Curmudgeon's Corner

Dance of Fools?

Posted by Al Campbell on May 26, 2012

U.S., Political, Quality of Life, Economy

Is this a dance of fools?  And, if so, just who are the fools?

The International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran continue what, to me, has seemed a charade for a long, long time.  Now the IAEA is seeing some enriched uranium at about the 27% level when only 20% enriched uranium is what would be necessary if this were for medical purposes as Iran insists.  This is nowhere near the 90% level necessary for ‘warhead quality’ enrichment, but it does suggest that the IAEA, and, by extension, the U.N. and the United States are the fools in this dance.

Meanwhile, Iran continues to do whatever it is doing hundreds of feet beneath a mountain while Israel stews.  We have watched as our leaders (primarily President Obama) snub Israel time after time.  We know that Iran has indicated that among its missions is the total destruction of Israel.  We know that Israel believes it must move militarily within a very short remaining window of time; or, risk never being able to do so again with any hope of succeeding in the dismantling of Iran’s test and enrichment facilities.

So, the dance of fools continues.  Iran buys itself more and more time.  President Obama seeks to move beyond the coming election before anything happens; anything other than the dance of fools is threatening to his position in the public’s view when his position already seems more uncertain as time passes.

Israel is left to twist in the wind, or to flatly disregard the position of the Obama government.  Neither of those positions is particularly good from Israel’s perspective, but, of the choices, military action is the lesser of evils.

Diplomacy earns the black eye it seems to walk away with after most such encounters.  The bad guys seem to thwart the good guys at every turn.  The diplomatic effort is always said to be better than military action, but too often military action is the only thing remaining after diplomacy fails.

If we simply view Iran and North Korea in this context, we can hear the orchestra tuning up for the dance that never ends.  Never ends, that is, until the bad guys decide to make it end when they’ve achieved their goal. 

Even then, the good guys rush to fill whatever void has been created by the bad guys, and pour money into the bad guys’ world to help repair the damage to ‘goodwill’ that was caused….by the bad guys’ malevolent actions, and by the good guys’ ridiculous dance of fools.

We never learn from past mistakes; we are condemned to repeat them, as the result.