Cuba ties put 'cartoonish' violence near U.S. shores

Feb. 10, 2006, 7:48PM

Cuba ties put 'cartoonish' violence near U.S. shores
By KATHLEEN PARKER

If life were a football game, we'd be commending Muslims for an artful fake.

While half the Muslim world was rioting in reaction to a few
unremarkable cartoons — thanks to the fancy footwork of the anti-West
Muslim Brotherhood — nuclear-minded Iran was making new kissy sounds
with head cheerleader Fidel Castro.

In a little-noticed news item the same week as the riots, Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accepted an invitation to visit Cuba in
September to show gratitude for Castro's support of Iran's nuclear
program. A few days earlier, Cuba, Venezuela and Syria had voted against
the International Atomic Energy Agency's resolution to refer Iran to the
U.N. Security Council over its nuclear program.

It is gratifying to see rogue states engaged in a group hug
choreographed around the shared goal of bringing the United States to
its knees, while sane nations busy themselves with debates about the
ethics of publishing political cartoons.

While the Cuba visit itself may be of little consequence, the invitation
offers a reminder that our Cuban neighbor is ceaselessly working to
pursue anti-American foreign policy. It also offers a heads-up that
Iran's nuclear aspirations may as well be Cuba's.

The Soviet Union's nuclear option vis-a-vis Nikita Khrushchev and a
younger Fidel Castro seem suddenly quaint compared with the havoc that
could result should Cuba and Iran consummate their mutual hatred of the
United States.

Iran and Cuba's romance isn't new. Their courtship dates back to the
late '70s, when the Ayatollah Khomeini rose to power. Recently, the odd
Islamic-Marxist couple has explored new expressions of affection to
mutual benefit: Cuba gives Iran dual-use biotechnology, training and
equipment; Iran provides oil to Cuba, as well as an annual $25 million
trade credit.

Among Castro's proudest achievements is his Center for Genetic
Engineering and Biotechnology (CIBG), a huge research and development
enterprise in which he has invested much of his cash-strapped nation's
resources and intellectual capital. While some of his shipments to Iran
are surely to provide medical drugs for Iranians, skeptical observers
suspect there's more than altruism at work.

Dr. Jose de la Fuente, who headed the biotechnology research and
development at CIGB through most of the 1990s, wrote in the journal
Nature Biotechnology (October 2001):

"There is no one who truly believes that Iran is interested in these
technologies (solely) for the purpose of protecting all the children in
the Middle East from hepatitis, or treating their people with cheap
streptokinase when they suffer sudden cardiac arrest."

What else might biological agents be used for? Biological weapons of
mass destruction spring to mind. Where there's a way, there is plenty of
will. Speaking to students at the University of Tehran in 2001, Castro
praised the Islamic revolution for ousting the shah, then mentioned the
"shah of imperialism which is entrenched near my homeland."

To a loud ovation, Castro promised that " ... as the shah of Iran was
overthrown, this shah too will fall."

Ovations, riots — Islamist passions provide ample fuel for the kind of
dreams Castro nurses during his famously fitful few hours of sleep.
Dreams that, unfortunately, are shared by much of the Muslim world, as
we've witnessed these cartoonish past couple of weeks.

As the story has evolved, it now appears that the so-called clash of
civilizations was mostly a case of manufactured outrage created not by
sensitive religious leaders, but by secular thugs known as the Muslim
Brotherhood. Amir Taheri, writing in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal,
explained that one of the Brotherhood sheiks issued a fatwa over the
cartoons, which was quickly followed by another fatwa from a rival in
the Islamic Liberation Party.

Not be left out of the fray, the Movement of the Exiles (Ghuraba) joined
in. Followed by Syrian Baathist leaders, who organized attacks on the
Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus and Beirut. And, voila.

Taheri's view that the "rent-a-mob sackings of embassies" is less about
Islam than it is an "outburst of fascist energy" is apparently shared by
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who chastised both Iran and
Syria this week for stoking passions to shift attention from
international pressures on the two countries.

Whatever the motivations behind this orchestrated outrage du jour, the
global reaction is a bracing warning to all sleeping giants. Thanks to
Cuba's solidarity with Iran and Syria, the insanity taking place "over
there" could be coming soon to a Caribbean island near you.

Talk about a riot.

Parker, a syndicated columnist for the Orlando Sentinel, can be e-mailed
at kparker@kparker.com.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/3651294.html