By William P. Narvey, new netWMD contributor

Relentless singular pursuit of self interest without caring that others are injured in the process in a word is greed. It robs one of moral clarity just as cataracts blur vision and it can also blind the greedy to the fact that they too risk ending up victims of their own avarice.

After the dust settled following the end of the 1979 American hostage crisis in Tehran, Iran, trade and commerce between Iran on one side and European nations on the other began to normalize. Whatever contempt and suspicion each side had for the other in the geo-political realm was glossed over or kept separate and apart, at least by the greed of the West from the economic realm where both sides engaged and derived great economic benefits thereby.

The relationship between Iran and the Soviets, now Russia and China has been different than for the rest of the West. Russia and China have pursued policies geared to achieving superpower status on the world stage with America. While recognizing Iran and Islamic radicalism endangers all, but gambling that they are less threatened, Russia and China have played their relationship with Iran and other Middle Eastern nations for far greater rewards than just the money.

Today the situation with Iran for the West has become far different and far more dangerous then ever before.

In the last two years Iran has shamelessly and repeatedly broken agreements with the West brokered through the U.N., has shown utter contempt for the West’s concerns over Iran’s resolve to gain nuclear capacity and nuclear weapons, has told the world to get stuffed when it comes to the West trying to stand in the way of Iran doing exactly what Iran wants to do, and has more recently spewed its usual, but most vile hatred ever of Jews and Israel, including threatening Israel with destruction.

There is of course nothing new in Ahmadinejad’s seething hatred of Israel. The West has usually done little or ignored hatred of Israel throughout the Muslim Middle East over the last 6 decades. Until recently, many Western nations probably believed that if Israel was lost to the world, it would not have a significant, if any impact at all on their interests.

What has changed now is the real prospect that, unless the West acts to prevent it, Iran will soon gain nuclear weapon capacity and Ahmadinejad will have his finger poised over the nuclear button. Western awareness is finally dawning that Ahmadinejad’s Israel/Jew hatred might just make him mad enough to push the nuclear button in an unprovoked attack on Israel. The West however knows that it would not end there.

Israel has the wherewithal and the will to massively counterattack Iran as well as any other Arab nation Israel perceived as part of an imminent threat to its existence. An attack on Israel by Iran has therefore conjured up frightening visions that the entire Middle East will erupt into war and Western interests would thereby be put at extreme risk.

From the calls of many Western nations to bring the matter of Iran and its nuclear agenda before the U.N. to take steps to put a stop to or control Iran’s nuclear ambitions with more than the toothless ultimatums of the past, the West seems more united and determined than ever.

Not unexpectedly, China and Russia are now trying to run interference for Iran against the West’s efforts to bring Iran before the UN to be held to account and are instead calling for the West to return to negotiations with Iran. Another facet of the double game Russia is playing is that notwithstanding Iran’s many lies and deceptions about its nuclear ambitions and its increasingly threatening rhetoric, Russia recently signed a multi-billion dollar deal to sell arms to Iran.

There has been too much history over the last few years of Iran promptly and repeatedly breaking agreements entered into with the West regarding its nuclear development program. The West no longer puts any stock in Iran’s word, except of course its menacing threatening words. This time it appears the West will not be pushed by Russia, China or others into any more discussions and agreements with Iran.

Also very strikingly different this time in the West’s attitude towards Iran is that some Western nations have clearly implied, if not outright stated that they have and are keeping open a military option to deal with Iran.

Hopefully this is a clear sign that Western nations have finally come to realize that their best interests can only be best served by taking united action now to destroy Iran’s and hopefully for that matter, radical Islam’s ability and resolve to ever threaten and endanger the West again.

Ahmadinejad by his own words and deeds has unwittingly painted himself in the eyes of the West, like Bin Laden, as a personification of the deadly anti-Western creed of radical Islam. In so doing, Ahmadinejad has perhaps handed the West the best medicine it so badly needed to clear its eyes of the cataracts of greed.