EHC1 Schuman's European Health Community would have saved Europe from Covid-19 Calamity

On 12 December 1952, before representatives of European States, French Foreign Minster Robert Schuman opened a conference on the proposed creation of a European Health Community.

If politicians had listened, Schuman’s Plan for a European Health Community would have solved today’s Covid-19 problems and much more besides.

How?

Robert Schuman, with Health Minister Paul Ribeyre on his right, opens the conference on the European Health Community.

This European Health Community would have given Europeans today a streamlined machine to deal with a broad range of problems.

It was not exclusively for the Europe of the Six. Those invited included Austria and Turkey to Portugal, UK and Iceland in the West.

Today’s Tumult

Today’s virus tumult has already cost untold billions in damage to the economy. It will cost untold billions more.

European top leaders met in an extraordinary five-day European Council in mid-June 2020 to work out a multi-trillion euro plan to rescue the European economy from mortal collapse. The world’s largest trading unit is in danger of falling down as the centre of its historic age of prosperity it had enjoyed since 1950. That’s when the first European Community set Europeans on a path to three-quarters of a century of peace and prosperity.

Today Europe is left with a ramshackle, uneven way for tackling the COVID-19 crisis. The Health Community, in contrast, aimed to provide a democratic and scientific way to reach consensus. It also had safeguards against global politics that today we see wrecking the western economy.

Would it have saved lives?

Yes.

Would the economy have avoided such a costly lockdown?

Yes.

Would it have replaced today’s secretive Councils that extract trillions of extra taxes without taxpayer representation?

Yes. It would have put all financial fiddling under the spotlight of open democratic control.

It would have also tackled the future problems that only some politicians will face Europe in the coming years when most people are closing their eyes.

The Community Thread

The European Community was a revolutionary idea of genius. Instead of war, it brought peace and prosperity. Instead of hatred, it brought trust among nations and cooperation between former foes.

Five short years after WW2, on 9 May 1950, the French Government had proposed a European Coal and Steel Community, ECSC.

What had the Health Community in common with Europe’s first Community?

A lot, it would seem.

Why did Schuman, the Father of Europe, consider that this further Community was required? What have medicine and pills in common with coal, steel, canons and battleships?

Schuman was not motivated by utopian ideas of a Federation of Europe (he denounced it as unrealistic) or by American theories of ‘functionalism‘. He was not interested in adding further bureaucracy, rather the reverse. He was not interested in creating a huge European budget. In contrast to many leaders today, he wished to reduce taxes and make individuals freer and more prosperous.

He worked for one goal.

Stopping War

Stopping the outbreak of a further war in Europe was the key concept behind the ECSC. It succeeded. By 2020 none of the Community’s Member States had had attacked another for three-quarters of a century. No period in Western European history has witnessed such an event.

How did it stop war? Schuman government in July 1948 proposed the formula: a democratic European Assembly — that saw light in Council of Europe and a customs union. The Assembly was instrumental in setting up Europe’s first Court of Justice, the Court that responded to governments’ abuse of power. All States who joined the Council of Europe had to sign up to the Convention of the Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Citizens could take their grievances to the Court, not only to get redress but to stop governments slipping down the slope of autocratic powers against the citizens, like the Nazis and the Fascists.

Armed with this shield to defend democracy, Europeans then benefited from the Coal and Steel Community that outlawed industrial cartels. In the lead up to two world wars industrial cartels had manipulated governments by stoking an arms race. The great national champions of Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia had been working together with a common design to make the national governments procure more arms, build more ships and exploit their patents for profit.

The European Coal and Steel Community combined with the Council of Europe created three major advances for all Europeans. They

• reinforced Democracy,
• outlawed war between themselves,
• strengthened their common defence against aggressors.

The later European Communities, Euratom and the Economic Community did the same things.

• Euratom outlawed Atomic war between European States,
• The EEC or Common Market outlawed Trade War.

The Council of Europe ensured that citizens’ rights, such as freedom of thought, assembly and religion were respected. And the freedom to criticise their leaders.

That stalwart defence of democratic values and human rights is now clear to all who wish to study European history. But what was behind the European Health Community that Schuman proposed in 1952?

Its Purpose and Compass

French detractors called the Coal and Steel Community Schuman’s ‘Pool‘ as if the only function was to share the resources of coal and steel. The European Health Community was therefore dubbed ‘the White Pool‘ to contrast it with the black pool of coal.

Was the proposed Health Community merely going to share or pool white bandages, garments and pills?

Far more!

If that had been the motive then there was no need for the elaborate draft treaty that had been prepared. It tells the whole story. Disease is as devastating as war. Health is the way to prosperity.

Schuman’s supranational idea of a European Community was focused on two goals:

Primarily his motive was to create a means to stop war. Schuman wrote:

‘We must remove any motive for a war {between Europeans Member States} suppressing it so no one has the temptation to undertake one.’

Secondarily, the peace-enhancing Community would seek out all means to create benefits for all by drawing on a single market, shared contributions and strategic outcomes.

Paul Ribeyre, the Minister for Health who worked on the project with Schuman, declared that the health of citizens was the first consideration of the State, to which all other values must be subordinated. The first duty of the Statesman was to assure the health of citizens because the foundation of the State depended on it.

But there is far more.

The agreement in the Cabinet of the French Government on 24 September 1952 was merely a first step to broadening the domain of better health to a wider geographical boundary. It extended far beyond France, far beyond the Europe of the Six of the black pool of coal and steel.

On 16 September M. Ribeyre presented his plans to the French Cabinet who gave him approval to take it to members of the OEEC, Organisation of European Economic Cooperation. This was the body set up following the US Marshall Plan, now called the OECD, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Ribeyre invited Member States to join in this common effort of well-being. Besides the Six, it included Austria, Denmark, Greece, Iceland, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and Turkey. Ireland was the only State to decline.

The broad compass of States indicated the extent and importance of the plan.

Europe's interest when Trump clears the Washington Swamp

Why did President Obama expel 35 Russian diplomats from USA? Why did Russian President Putin not react with American expulsions? Why did Washington Post get into a panic about Russian hacking into the Vermont Electricity Utility and then admit it was a fake scare? It was adware on a laptop. Why, before exiting gracefully, has President Obama been bringing in a record-shattering 97,000 pages of rules and regulations, some which will restrict press freedom?
The short answer is fog and smoke. Let me explain.

This is not just a simple matter of espionage. It is not about Russian manipulation of the US elections to “force” Donald Trump on a reluctant American electorate. Nor is it just outgoing Obama being nasty to in-coming Trump.
In a democracy all the electorate is free to vote for whomsoever it wants. That is based on information.The crux of democracy is openness and transparency. If there is an attack on democracy itself, then bipartisan or multi-partisan action is required. Not here apparently.
If some Democratic party scandals are spilled by anyone, that does not make the election result invalid. A better informed electorate is what all Democrats should applaud. After all Democrats tried their hardest to paint the dirt on Mr Trump’s past. At the heart of the complaints of the Democrats are the leaking of emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and its chairman John Podesta. These are seen as explosive as Hillary Clinton’s normally highly illegal, non-secured server, plus 650,000 more emails involving Huma Abedin, her Saudi-educated assistant from a prominent Muslim Brotherhood family. She worked also simultaneously for the Clinton Foundation.
According to Julian Assange of Wikileaks, both the Clinton Foundation and also ISIS (Islamic State) received tens of millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
In the email sent on August 17 2014, Hillary Clinton asked Mr Podesta, who at that time worked under president Barack Obama, to help put “pressure” on Qatar and Saudi Arabia regarding the countries’ alleged support for the terrorist group Isis.

“We need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to Isil and other radical Sunni groups in the region,” Ms Clinton wrote.

Who is shocked that the Russians are spying on Americans or Americans spying on Russians? Who is shocked that the USA or Russia might want to be involved in “regime change”?
First two things should be made clear.
Russians are expert in disinformation. In Soviet times the biggest department of the KGB intelligence services was the Disinformation Department. One of their major areas of disinformation, as revealed by the highest level defectors, was to instigate the idea — still paralyzing western society — that a Palestinian (non-Jewish) nation exists and that Yasser Arafat was not an Egyptian-born agent of Nasser, but the leader of the phantom nation fabricated in 1964. Previously Arabs refused to be called Palestinians. That was the name the world called Jews! We presented those facts on several occasions. Repetition of lies is a technique used by the Nazi Goebbels and false religions and ideologies throughout the ages.
Secondly, a foreign intelligence service that reveals some truth and fact could well be doing a western audience a favor. Western governments have been losing public trust, typified by Brexit. They have their own disinformation services — they are generally referred to as public relations campaigns. “Spin” operations by definition do not tell the unvarnished truth.
A disinformation service wants to hide the truth and emphasize what is irrelevant or distracting. That’s why we are hearing a lot about Russians and so little about Saudis and Qataris.
The big issue also revolves around the media. The Obama and Clinton camp accuse a multiplicity of non-mainstream news sources of being ‘Fake News’. But it is many of these independent news sources using diverse proofs that call the big mainstream media organizations the real ‘Fake News ‘ sources. They refuse to discuss the most sensitive and hence newsworthy stories.
The Mainstream Media (MSM) have proved themselves incompetent, willingly out of touch, or acting like Spin-Meisters. They plumbed for Jeb Bush as the obvious Republican nomination. They lampooned the very idea of Donald Trump becoming president. Out of the question, they said. But the non stated spin was ‘He is not part of the set-up or the game we have been playing for decades.’ Those who said ‘Trump is the man,’ were ridiculed. But they were right.
So what is the background? What are the present issues?
Petroleum power, Presidential pretender, Podesta, Psychology pioneer, pedophilia . One can add a couple of Cs for Cartels and corruption.
Many these explosive issues are likely to be exposed during a Trump presidency and with an active Republican Congress. The outcome is, as this column said several years ago, likely to open major crises on both sides of the Atlantic.
Power politics is a dirty game and involves the use of inculpating information from the time of the Kennedy assassination and the Nixon Watergate tapes.
Geopolitics use heavy weapons. War, corruption, blackmail. Moral policy will bring peace but is seldom applied. Fifty years ago this year Saudi Arabia tried oil blackmail — the oil weapon — in order to change the foreign policy of USA and Great Britain. Muslim OPEC States tried the same thing again in 1973 during the Yom Kippur war with Israel — this time against the whole of the European Community. They said Europe would not get a drop of oil unless they became anti-Israel in their foreign policy. That would be called Petro-Jihad.
That should give a clear idea about where the battle lines of global politics are drawn.
Instead of selling oil at a profitable 2 dollars a barrel, Saudi-led OPEC ratcheted up the price by cartel action. It reached 147 dollars, then crashed. It doubled in 2016 and is on the way up again. Each year oil States rip the equivalent of multiple times the EU budget from the European economy. That can be compared to sucking the blood out of a free-market economy.
Then they re-invest the cash profits and “spin” it via media and public relations to further jihadi aims. Saudi and other petro-jihad money finance Wahabi mosques across Europe. It finances chairs of Islamic studies in universities. It finances school text books to teach the younger generations about how to worship like a Muslim, facing towards Mecca. Unbelievers are second or third class citizens. There are no churches in Saudi Arabia, nor Bibles.
How much blackmail money is involved? Since 1973, Saudi Arabia alone must have made profits over production costs worth multiple trillion dollars. OPEC as a whole probably gained around 9 trillion.



Where did this fabulous wealth go? Not all went to building castles in the Saudi sands but much went on armaments to jihadi armies fighting enemies of their religio-political theocratic monopoly. (Secularists like Saddam, Qaddafi and Assad). Billions went on warfare to cut territory for pipelines from the Gulf States through to the Mediterranean Sea. This again means having the Sunni-friendly Al-Qaeda and Islamic State bite off parts of Syria. Russia, whose economy depends on exporting high price gas and oil to Europe made ties with Shi’ia Iran. It held the line for Assad. Iran needs its own pipeline to the Europeans knowing they will pay any price in oil and gas blackmail.
Europe has long been more vulnerable than the USA, which now has its shale gas and oil. Nevertheless the Obama administration’s bias is apparent from the rebuke it got from UK’s PM Theresa May. She objected to the unwarranted condemnation of Israel as being under “extreme elements” in Secretary of State John Kerry’s parting speech. That epithet came because Israel would not instantly agree to a Two State Solution with “Palestinian” elements who have the destruction of Israel as part of their Muslim Brotherhood-based Charter.
While the Middle East goes up in flames, women are raped en masse, slavery becomes part of IS consumerism, Christians are expelled or beheaded if they do not convert, the US seems to be transfixed by a few cabins, houses, garages or homes for Jews. Jews should not live in Judea of all places! Why? The UN originally called it ‘Judea’. ‘Palestine’ is just disinformation.
Let’s turn to Germany. In her new year message, Chancellor Merkel says that the biggest threat to Germany is the threat of Islamist terrorism. The German intelligence services have warned that Jihadi groups in Germany are being funded by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait.
Does that shock us? Apparently it shocks President Obama. He has refused to use the term “Islamic terror”. Son of a Kenyan Muslim, he also had a Muslim step-father in Indonesia. “They (terrorists) have perverted and distorted and tried to claim the mantle of Islam for an excuse for basically barbarism and death,” he said. He says more Muslims are being killed by Muslims than Christians. That is true. They are in full jihad against each other.
Unless Europe takes stern and intelligent action, it should not expect the bloodshed to pass it by. We are living in an unusual period when there has not been major warfare with Islam. Since Islam’s inception in the seventh century, some 270 million lives have been lost by Islamic invasion. They were not national invasions but invasions driven by Islamic ideology to convert or kill.

According to Robert Schuman, founder of the European Community, peace requires tolerance and the patience search for truth. President of Egypt al-Sisi told Egypt’s top clerics and scholars at Cairo’s Al-Azhar university that they must change their {political} ideology and bring the seventh-century religion of Islam up-to-date with realities. The ideology had become ‘hostile to the entire world.‘ He asked:

‘Is it conceivable that 1.6 billion Muslims would kill the world’s population of 7 billion, so they could live on their own?‘

Dr Bill Warner of the Center for the Study of Political Islam has tabulated 548 battles of Islamic armies in Europe or formerly Christian areas.


In contrast the Crusades had less than a score of battles in Syria, Israel and Egypt. The dynamic of this process can be seen in the short video Battles with Islam or the longer version.

Now it is abundantly clear why Donald Trump has selected Rex Tillerson, a former oil company executive — who knows how to negotiate without making enemies — as his new Secretary of State. It is also clear why the outgoing Obama administration and the disappointed Clinton supporters are seething for having lost the election.

Avalanche4 : the fate of the Euro, the political cartel and corrupt practice are thrown in the balance -- of Law!

Will the Euro survive? Will the European Union require stronger financial guarantees to make sure that there is not a knock-on collapse of the economies of eurozone countries? The targets of the financial market are euphemistically described as weak economies. Rather more than that is the core of the problem. Too often corruption is involved, from bending the rules, 'innovative interpretations,' bent statistics to outright crime, bribery and major fraud. The euro crisis has merely thrown this into high relief.

Why at the December 2010 European Council did the leaders of 27 Member States promise to embrace their worst nightmare -- make a treaty change? It is specifically for the euro. After a decade of controversy and demonstrations over the Lisbon and Constitutional Treaty process, why rekindle a row? The meeting on the euro crisis was behind closed doors, so those most concerned, the euro users, were kept in the dark. An earlier treaty change to please Parliament was done in a secret Intergovernmental Conference. That was small beer -- to spend extra money and give some extra salaries to extra MEPs.

This one is the biggy. It involves the alleged means to create monetary stability by plastering the ever-increasing money wall with what passes for paper or electronic currency. It is to act as a dam against nasty market speculators who see that some national books are not yet kept straight. (Note that those who kept their books straight, like Slovenia, Slovakia, the Netherlands, Germany and Luxembourg, etc are not under threat. Malta, a tiny southern economy, has the confidence of investors.)

Any treaty change is dangerous for a political group or cartel. It is much more so if it lacks popular support and has acted in defiance of popularly expressed will of the people in referendums. But contrary to the last amendment this has to be visible. The government leaders therefore made it as short as possible hoping that:

• (a) it would not be noticed too much,
• (b) it would pass easily through the ratification process in 27 national parliaments
• (c) it would not cause rioting in the streets,
• (d) it would not provoke a court case that would declare that a public referendum was necessary in an off-shore island or elsewhere.

However, 'short' does not mean unimportant. Obviously it is vital. It concerns money. Big money. The previous guarantee fund amounted to the equivalent of a nice round figure of a trillion dollars. That amounts to a couple of thousand dollars for every man, woman and child in the European Union. Handy cash. Once the public grasps the importance of issue, all sorts of questions will arise.

The European government leaders hope to get the following amendment to Article 136 of the Lisbon Treaty:

• '3. The Member States whose currency is the euro may establish a stability mechanism to be activated if indispensable to safeguard the stability of the euro area as a whole. The granting of any required financial assistance under the mechanism will be made subject to strict conditionality."

(For those who are curious, 136 paragraphs 1 and 2 deal with strengthening national budgetary discipline and Community surveillance, not weakening it. Whether countries are big or small, rich or poor, east or west, north or south, maritime or inland, industrial, agricultural or touristical, as long as they keep their books straight, they pose no threat to the eurozone; they uphold it.)

So why did the 27 government leaders change their mind? Instead of maintaining their previous chorus of 'No more Treaty changes, please!', all of a sudden they all say 'We all want a treaty change' and we want it NOW!' The amendment has also to get the European Parliament's approval -- and the EP previously set their mind against any treaty changes. Now they hope for an EP agreement before the Spring 2011. Are they two independent bodies who have coincidently arrived at the same conclusion? And what of the Commission? Is it independent too but also changed its tune to whistle in harmony?

(One thing all three bodies have in common is that all members are part of a tiny minority -- the two per cent of Europeans who are card-carrying members of political parties. There is not an independent person in sight. The second thing is that all the problems relate to political parties and their abuse of power.)

Why did the leaders not continue their well-trodden path by doing package deals in the secrecy of the closed-door European Council? Why subject this amendment to open parliamentary debate and dangers of failure?

The answer is simple: LAW.

The initiative to change the treaty comes from one country. That country eventually persuaded everyone else. That country is Germany. The person who did the talking was Angela Merkel, the Chancellor.
Why? And how was she so persuasive?

Germany is faced with a law case that challenges the legality of the outcomes of the politicians' secret sessions. If the case were unfounded, no one would worry. But we have 27 worried people who fear it might succeed. It might undermine the whole pile of secret package deals in the past. That could cause major chaos, as all the measures would unravel and there would be endless legal action. Frau Merkel made it clear that what they have been getting away with so far cannot last forever.

Many politicians think they are the last word and their deals are beyond the power of anyone to disrupt them. Their number even includes heads of State who have influence on all departments of State. No one is higher than we government leaders, some may think: 'We control the levers of power.'

They are wrong. The law, both the invisible supranational law and written law of the land and the EU, are always higher than any individual, corporation or abusive State. History has proved it.

In this case it is the law of the land that is now being applied. The postwar German Constitution was written by Germans who had experienced three wars in their lifetimes. Wars were fomented by reckless leaders and secret cabals. Konrad Adenauer, then a 72-year old pensioner, former mayor of Cologne, was chairman of the Constitutional committee. The next year, 1949, he became the first Chancellor of postwar German Federal Republic. He stayed as Chancellor for more than a decade assuring both a European transition and respect for the democratic rule of law in the post-Nazi generation. Germany was not immediately strong enough morally to openly oppose the anti-democratic abuses of de Gaulle in European politics.

Sixty years ago, before de Gaulle's seizure of power, Adenauer however co-signed on 18 April 1951 with other Founding Fathers such as Schuman the great Charter of the Community assuring the citizens right to choose. Walter Hallstein, a German law professor, president of the European Commission, together with his European colleagues resisted the most serious antidemocratic intrigues against Community law and attempted Gaullist sabotage.

German constitutionalists provided powers so that any citizen could complain to the Constitutional Court if they thought government leaders were abusing their powers. This type of recourse is open to other citizens in democratic States, but few have applied them against the monetary scandals. The German constitution made sure that the issue was clear as crystal.

That is precisely what happened in Germany. Even though a citizen taking on the State is no small matter, the Constitutional Court spoke out clearly. It provided a long judgement on the inadequacies of the politicians' deals at the Maastricht Treaty.

Now a further case is pending. Leading the 50 complainants is Professor Markus Kerber, a Constitutional lawyer. Another complainant is the grandson of Konrad Adenauer. The complaint questions the actions of politicians in supplying billions of funds in bail-outs when these are strictly forbidden in the Lisbon and earlier treaties.

Before the European Council met, Chancellor Merkel first had a private talk with the French President at Deauville. Why? President Sarkozy's predecessor, Charles de Gaulle, was often the initiator of the murky, secret package deals that brought European funds to assuage his voters. Thus were created the massive meat mountains, wine lakes, milk meres and cheese bergs.

We do not know what was said exactly to President Sarkozy at the Deauville rencontre, and later to the other 25 government leaders at the European Council. That remains a secret.

One guess is 'The game is up.' Without the respect of law the Community system cannot continue. Even the new intergovernmental distortions introduced into the European Union by the Lisbon Treaty will collapse unless the deals are supported by law.

However the treaty amendment is only the start of the process. It is questionable whether this proposed amendment, by politicians, for politicians to cover up a political scandal, will work. Nor can it act retroactively as a cover up of past corrupt practice. The legal case in Germany is not the end of the matter. There are 26 other national Courts that are open to such cases. There are also a couple of European Courts too.

Nuclear Proliferation: "The entire free world is threatened" -- German Chancellor Merkel. When will Europe act?

“A nuclear bomb in the hands of an Iranian President who denies the Holocaust, threatens Israel and denies Israel the right to exist is not acceptable. Not only Israel but the entire free world is threatened. This is why the free world is meeting this threat head on, if necessary with tough economic sanctions.”

Those are the words of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. She was addressing both houses of the U.S. Congress on November 3, 2009. Her warning about religiously-motivated nuclear proliferation by Iran was enthusiastically applauded by Congress.

Yet Europe seems happy to supply the knife to cut its own throat. The astute international author and commentator Matthias Kuentzel says much of the high technology for producing such weapons of mass death comes from Europe.

'According to the German-Iranian Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Tehran, two thirds of Iranian industrial enterprises and three quarters of its small and medium-sized firms use machines and systems of German origin. As Berlin’s Federal Agency for Foreign Trade affirmed in 2007, Germany is still Iran’s No. 1 supplier of almost all types of machinery apart from power systems and construction, where Italian manufacturers dominate the market.'

When is such free trade, stupidity and suicidal? Should Europe be supplying Iran with instruments for the death of the West? Who in Brussels is listening while the regime and the crowds shout 'Death to the Great Satan' or 'the world devourers' -- USA, Britain and Europe? They have been shouting that for THIRTY years.

An aggressive Shiite State willing to acquire and use nuclear arms is not only a problem to the West but all surrounding countries. What does the leader of Egypt's 78 million people say? President Mubarak warned the Muslim neighbouring countries of the plans of the sectarian leaders of the Iranian Islamic Republic. "The Persians are trying to devour the Arab states," he said. “A nuclear armed Iran with hegemonic ambitions is the greatest threat to Arab nations today,” Mubarak told the Arab Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia last year,

'We must prepare ourselves to rule the world,' President Ahmadinejad declared in the holy city of Qom. The possible Iranian use the Bomb depends on their religious and ideological framework. Arguments based on commerce or western economics alone will not be effective. What use is it to persuade someone that his goods will be cheaper or dearer if he is preparing for religious suicide? His motivation is ideological, not financial. Moreover he is paying some terrorist to kill you, or maybe he will do it himself for the fictitious physical pleasures of a doctrinaire afterlife.

The hegemonic leadership principle, velayat-e-fiqih, is a sort of dictatorship of the "enlightened leaders' -- namely the revolutionary ayatollahs who have seized power, killed and tortured opponents. (This is as hypocritical and illogical as the 'dictatorship of the workers' being defined by the top leaders of the Soviet Communist party.)

They are training and funding terror groups around the world. And the oil-rich Iranian leaders are not only on an accelerated nuclear programme but building long-range missile systems at enormous cost and sacrifice. For what purpose? Who is threatening them?

The sectarian view of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is that the most important task of the Iranian Revolution must be to prepare the way for the return of the Twelfth Imam, who disappeared/ died in 874. Why? Because he was the last physical descendant of Muhammad and that is important for Shiite doctrine.

To believe that one can conjure up the dead by death threats to others -- the West, 'dissident' Islamic regions, a further genocide of Jews or religious destruction of non-believers -- is bound to lead the world to a disaster of unprecedented proportions. False ideology can only be countered by an effective counter ideology. That involves reason and truth, to use an old-fashioned word.

This Twelfth Imam is called the Mahdi “divinely guided one.” Shiites believe, he will be victorious in many great battles. He will 'guide' (some opponents say 'distort') the Hebrew and Christian scriptures for his own purposes. The Shiites say his forces will defeat the 'forces of evil' and bring about a new era in which Islam ultimately becomes the dominant religion throughout the world. The Shiites have been waiting patiently for the Twelfth Imam for more than a millennium. Waiting is not an aggressive act. But Ahmadinejad and other religio-political leaders believe they can now hasten the return through a nuclear war and funding terrorism and strife.

This religious ideology in world politics distinguishes Iran from other governments with nuclear weapons. Why? because it seems to encourage even the destruction of the planet as a religious duty.

The doctrine of Ayatollah Khomeini, the revolutionary founder of the State, is taught in schoolbooks: “I am decisively announcing to the whole world that if the world-devourers [the infidel powers] wish to stand against our religion, we will stand against the whole world and will not cease until the annihilation of all of them. Either we all become free, or we will go to the greater freedom, which is martyrdom. Either we shake one another’s hands in joy at the victory of Islam in the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life and martyrdom. In both cases, victory and success are ours.”

Not all Shiites agree with Khomeini, Ahmedinejad or the present theology of the ruling, sectarian ayatollahs. Some consider them to be not only politically but theologically in great error. Yet the Council of Ministers was fooled by its disinformation. This was only exposed by strong action of the European Parliament. MEPs took the Council of Ministers to Court, time after time, until they saw reason. Iran still has an unholy mix of Soviet centralism and Shiite Islam striving for world hegemony. The European Court ruling does not eliminate Europe's danger as many peace-seeking believers are side-lined and out of power.

The fact is that Europe is facing great dangers and seems far from applying the solution for peace that the Founding Fathers gave to Europe more than half a century ago.