re a little more paranoid. Their trust factor is low.?

Just so you know, you Walter Mitty Talibans.

I almost chuckled when I saw this headline: ?Swiss say they will accept 1 Guantanamo detainee.? (The article is here.) I thought, ?Well, that?s three fewer detainees than there are minarets in the country.? An odd, nonsensical thought, I know. Still, I report . . .

There was a report out of Timisoara, Romania, and I thought its opening was somewhat touching: ?To the strains of strings playing Christmas carols, Romanians paid homage Wednesday to the fighters who took to the streets of this Transylvanian city 20 years ago, sparking the revolution that swept Eastern Europe?s most repressive dictator from power.?

The president, Traian Basescu, was reelected amid allegations of fraud (on his part, natch). He made a statement that caught my attention, in part because it sounded . . . so American?

?My objective is to be a better president than I was. My principal aim is for every Romanian to feel that the president is his president, however he voted.?

Good news out of Britain: Tzipi Livni and other Israeli politicians will be able to visit without fear of arrest. We learn that ?Britain is vowing to curtail a peculiar legal power that lets judges order the arrest of visiting politicians and generals -- a threat currently focused on Israeli visitors . . .? But of course. Livni had to cancel a trip to London this month for fear she would be arrested. And Livni is a gentle, eminently reasonable centrist politician. If they would arrest her -- what chance would Israeli hardliners have?

This is welcome news, yes -- but it?s sort of sick that this has to be an issue at all, if you know what I mean.

Remember Mr. Blackwell, the fashion guy -- the guy who made lists of the best and worst dressed? Well, his equivalent in quotations is Fred Shapiro, an ?associate librarian and lecturer in legal research at Yale Law School,? as this article says. He has just released his fourth annual Quotations of the Year. On his list are ?You lie!? and ?The governor is hiking the Appalachian Trail.? For me, however, nothing will top one line from 2007: ?Don?t tase me, bro?!?

I wish to recommend an article: here. It deals with plans to build a large mosque at Ground Zero, basically. The issues in play are complicated and, of course, very interesting. And they are very well handled by the author of the article, Youssef M. Ibrahim, who has been a correspondent for the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and a columnist for the New York Sun. He knows a lot about Islamic fundamentalism and how it works. Anyway, I recommend.

May I give you a word -- one I didn?t know? Maybe you know it. I understand it is current in California. A person who is a vegetarian, except that he also eats fish, is a ?vegequarian.? And if I was the last to know this -- forgive me. I rather like the word. It reminds me of Hair, and makes me a little hungry.

A reader writes to rip me, on a couple of counts. I plead innocent. Anyway, my reader: ?Hello, Mr. Nordlinger.? Hello. ?I always enjoy reading your articles.? Aw . . . ?But ?Kathleen Kim, a young Korean-American soprano? -- what up with that? Don?t you bridle at hyphens? I know I do, also bristle.?

Yeah, me too -- the reader?s right. I have no use for hyphenated Americanism. But you see, Miss Kim grew up in Seoul, and later emigrated to the U.S. I felt it right and worthwhile to describe her, in a report, as a Korean American. I would not feel right about identifying a native-born American of Korean parentage that way.

Then the reader says, ?You said that a cab driver was Muslim, based on the name on his license. But how did you know? Can?t a person have a Middle Eastern name without being a Muslim?? Why sure. But there are some giveaways: for example, when your name is Muhammad Eid.

My reader signs with a cheery ?Merry Christmas!? which I merrily return.

After I published an item about The Nutcracker Tuesday, I got a letter from a reader who wanted me to know about her four-year-old son. She very much wanted him to be interested in The Nutcracker. She promised there would be fighting (between the Nutcracker and the Rat King). On seeing the relevant scene, the four-year-old announced, ?That?s not fighting, that?s dancing.?

I thought that was a (an?) historically great line, and said so on the Corner, here. This provoked further mail -- and several people wrote to say that their children or someone else they knew had said the same thing about West Side Story: ?That?s not fighting, that?s dancing.? Also, a woman wrote, ?The little boy and The Nutcracker has reminded me of what my grandmother used to say about Frank Sinatra: ?That?s not singing, that?s talking.??

Ooh -- those words?ll get you killed in some quarters.

Some radio news? I will be on Bill Bennett?s show on Friday morning, during the 7 o?clock hour. Such a pleasure to talk to Bill, about issues of every kind. He knows everything, appreciates everything, and -- I love this expression -- goes down easy.

Want to say a word about a colleague -- a colleague who is retiring from National Review this year. He is John Virtes, and we had a party for him last night. (Darn good one, too.) I call him Johnny V., or JV, or V. He is our research director, and has been with NR for a long time. He began in 1976, when Ford was president. (Reagan was challenging.) The Starland Vocal Band recorded ?Afternoon Delight? that year. John is a native New Yorker, starting out in Brooklyn before moving to Queens. And, as research director, he is an absolute master of facts. His knowledge is impressively broad. And his memory is excellent. I should mention, too, that he is a master of music -- encyclopedic about rock, in particular. At our party, when giving valedictory remarks, he quoted a Pink Floyd song. I remember I took the Beatles tour, with some NR buds, while in Liverpool. This was during an NR cruise of the British Isles. Johnny V. wasn?t there, but he should have been -- he could have given the tour, actually. When I returned home, I told him all I could remember about what I saw and heard. He knew what I was talking about better than I did.

As he often has. I have valued him highly, and will miss him -- and join all of NR in thanking him.

Thank you, for joining me in this breezy lil? column today -- the apocalyptic Iran stuff wasn?t so breezy, was it? -- and I?ll see you later.

Full post as published by Bench Memos - National Review Online on December 17, 2009 (boomark / email).