Supposedly, a combination of diplomatic and economic sanctions, coupled with a threat of military action, will negate any requirement to actually use force to bring a halt to Iran’s nuclear weapons development program. Yet sanctions only have a salutary effect on rational governments. President Ahmadinejad and the regime in Tehran are not rational. If one is serious about influencing their behavior it will be necessary to use other, more threatening means than just to disrupt their economy.
Iran has been quite clear that one of its goals is to destroy Israel and the United States, and to wipe every Jew from the face of the earth. It also believes that it has a religious duty to convert all the people in the world to Islam, or to destroy them in the process of trying to convert them. In this regard Iran has the same attitude toward the rest of the world that it has toward Israel and the U.S.: convert to Islam or you and your people will cease to exist.
Without an arsenal of nuclear weapons of sufficient lethality to intimidate the world, such statements are mere bravado. But Iran may believe that it has a religious mandate to develop nuclear weapons. If so, all the sanctions and diplomacy in the world will not deter it.
There are those who cavalierly wave off the Iranian threat as being over-blown or ridiculous, but they do so at their own peril. Iran is deadly serious about subduing the world for Islam. If you don’t believe it, you need only ask Iran’s president, Mahmud Ahmadinejad. He will be pleased to enlighten you.
Understand the current regime in Iran is not just an Israeli or American problem. It is a world problem and it is not going to go away peacefully. One might ask, “What would be Iran’s attitude toward China and Russia if the U.S. did not exist?”
Yet some people believe Iran’s actions are only bluff and bluster. These are the kinds of people that said the same thing about Mein Kampf when it was published. The failure to take Hitler seriously sent six million Jews and six million non-Jews to the Nazi gas chambers. If we fail to take the leaders of Iran seriously today, history will repeat itself.
Are there indications that Iran is serious about its threats? Perhaps most telling is its persistence on developing nuclear weapons when it obviously has no need for such weapons. Even the United Nations has reluctantly come to the conclusion that Iran should stop its nuclear weapons development program.
The Saudis, European and Gulf Nations are convinced that Iran will have a nuclear capability by year’s end. The Saudis say that if Iran is allowed to develop a nuclear arsenal, they too will have to develop one for self-defense. The Gulf States will follow close behind the Saudis. This will open the door for every two bit country in the world to crank up a nuclear weapons development program. That must not happen.
Iran’s nuclear weapons development program must be stopped. The most likely way for this to happen is for an Israeli air strike aimed at totally destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities. Some military experts predict that this will come in the form of a prolonged, in-depth strike against Iran’s underground nuclear facilities, sites and believed to be nearly impregnable from conventional weapons attack.
Contrary to such popular belief, this may be over kill. The requirement is not to totally destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons development program, but to disrupt it enough that it will take several years for the Iranians to get it back on track. And if down the road the threat raises its ugly head again, another strike to again delay development by several years is appropriate.
It is popular today to speak of Iran soon entering a “Zone of Immunity” in which the development of Iran’s nuclear weapons is supposedly unstoppable because Iran’s budding nuclear industry is buried deep underground in hardened facilities. Such facilities can provide a degree of protection but nothing can insure survival of a determined combination of air strikes, cyber generated chaos and disruption, electronic suppression, and a well thought out, well-coordinated covert effort at regime change. Some feel that the United States need only stand on the sidelines and watch. They think that the worst case scenario should be that the U.S. military will get involved in a limited way, but hopefully not have to do too much.
Supposedly if Israel militarily attacks Iran’s nuclear weapon’s program, it will have to be prepared to go to war with Iran’s neighbors. Those who would respond to Iran’s call for help – such as Syria, Hamas, and Hezbollah — are already at war with Israel. All that attacking the Iran nuclear site achieves is ratcheting things up a notch further. (Of course if it is your house that a rocket from Gaza falls on, the ratcheting up of a notch is quite significant.)
It is well past time for the United States to draw a line in the middle-eastern sand and take a definitive, public position. We should reiterate publicly Israel’s right to exist, Israel’s right to defend and Israel’s right to protect.
Since Israel is the only like-minded democracy in that part of the world, how could we do otherwise?