Jerome R. Corsi’s Atomic Iran takes readers on a long journey through the layered and nuanced application of terrorist intrigue, the efforts on the part of misanthropic Democrats to cripple American intelligence gathering operations, the wacky Mullah’s oppressive efforts to silence critics, and the efforts on the part of Iranian intelligence to locate and operate sleeper cells in the United States.
Atomic Iran
by Jerome R. Corsi, PhD
A WND Book, published by Cumberland House
Nashville, Tennessee
Ppbk, 302 pgs., photographs, notes, index
ISBN: 10 158182-546-3
“METASTATIC APOCALYPSE”
– Term coined by Eric Voegelin
The modern state of Israel was not only the culmination of Zionist’s hopes and ambitions but also an act of repentance by the West and particularly the United States. As such she is tied cheek-to-jowl to America, whether we like it or not, and you may blame, if you wish, “fundamentalist/dispensationalist” Christians, pro-Israeli lobbyists, an anti-Muslim milieu, or the military/industrial complex, if blame is a requirement.
However, the chief architect responsible for tying American foreign policy to the only non-Muslim country in the oil rich Middle East is President Harry Truman, modern Israel’s Cyrus. It was Truman’s diligent work as the primary agent in the effort to save the remnant of European Jewry, that reached denouement in the establishment of Israel.
Harry’s actions had a decided righteousness. There’s enough Catholic-fundamentalist in these old bones not to be cognizant that the conflict between the Muslims and Jews has a transcendent element, a good versus evil component that not even the most rigid atheist is able to dismiss. But, regardless of the spiritual dimension, there exists the very real Israeli nation/state, established in 1948 with the approval of the United Nations and the West. In the parlance of the Hegelian philosopher, Bill Clinton, Israel is!
The devotees of Islam refer to Israel as “the little Satan,” and the United States as “the big Satan,” and all the supposed offenses listed in the various fatwahs proclaimed against the United States stand as mere annoyances and minor grievances in comparison to Islams’ collective disgust with the American/Israeli relationship, the proverbial “fly in the ointment.”
Some American lawmakers are convinced that by eliminating the American commitment to Israel — and three billion dollars a year in foreign aid does seem a bit excessive — they can appease and curry favor with the Islamists. Unfortunately, the motivation of many of these congressmen is suspect at best, as they have been the recipients of significant “contributions” from questionable Islamic organizations, contributions that someone less sensitive than I might construe to be bribes, and it doesn’t matter one twit to me that, by and large, these congressmen are Democrats.
The chief antagonist in the Islamic/Israeli conflagration — as I write Israel’s air force is rendering Lebanon isolated and preparing to, apparently, deal with Hezbollah — is Iran, a country that is run by Muslim religious leaders much to the disadvantage of the more secular Iranians. In the new paperback issue of Jerome R. Corsi’s Atomic Iran (Corsi is the co-author of the Swiftboat Veterans’ book that sank the star-child, John Kerry’s presidential hopes), the author takes his readers on a long journey through the layered and nuanced application of terrorist intrigue, the efforts on the part of misanthropic Democrats to cripple American intelligence gathering operations, the wacky Mullah’s oppressive efforts to silence critics, and the efforts on the part of Iranian intelligence to locate and operate sleeper cells in the United States.
Actually Dr. Corsi’s rendering of the Islamic threat is tepid compared to author Paul Williams’ efforts, and the fact that Corsi is a neoconservative, an epigone of the Bush administration, left me less than enamored with this particular literary effort, to wit: his constant reference to Tim McVeigh as the lone culprit in blowing up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City when journalist, Jayna Davis, has humiliated both the Clinton and Bush administrations — not to mention the F.B.I. — in her revelations of an Iranian/Iraqi military operation in the American heartland; his faith in the neocon/gnostic doctrine of democratic expansion through force of arms regardless of the cost in American lives and treasure; and the constant exhortation that America’s enemy is not Islam but rather “Islamic extremists,” “Islamic Jihadists,” or “Islamic Radicals.”
I intended my criticism of Dr. Corsi’s literary effort to parallel the philosopher Eric Voegelin’s critique of modernity in that, as a neocon he was susceptible to the same “disorder and alienation” one finds in those vapid ideologies that have turned away from the divine ground and thus “toward a self that is imagined to be human without being constituted by its relation to the divine presence.” That is, Neoconservatism is merely a political expression of a disorder in human existence, a failure to “apperceive” man’s true reality as “constitutive of the experience of the divine ground.” It is a form of Gnosticism, an attempt to right the wrongs of a world poorly conceived by God, and thus we have the “egophanic revolt” and the blasphemy inherent in the act of self-salvation! In other words boys and girls, neoconservatism and socialism share a number of fundamental characteristics, chiefly the desire to construct utopia in the midst of alienation and disorder. How can any thinking person take either group seriously?
However, it has come to my attention that Dr. Corsi is engaged in a polemical debate regarding the controversial “North American Union,” and the now infamous “Amero,” and that Dr. Corsi’s position is against said union and bastardized peso and in favor of American sovereignty. One senses the possibility that he is in the midst of an epiphany, that may signal his divorce from the pernicious and disordered neocons, and I should not care to disturb his equilibrium during this delicate process. If he can criticize The New World Order’s effort at unifying North America, it is just a short hop, skip, and a jump to re-discovering the timeless merits and virtues of republicanism and the recapturing of reality in the face of a “contemporary deformation” that dominates modernity. After all the man is a Harvard PhD!
So, for Dr. Jerome Corsi we may have the transformation of Saul of Tarsus. Let us wait and see what develops.
Atomic Iran is available on Amazon.com.
robertcheeks@core.com
Read more articles by Bob Cheeks
Jerome R. Corsi has some some great pieces on immigration and how neoconservatives (Bush, Cheney, Rice, etc.) plan to turn the U.S. into a North American version of the left-wing European Union.
See: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=14965
Comment by John | July 28, 2006
The Bush foreign-policy in the Middle East is nothing short of liberal interventionism. There is nothing conservative about the Jacobean conversion of the Middle East into democracy.
As Russell Kirk said, real conservatism follows the wisdom of Aristotle in that different forms of government are better suited for different cultures.
Comment by Sir Edwards | July 28, 2006
What if we told the world we were now, "Fortress America"? We only fight you if you land in Florida or Maine? What if Iran nuked Israel? Red China invaded Taiwan? North Korea overwhelms the South? Russia looks after it's own "interests" in reacquiring it's former satellites? Venezeula as the beginning of a set of dominoes in Latin America? Nature abhors a vacuum. You want to be the world's only Superpower or wait around for someone else to acquire the title? Islamo-Fascists did what The Soviets and Hitler never did. New York City, the nation's capitol, and whole bunch of brave people in the skies above Pennsylvania. Kirk is an Icon. I don't like the neo-cons and their methods but we have to win this war. The left want to treat it as a police action. Remember the alternatives, my friends, remember the alternatives..
Comment by Joseph | July 28, 2006
Russell Kirk: Many neoconservatives have "mistook Tel Aviv for the capital of the United States."
Comment by Anon | July 28, 2006
I don't often agree with Joseph on a lot but he is right on target with his post on this one. We live in a world where we are the only power capable of dealing with grave problems that if ignored will grow into more serious ones. I firmly believe (and I am a neocon for those who doubt it) that the threat posed by Islamic fundamentalism is a kin to the threat posed by Hitler in 1938. The French and British could have stopped him but chose to appease him. If we appease the Islamic Fundamentalists (back away from supporting Israel, abandon Iraq to the terrorists, etc.) we will only reap the whirlwind in a few years or at most decades.
The invasion of Iraq was idealistic interventionism. If we had gone in with enough troops in the first place then we wouldn't have had the problems we are having today but we have old Rummy to blame for this one. President Bush is proof that any virtue carried to extremes can become a vice. In his case it is his loyalty to his father's staff. That being said I think the core idea of undermining the dictatorships that fund and support terrorism (mainly Saudi Arabia and Iran) indirectly rather than sparking a direct massive war is still the better choice. If we had invaded Saudi Arabia, which I originally believed we should have done, we would have really angered all the Muslims that are currently sitting out this fight. How many Philipinos, Indonesians, etc. are trying to kill us in Iraq? Not nearly as many as would have been if we had gone into Saudi Arabia. As for fighting Iran, we are not prepared for fighting in their terrain and our army would get its backside kicked by all the mountainous terrain hiding small suicide squads armed with anti-tank gerndades and land mines. Given the options available to us in 2003 I have come to the sad conclusion that Iraq was our best option out of a lot of very bad ones. I just wish old Rummy had retired the year before.
Comment by DF Lickiss | July 28, 2006
One of the characteristics of “democratic warfare” is the complete demonizing of one’s enemy, as we see in neoconservative journals where Islam is called “Islamofascism,” which is completely misleading since the real basis of Islam is religious, and fascism was largely a futuristic, secular movement. Under the guise of “aristocratic warfare,” we would at least praise the strengths of our enemy: Muslims are certainly more religious than we are. Most of the faults we find with the secular West do not exist in Muslim cultures. They are not aborting themselves out of existence, “gay marriage” is not even an option, they have stronger family and extended-family relations and are not dependent upon a secular government for subsistence. That being said, I am not cheering for Islam. Rather, I am lamenting the demise of Christianity. The Enlightenment ideals (“rights,” secularism, equality, etc.) have robbed Christianity of much of its vitality. While today Islam is masculine, expanding and vital, Christianity has become feminine, shrinking and weakened. Prior to the Enlightenment, Christianity used to be more like Islam: masculine, vital and more militaristic. Just look at the orders of knights. Regarding the situation today, however, we are doing exactly the opposite of what we should be doing. Neoconservatives like Bush are fostering multiculturalism and “tolerance” at home, although the greatest terrorist threat is at home, while expanding Wilsonian interventionism abroad, trying to supplant community mores with liberal secular democracy. A wise, policy, I think would be the opposite: (1) deport all Muslims from the U.S.A. and Europe and (2) completely withdraw from the Middle East. We can hate or respect Muslims, but we probably cannot live together. We should just completely separate ourselves and stay out of each other’s business.
Comment by Cato | July 29, 2006
"efforts on the part of misanthropic Democrats to cripple American intelligence gathering operations,"
really?
what about the bush machine's losing most all of the agents who would not tell them what they wanted to hear? think that might have hurt the intelligence community any?
Comment by ibbleblibble | July 30, 2006
Cato,
A couple very long replies in one: First a reply to your argument that the Enlightenment ideals hurt Christianity and the second is a critique of your suggestions that we deport the Muslims and withdraw from the Middle East. Enjoy and please rip them apart for any errors and logical mistakes.
Dave
I have to disagree with your statement that “[t]he Enlightenment ideals … have robbed Christianity of much of its vitality.” What has robbed Christianity of its vitality is the stripping of those ideals from their Christian roots. Since the 1930’s we in the West have embraced a humanist secularism that has tried to push God and Christianity from our public square. It is this fundamentalist secularism that is the source of our weakness in the face of the Islamic fundamentalist threat. Are not all Christians equal in the body of Christ?
Prior to the Enlightenment the West was just as barbaric and lacking in self-control as the followers of fundamentalist Islam are today. Just read up on the 30 Years War where Europe tore itself apart, partially over Catholicism/Protestant doctrines. There is nothing masculine about beheading helpless captives, putting snipers in holy shrines, or using suicide bombers to blow up market places. Nor feminine in taking care to avoid killing civilians, or embracing a code of honor (knighthood ideals was created by the Church as a way to control some of the violence of the middle ages).
I am not so sure that Christianity is on the retreat. Old denominations of Christianity may be shrinking but other sects are exploding. I have heard that some radical Islamic teachers are complaining that Christianity is growing among the Arab you and robbing them of their willingness to fight the evil West.
As for referring to our enemies as “Islamofascists” keep in mind that fascism called for the total submission of the individual to the state. The radical Islamic enemies that we are facing today are, in a similar way, calling for their followers to submit totally to their vision of the world. Thus we get suicide bombers.
According to The World Almanac and Book of Facts (2003) there are 2.8 millions Muslims in the United States. Many of them are not Arab. See http://www.islam101.com/history/population2_usa.html for an ethnic break down. The website uses an older (inflated) number of total Muslims but I have no reason to doubt their percentage breakdown by ethnicity. We do not know how many followers of Islam are here in the United States and thus we really do not know how many we would have to export. Any attempt to export them would be folly as it would be far worse than the internment of the Japanese-Americans in 1942.
As for disengagement from the Middle East, again we do not have a real alternative at this point. Even if we did massive drilling for oil internally (which most Americans would not support) it would take us years if not longer to develop the oil resources to support our appetite. Ethanol is not going to cut it, at least not in the near future, it still takes more than one barrel of oil to make one barrel of ethanol, and you get less gas mileage with E85 than you with gas. Other alternative technology is just not developed enough (and won’t be for many years) to replace Middle East oil.
We can not get rid of them and we can not disengage from the sore spot so what do we do? The least painful option seems to be at this point to transform the region so that radical Islam does not appeal to the masses. That means giving them a stake in their governments and in the global economy. Trading partners, generally speaking, don’t make war on either other. It isn’t good business to shoot your supplier.
Bush’s policy of creating democracy is a backwards. We need to create market based economies then the Islamic world will start developing the infrastructure that supports democracy (the need to enforce contracts creates the rule of law; prosperity creates the desire for more say in government and thus democracy). I can not recall a point in modern history in which democracies fought wars. Sued each other in the WTO and other hurled insults about each other’s mothers sure but fight a war?? That hurts business ;-)
Comment by DF Lickiss | July 30, 2006
Why are the United States afraid of a nuclear Iran? The United States have enough nuclear weapons to turn Iran into a big sheet of glass and nuclear waste. Is it any wonder that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons? When the world's most powerful nuclear military calls your country part of an "Axis of Evil" and then invades your neighbor, is it unwise to look for cheap but effective defense options? The United States are causing nuclear Iran.
Comment by Ted | July 30, 2006
Iran has been publicly calling for the destructions of the "satans" (U.S. & Israel) for 27 years and taught every 9/11 hijacker the same in Madrassas all over the Middle East. They are teaching a child right now who might grow up and nuke your city, Ted. If any city in the U.S. is hit by a nuke, millions will die, all over the world. They will die for decades. Isn't it better for a group of nut jobs to be eliminated then see miilions die and the world changed forever?
Comment by Joseph | July 31, 2006
The fact remains that the United States are a much greater threat to Iran than vice versa. We are unfortunately living in an age when people are incapable of distinguishing between sword-rattling rhetoric and actual political plans- chalk this up to democracy.
Comment by Ted | July 31, 2006
Joseph,
Here's a great discussion about "Catholic" support of the wars in Iraq and Lebanon:
http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/cgi-bin/rockfordfiles.cgi/The%20World%20Beyond/Lebanon/The_Forgotten_Victims.writeback
Comment by Cato | August 1, 2006
Ted,
You are correct when you suggest that Iran may consider us a great threat and they are seeking nuclear weapons to counter that threate. That being said, as long as they are interested in exporting their "revolution" we need to be threat to them. We armed Saddam with just enough weapons to contain them. Their suicide squads scared the stuffing out of Reagan and rightly so. If they get nuclear weapons there is every reason to suspect that they will put them in the hands of terrorists. Notice how Hezbollah recently used a very advanced missle to damage an Israeli gun boat. That missile was an Iranian version of the Chinese silkworm anti-ship missile. All the experts I have seen online were shocked that Iran would share such valuable weapons with Hezbollah. Will Iran limit its sharing of nuclear weapons or will it turn a "blind eye" to someone smuggling a few weapons out of the country? What about scientists working on the technology? Will Iran be the source of the next AQ Kahn? We have nothing to assure us that they won't do either or both. If there was even a slight trace that Iran was willing to accept the rules of international behavior I would be less willing to encourage stopping them by any means necessary. THey are too dangerous.
Comment by DF Lickiss | August 1, 2006
Who's not accepting the "rules" of international behavior? In a sane world, a preemptive invasion is called bullying. The United States are still far more dangerous than Iran. The United States are the only country to have ever actually USED nuclear weapons in war, you will recall.
Comment by Ted | August 2, 2006
Ted:
Yes we used nukes in WWII. We also ended all armed resistance from Japan and negated the need to invade those islands. The estimates for casualties ran from a conservative one million into the several millions. The dropping of the bomb also prevented the destruction of the Japanese people as the Japanese were determined to defend the home islands to the last man, woman and child.
Additionally if we had not dropped the bombs the following scenarios would have most likely played out and increased the death and destruction. China would have invaded Japan to oust them since they still had a sizable army based there, the bloodletting would have been tremendous on both sides. The Japanese being as cruel as they were would have punished the population there mercilessly as the Mao and his army advanced on the island. The Russians would have invaded Manchuria to rid themselves of a Japanese threat on their doorstep. More than likely they would have gone on to invade the northern portion of the home islands resulting in a Soviet satellite. That was most unacceptable to the Truman administration. I would add here that the firebombing of both Germany and Japan resulted in more casualties than the dropping of both bombs combined. In one night alone Tokyo was firebombed and the results were a staggering 70,000 killed, wounded or missing.
Had Germany and or Japan developed nukes first there is NO DOUBT they would have used them and used them extensively. In particular Germany with its V2 rockets would have made a very potent weapon indeed. Considering the research that was going into the rocket programs, it is quite conceivable that they would have developed a longer range rocket within a few years, one capable of reaching US soil. I would also add that it would not be beyond the possibility that they would have assisted the Japanese in developing their own program as well, a very frightful possibility
After seeing the horrendous results of atomic warfare the US has since shown the moral restraint to never use them again unless attacked in kind. (Remember MAD?) I doubt very seriously that a nuclear tipped Iran would show such restraint considering the continual outbursts from its leadership to wipe the Big Satan and Little Satan from the face of the earth. Tyrants do not fear casualties or the death of their own people.
Comment by Richard | August 4, 2006
Side note on the use of nukes in WW2, a Japanese long range submarine was in route to LA with a couple of what are now called dirty bombs with orders to drop them from stowed air craft on or about August 10.
Comment by DF Lickiss | August 5, 2006
DF:
I don’t recall hearing about that story. What I do recall reading somewhere that towards the end of WWII they did indeed detonate a large explosion off or along the coast of one of the main islands on the Inland Sea side. It was never really determined as to whether or not they were of nuclear design or just a heck of a lot of explosives. If it was indeed the former it would certainly lend credence to your comment.
Comment by Richard | August 5, 2006
BTW, one quick last thought. The Japanese navy did indeed have subs that carried aircraft that could be assembled in a short time upon surfacing, so that would also support that theory.
Comment by Richard | August 5, 2006
Ahmdo:
Your command of English is amazing! To bad your knowledge of the world isn't.
Comment by Richard | August 8, 2006
If, as the last German forces were retreating, the Allies decided to raze several German cities to the ground, killing every man, woman, and child in them, in order to "end the war quickly" and "spare lives", would that have been just? No, it would have been murder. The deliberate attacks on civillians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were atrocities, period, just as every deliberate targeting of civillians in every war was an atrocity. If you say "sometimes we need to target civillians to win the war", then you are not a conservative or a civilized man, you are a barbarian and a brute.
Justice is not abrogated by circumstance. Speculate all you want, but the deliberate killing of noncombatants violates every rule of war and justice- of course, REAL conservatives know that already. That's why the sophisticated rules of 18th century warfare were developed, in response to the lawlessness and barbarity of the 17th century's wars.
By the way, the bombing of Nagasaki killed more Christians than centuries of persecution by the Japanese government. Similarly, the neocon warmongering in the middle east puts Christians in danger and drives them from their homes. You will excuse me for compromising "100% Americanism" and siding with my Christian brothers in foreign lands rather than my warmongering countrymen.
Frankly, I don't care what the Japanese capacity was. The simple fact remains that the United States are the only nation EVER to have used nuclear weapons in warfare- and as far as I know, we have NEVER apologized for those barbaric actions. Why should other countries trust us to be moral judges for the whole world when we cannot even recognize such blatant immorality among ourselves?
"Iran won't show restraint"? What evidence can one possibly muster to show that the United States show any restraint? Did we restrain ourselves from invading Iraq, because we prudently saw that there was little justification for war? Did we prudently refrain from using atomic weapons on an almost-beaten foe? Did we show restraint in bombing countries around the world.
Talk all you want about Iran, but a simple, impartial look at the record shows that the United States are still the #1 threat to world peace and stability.
Comment by Ted | August 9, 2006
Ted:
I base my statement on Iran simply by the words that are spoken by them. Secondly would you prefer to take the chance that Iran will show restraint? What would you say if they used WMD's on Isreal, or the US? Would millions of dead and wounded convince you? You say the US is the greatest threat to peaca and stability, what would you say if the US went into isolationism? Can you picture a world wherein tyrants rule?
Comment by Richard | August 10, 2006
BTW, Ted you said "almost beaten" do you have ANY idea of what the civilian casualties would have been had the US invaded the main islands? Again estitmates ranged from a million to several million if you factored in the civilian casualties. Talk all you want about the US being a threat, for its folks like you that should nations like Iran succeed will be the first to discover the folly of you words.
Comment by Richard | August 10, 2006
I can picture a world in which tyrants rule. It's the one in which we are living. American foreign policy- at its BEST- simply exchanges one tyrant for another.
Comment by Ted | August 11, 2006
Ted:
It's no use, you are obviously convinced that the USA is a problem while I am convinced its the world's best hope. Perhaps someday you'll see that the world we live in is a really a dangerous place that is currently led by Islamo-facists that want to cut both my throat and yours. I respect the fact that you stick to what you believie in but I would say that it is wrong, and with that I'll let this thread rest.
Comment by Richard | August 11, 2006