From President George W. Bush’s speech September 5 on the Global War on Terror:
History teaches that underestimating the words of evil and ambitious men is a terrible mistake.
In the early 1900s, an exiled lawyer in
Europe published a pamphlet called "What Is To Be Done?" — in which he laid out his plan to launch a communist revolution in Russia. The world did not heed Lenin’s words, and paid a terrible price. The Soviet Empire he established killed tens of millions, and brought the world to the brink of thermonuclear war. In the 1920s, a failed Austrian painter published a book in which he explained his intention to build an Aryan super-state in
Germany and take revenge on Europe and eradicate the Jews. The world ignored Hitler’s words, and paid a terrible price. His Nazi regime killed millions in the gas chambers, and set the world aflame in war, before it was finally defeated at a terrible cost in lives. Bin Laden and his terrorist allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them. The question is: Will we listen? Will we pay attention to what these evil men say? . . .
[T]he Iranian regime has clear aims: They want to drive
America out of the region, to destroy Israel, and to dominate the broader Middle East. To achieve these aims, they are funding and arming terrorist groups like Hezbollah, which allow them to attack Israel and America by proxy. Hezbollah, the source of the current instability in Lebanon, has killed more Americans than any terrorist organization except al Qaeda. . . . It was Hezbollah that was behind the 1983 bombing of the
U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 Americans. And Saudi Hezbollah was behind the 1996 bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 Americans, an attack conducted by terrorists who we believe were working with Iranian officials. . . . Listen to the words of Hezbollah’s leader, the terrorist Nasrallah, who has declared his hatred of
America. He says, "Let the entire world hear me. Our hostility to the Great Satan [ America] is absolute… Regardless of how the world has changed after 11 September, Death to America will remain our reverberating and powerful slogan: Death to America." Iran’s leaders, who back Hezbollah, have also declared their absolute hostility to
America. Last October, Iran’s President declared in a speech that some people ask — in his words — "whether a world without the United States and Zionism can be achieved… I say that this… goal is achievable." Less than three months ago,
Iran’s President declared to America and other Western powers: "open your eyes and see the fate of pharaoh… if you do not abandon the path of falsehood… your doomed destiny will be annihilation." . . . The Iranian regime and its terrorist proxies have demonstrated their willingness to kill Americans — and now the Iranian regime is pursuing nuclear weapons.
The world is working together to prevent
Iran’s regime from acquiring the tools of mass murder. . . . We’ll continue to work closely with our allies to find a diplomatic solution. The world’s free nations will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. (Applause.)