by Joe Blaikie

Created on: July 12, 2008

The most compelling case against Barack Obama's bid to become president is his inexperience in the realm of national security. Weariness with the war in Iraq and headline-grabbing economic woes may be leaving voters inclined to look past Senator Obama's glaring shortcomings as a potential Commander-in-Chief, but our nation's enemies will not be as forgiving.

We are in the middle of World War III. Some may call that statement ridiculous sensationalism. But the fact is, the forces of radical Islam are fighting to achieve global domination. They are fighting in the Middle East. They are fighting in Central Asia. They are fighting in Southeast Asia. They are fighting in Europe. They are fighting in America. They are fighting on more fronts than were fought in World War I or World War II. Just because their tactics are unconventional does not make this any less a war.

We currently possess the technology and forces to defeat them. But with each passing year we are losing our edge. Hitler's Germany could have been crushed in the 1930's if the Allies who defeated Germany in World War I would have had the will to deal with what was an obvious emerging threat. Today we see another obvious emerging threat in the nuclear-aspiring Iran, and yet the nations of the West seem suicidally content to delude themselves into thinking that diplomacy can avert the inevitable. Unfortunately, Senator Obama falls into this camp and it is for that reason that his ascension to the presidency could prove dangerous for America.

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, poster boy for diplomatic delusion, met with Adolf Hitler prior to World War II and claimed to have reached an agreement that would yield "peace in our time". The result was anything but peace. This writer's fear is that there is more Chamberlain in Obama than Churchill. Iran is the Nazi Germany of our time. Iran is the true heart of the radical Islamic movement. The next president will have to deal with Iran. The stakes will be even higher than those of pre-World War II Europe. If Iran acquires nuclear weapons, they will inevitably find their way into the hands of terrorist surrogates who will do everything in the power to destroy American and European cities. The price of naivete could be the loss of London, Paris, or New York.

The hard truth is that diplomacy rarely averts war. Diplomacy led to a premature and unsatisfactory end to World War I that laid the seeds for World War II. Diplomacy allowed Adolf Hitler to build a war machine in plain sight and then allowed him to unleash it and plunge the great powers into another horrific war. Diplomacy led to a stalemate on the Korean peninsula and has left a tinderbox on the border between the North and South, made all the more explosive by North Korea's development of nuclear weapons. Diplomacy does not avert war. It only postpones it. Diplomacy will not prevent a war with Iran. It will only see to it that Iran has more time to grow more powerful and thus make the inevitable conflict more devastating.

The leadership of Iran is well aware of the delusion of diplomats. They know what phrases to utter, what minimal steps to take, to forestall the day of reckoning. Senator Obama has pledged to talk with the leadership of Iran. That is exactly what they would like. They will no doubt tell him whatever it is he would like to hear - whatever will buy them more time. The question is, will Barack Obama have the instincts and judgment to recognize when he is being deceived or will he naively think that he can bring "peace in our time"? It would be better if we did not have to discover the answer to that question. The stakes are too high.

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