The New World Order Ain't What It Used to Be

Mark Steyn on the strategic meaning of Iran’s way-advanced nuclear program:

Even without launching a single missile, Iran will at a stroke have transformed much of the map – and not just in the Middle East, where the Sunni dictatorships face a choice between an unsought nuclear arms race or a future as Iranian client states. In Eastern Europe, a nuclear Iran will vastly advance Russia’s plans for a de facto reconstitution of its old empire: In an unstable world, Putin will offer himself as the protection racket you can rely on. And you’d be surprised how far west “Eastern” Europe extends: Moscow’s strategic view is of a continent not only energy-dependent on Russia but also security-dependent. And, when every European city is within range of Tehran and other psycho states, there’ll be plenty of takers for that when the alternative is an effete and feckless Washington.

Ahmadinejad can see it. Putin can see it. A cultural critic living in a New Hampshire hamlet can see it. Europe can see it, but is too palsied to do anything about it. And yet almost our entire political class cannot or will not see it. So we will lose a city, or perhaps a planet, to their willful ignorance and adolescent abdication of their responsibilities.