Confronting Iran

French President Jacques Chirac apparently told reporters it's no big deal if Iran gets a couple of nukes. Then Chirac called the reporters back and changed his story. But I believe much of Europe and the American left are not willing to confront Iran over anything. Listen to far-left actor Tim Robbins:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What should we do about them getting nukes? If they get nukes, should we talk to them? I mean what— how do we prevent them from getting nuclear weapons?

ROBBINS: Um, I don't know, bombing them? Is that going to keep them from getting nuclear weapons and killing more innocent civilians. Is that going to help?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Now the problem for those of us who do understand the true danger Iran poses not only to the United States, but also to Israel and to the Gulf nations, is that the chaos in Iraq has made it difficult to rally any aggressive action toward Iran. Today The New York Times once again set the left wing tone by saying that since President Bush has screwed up Iraq he should not "bully" Iran. Bully them?

This is ironic because one of the reasons Iraq has not gone well is that Iran has trained, armed and funded much of the terrorism there. Of course the Bush administration should have anticipated that but apparently did not.

"Talking Points" has made this comparison before but it's worth repeating: If Europe and the USA had united against Hitler in the 1930s, perhaps 50 million human beings could have been spared death. Little was done to stop Hitler even though his intentions were clear just as Iran's intentions today are clear. The Hezbollah war last summer was started with Iran's blessing and its resources. The government of Iran openly says it wants to remove Israel from the map and has threatened the USA as well.

If Iran comes to dominate Iraq, it will begin to destabilized Saudi Arabia and other oil producing states. That's the goal of the jihadists — to control much of the world's oil supply.

Now few people would dispute that. But there are people like Chirac and Tim Robbins who don't care. Robbins is hopeless. However you think Chirac would remember the Panzers rolling through France and Hitler strutting down the boulevards of Paris. It is an absolute disgrace that Europe has not joined America in confronting Iran. I believe the western powers should talk to Iran but the conversation should be one sided.

Either you stop threatening the world or nobody does business with you. Period. No guns, no bombs, just strangle them economically. But it won't happen, leaving the USA and Britain once again, once again, once again, to deal with a complicated fanatical enemy.

And that's "The Memo."

Most Ridiculous Item

After his last visit here a couple of weeks ago Stephen Colbert and his entourage "borrowed" “The Factor's" microwave oven. They apparently used it as a prop on their broadcast and then took their sweet time getting it back to us.

But I'm happy to report the microwave is now back in our Green Room, but it's a new one, not the one they stole, with Colbert graffiti all over it, as you can see.

Now, the initial reporting about the microwave incident was not true. Members of Colbert's staff did not attempt to sell our microwave in order to get money to buy drugs.— Apparently, that was a vicious rumor started by Jon Stewart, and we are happy to set the record straight. To not do so would be ridiculous.