WarSclerotic

The next time International Energy Agency Director General Yukiya Amano leaves Tehran with an agreement in his hands, he can borrow an umbrella and a quote from Neville Chamberlain, who in 1938 told the world after meeting with Hitler that he had brought back “peace in our time.”

It’s not as if Iran will let him inspect its nuclear facilities, and the centrifuges won’t stop spinning. IAEA inspectors will get to see the secret installation near Qom only after the main activity and materials produced there will have been transferred and stashed in another secret nook. The Iranians are world champion confidence artists.

Amano knows. World leaders know. Tehran has lied and cheated too many times for the world to not understand. Unless, of course, the democratic West has come to terms with Iran’s nuclear program and has decided to turn a blind eye.

The five superpowers and the IAEA will likely sign an agreement and lower Iran’s enriched uranium levels from 20 percent to five percent. They will also transfer some of the enriched uranium to a storage facility in Germany. It’s true that this sets Iran’s nuclear program back somewhat, but it’s not worth the cost of easing the sanctions imposed against it.

Tehran will continue along its path toward a nuclear weapon, and Israel will need to stretch its capabilities in order to once again provide hard evidence of a “smoking gun” — that the Iranian bomb is being built far away from prying eyes.

And what will the West do? It will do what it did to the North Koreans, absolutely nothing.

Why is Iran taking the risk?

It’s not just because Europe’s economy is in dire straits and the United States is preparing for presidential elections. Iran is brazen because it has identified that democracy has exhausted itself and people have lost their faith and interest in the system. The defense of their liberties and culture isn’t as important to them as in the past, and they aren’t worth sacrificing anything for.

It’s easier to turn the other way. It’s more pleasant to believe that the problem has been solved. To hope that even if the collapse of the West is inevitable, it won’t happen in our lifetime — some kind of thinking akin to “after the flood.” It is an expression of indulgence and focus entirely on individuality.

The Iranian nuclear endeavor is merely the most convenient battleground (for both sides) in their clash of civilizations, which Prof. Samuel Huntington envisioned but never got to witness himself.