The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has reported Iran to the United Nations Security Council at their meeting in Vienna today. All five of the Permanent Members of the Security Council (U.S., U.K., France, Russia, China) voted in favor of the resolution. As they had previously agreed, the Security Council will take no action until the IAEA issues its full report in March. The Iranians are already reacting by declaring that they will resume full-scale Uranium enrichment, deny inspectors the ability to do spot inspections, and end diplomatic negotiations. There has also been a statement that the calls into question any deal with the Russians to do the enrichment in Russia. We will now see, over the next 30 days, whether or not these bellicose statements are merely posturing or are, in fact, hard statements of policy. If the Iranians continue to maintain their hard line, we will also see if European, Russian and Chinese resolve over the matter is solid.

The Danish cartoonists whose work started the uproar that has spread throughout the Muslim world when they were commissioned by a Danish newspaper to do cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed have gone into hiding in fear for their lives. Meanwhile, a mob has sacked the Danish Embassy in Damascus. Here is a piece from the Weekly Standard with a concise timeline of the controversy. It also includes some statements that make clear to me, at least, what this is really all about.

In Gaza, thousand of protesters burned Danish flags while chanting "Death to Denmark," and gunmen stormed the European Union office. In Iraq, Danish troops were put on alert after a local fatwa was issued. In Kashmir, shops closed in protest. Pakistan's Jamaat-e-Islami party placed a bounty of 50,000 Danish kroner on the cartoonists. Jihadi websites are threatening suicide bombings in Denmark. Hezbollah's head, Hassan Nasrallah, declared if Muslims had carried "out the fatwa of Imam Khomeini against the renegade Salman Rushdie, the scum who are insulting our Prophet Mohammed in Denmark, Norway, and France would not dare do so."

This is really all about our ability to live our lives in freedom and tolerance, or succumb to the Medieval laws of fundamentalist Islam, where people are beheaded, their hands chopped off, women are veiled, and all other religions are snuffed out. This is a war of civilizations, not between Christian Europe/America and Islam (since Europe is no longer Christian, anyway), but between those who value freedom as it has been developed since the days of John Locke, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, and those who seek a return to the Muslim Caliphate. The Islamists are not only our enemies here in the West, but the enemies of all Muslims who believe in freedom, democracy, modernity and tolerance. They cannot be reasoned with, or bargained with, but only fought.