A developing story in the Levant today may lead to a greater impact on the legacy of United States President Barack Obama than will yesterday’s gubernatorial election losses for the Democrats.

As the White House, mainstream media, and talk radio spinners tried to put their own partisan-inspired twists on interpreting the voters’ message in New Jersey and Virginia, the Israeli navy was seizing another shipment of arms in the pipeline from Tehran to Terrorists. The Associated Press story is available on MSNBC.com.

The unusual seizure of another weapons cargo in a routine interception by the Israeli navy brought to light again the recognized role of Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism. The seized ship, disguised as an aid vessel, held at least 60 tons of weaponry that included Katyusha rockets and anti-tank weapons bound for delivery to Hezbollah in Lebanon, according to the Israeli defence minister.

There are not so many ways of spinning the story about the rearming of the Hezbollah terrorists. Sure, you can use politically correct language and just call them militants, or you can say that Israel has not yet supplied enough evidence to support its claims about Iran supplying them with weapons.

The Katyusha (made in Iran, by the way) rockets should sound familiar to Western cable news watchers. The name of the Katyusha rocket was repeated often enough during television coverage of the summer 2006 war between the Lebanon-based Hezbollah terrorists and Israel, as reporters excitedly analyzed each strike in blood absorbent detail. Of course, a negotiated “peace” was established as the terrorists began to run low on ordnance.

Israeli intelligence reports indicate that during the “peace” of the last few years Hezbollah has been building up its inventory and now has 40,000 rockets in stock. Things have been a little quiet I guess and it is time for another assault on Israel to get things stirred up again. The diplomats and peace negotiators should not make any vacation plans for a while.

President Obama has been taking a long time to implement his Afghanistan strategy, which supposedly was in place as he campaigned for the presidency and opposed the presence in Iraq. As I’ve pointed out previously, (here and here) the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are costly diversions from the real problem, which is Iran, where that snaking trail of terror eventually finds its head.

Obama has been manoeuvred into a place by events, a place where he needs to decide what to do about Iran as the latter not only supplies terrorists around the globe, but is also trying to develop nuclear weapons. Ignoring the claims made by Iran’s leaders about pursuing nuclear capability for peaceful purposes would be the single important step the West could take in getting to the point. Iran supplies weapons to terrorists, and if left unchecked, it will eventually supply nuclear weapons to terrorists.

The decision on Iran is one of: doing nothing, imposing economic sanctions, or blasting its weapons development facilities to hell in a hurry, taking down the regime’s existing government in the process. The first choice shows weakness and is dangerous, and sanctions are unlikely to have an impact as China and Russia probably will not cooperate.

The right choice is to cut off the head of the snake. This would have the important dual effect of interrupting the key source of support to terrorists worldwide, and it would demonstrate to the world that the United States is serious about staking a claim for civilization, rather than appeasing primitives.

It’s a tough choice that’s been forced on the naive world leader, barely a year into the job, but this one decision may determine the future of the US and the rest of the world for several decades.

©Copyright 2009 Edward Podritske