All hail the inscrutability of Israel’s political machine!

On Sunday, February 4, 2007, several news agencies reported that Ardeshire Hassanpour, a prize-winning Iranian nuclear physicist, had likely been assassinated by Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. These accounts originated from Stratfor (Strategic Forecasting, L.L.C.), a U.S. security company that provides intelligence services to the international businesses community. The details of his death are sketchy, of course, but Hassanpour, a principal in Iran’s current effort to enrich uranium, apparently died under mysterious circumstances due to some sort of gas poisoning.

You may remember my January 16, 2007 column entitled The Law of the Jungle in which I lauded with fond remembrance the days during the ‘Seventies and ‘Eighties when Mossad’s assassination of foreign terrorists in true James Bondian (if perhaps less classy) fashion was a regular occurrence.

You may also remember more than a couple of my 2006 columns which referenced the globalist and politically-correct tendencies in U.S. foreign policy having corrupted Israel’s once-uncompromising resolution in areas of national security, this due to the latter’s economic dependence upon the former.

The London Times, 2/4/07: “Stratfor, a U.S. security company, reported on Friday that its sources within Israel identified Hassanpour as a Mossad target and said ‘very strong intelligence’ suggested the security service had assassinated the scientist.”

All I can say is: “Way to go.”

You can call me a Zionist if you like; it would be an incorrect assessment. My view is that a powerful, Westernized, democratic ally in the region has been and continues to be instrumental in preventing an uncontrollable, wholesale epidemic of radical Islam therein. Religious history or judeophilia doesn’t enter into it; I would similarly support an Arabic Christian or moderate Muslim nation occupying the same land. I also concur that Israel’s government has handled the issue of its Arab population inequitably at best. That subject however, is for another column.

Until the reports of Hassanpour’s death I was quite concerned that the aforementioned compromise of Israel’s national security policies had brought it to a point where, if abandoned by the U.S., the nation would be finished.

However, Israel’s government has stated unequivocally that they will not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. Of course, so has the Bush Administration – but there’s always been a certain inscrutability to Israel’s comportment and machinations in these areas. Israel has spied on the U.S. I don’t condone this, but given the gravitation of America’s foreign policy and its apparent lack of will to survive, any Israeli government would be foolish not to do so. On the one hand, it appears that Israel generally dances to our tune – and then they blow up some Iraqi reactors, assassinate some individual they’ve identified as a threat or accomplish something positive which the United States otherwise lacked the political will to accomplish.

As America’s political direction at home and abroad increasingly hinges on progress in Iraq (the Left and the media’s false focus in the War on Terror) and other tenuous factors, so hinges America’s continued support for Israel.

The more power the Leninist Pelosians gain in Washington, the closer Israel comes to getting thrown under the bus by the United States. Obviously those in the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) are aware of this.

They, and the people of Israel – despite the proliferation of pacifists and leftists there and their apparent diminishing national will – have experienced the blight of terrorism to a far greater degree than we in America. Perhaps that “diminishing will” is simply Israel oh-so-inscrutably biding her time. Perhaps they still possess the sense of geopolitical reality that America evidently lacks – that respect for the Law of the Jungle that no one can evade.

Despite my current belief that it will never happen, I’ve said previously that employment of political assassination and yes, even the implementation of nuclear weapons – now – by the U.S. will save more lives in the long term than it will take. If Israel begins to act decisively (read “with extreme prejudice”) to preserve herself despite U.S. political pressure and ignites the firestorm spineless American politicians deny is in the offing, perhaps it will be easier to follow Israel’s lead and take similarly decisive, if unfortunate action.