Is there a Churchill in the house?

In the debate between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, the president referred to his visit to Yad Vashem as evidence of his concern about genocidal risks to Israel. But Governor Romney has become the first presidential candidate ever to specifically call for invoking the tools of international law to indict the Iranian leadership for incitement to genocide. This is a landmark event in the history of the long campaign to advance the campaign for genocide prevention from proof of intent after the event — when it is too late — to predict and prevent.

In fairness, he had proposed the same in 2007, as did Sarah Palin, so whatever one’s position is on his suitability to be the US’s next president, he has shown perseverance and consistency in calling for this action.

Using the tools of international law to prosecute and convict those inciting to genocide is essential to arresting the Iranian regime’s march toward implementing its declared objective of eliminating the State of Israel, just as it brutally suppresses the rights of its own population. There is not much point in remembering past genocides unless it spurs you to prevent those in the making.

Since coming to power in 1979, the mullahs in Iran have been openly bragging of their intentions to implement the genocidal agenda of Nazi Germany. Iran today is the epicenter of jihadist, genocidal anti-Semitism. Their dehumanizing hate language and incitement has become ever more vituperative as their centrifuges enrich ever more uranium. Genocide scholars know that when perpetrators use such dehumanizing hate language and incitement, they mean what they say, and they say what they mean.

Few know of Vice President Joe Biden’s many attempts to delay or dilute sanctions against Iran. Bloggers in DC used to refer to Biden as the mullah’s “favorite senator.” Back in 2007, Biden, then-senator and -chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, blocked a Senate vote on H.Con.Res.21, which called for the US to initiate measures to indict the Iranian leadership for its incitement to genocide, suppression of human rights, terror and nuclear enrichment. Genocide scholars know that if one prevents incitement to genocide, one can probably prevent genocide. The sanctions were implemented thanks to overwhelming congressional pressure, which overcame administration footdragging.

US Vice President Joe Biden (photo credit: AP/Madalyn Ruggiero)

I myself have previously compared the policies of Biden to those of Lord Halifax in the 1930s. Halifax, as Neville Chamberlain’s foreign secretary, orchestrated the fall of Leon Blum’s anti-Nazi government in France and the appointment of Daladier, a supporter of appeasement. After Blum fell, there was the Munich Agreement. Then came the fall of Czechoslovakia, the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement and the invasion of Poland. This chain reaction is worth recalling as we see how the delays in stopping Iran are a major reason for the continued butchery carried out by Assad and his Hezbulloh terrorists in Syria, and now possibly in Lebanon as well.

I ask whether the Daladier story is the scenario in store for us should Obama and Biden be re-elected. My guess: We will see an attempt to forge a “grand bargain” of sorts between the US and Iran — and to bring pressure on Israel to cave in. The bargain will airbrush Iranian terror, suppression of human rights and incitement to genocide — unless those who know better shame the US into doing otherwise.

President Obama in the last debate referred to his visit to Sderot. But, curiously, here is what he said on July 24, 2008, a day after his visit to meet Sderot’s rocket-terrorized citizens, in a rousing speech before a huge enthusiastic crowd in Berlin

“This is the moment when we must defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it. This threat is real and we cannot shrink from our responsibility to combat it…. we can join in a new and global partnership to dismantle the networks that have struck in Madrid and Amman; in London and Bali; in Washington and New York.”  (italics mine)

But not Sderot. The people terrorized by the rocket attacks in Sderot didn’t count as designated victims of terror. And now, two nights after the debate, there are more rocket attacks than ever.

Back then Obama talked about joining in a new network to fight terror, but not leading it. Thereafter, terror disappeared from the official US political lexicon — until the massacre in Benghazi. If there is a “grand bargain,” will incitement to genocide disappear from the political lexicon as Iran continues to enrich uranium…and incite?

Will Israel will have to lead that new network to fight what I call jihadist, genocidal terror?

This last debate disclosed fundamental — indeed unsettling — differences between the two presidential candidates, and one vice president, to anyone bothering to look.

When Obama moved into the Oval Office, his first act was to remove the bust of Churchill and ship it back to Great Britain.

Is there a Churchill in the house?