A couple years ago there were speculations in many quarters that George Bush would not allow a nuclear Iran. I read more than one column suggesting that he would take military action against Iran’s nuclear program, sometime before the end of his presidency, especially if a Democrat was elected. That seems less and less likely, based on any reasonable reading of the tea leaves. If he still plans such a thing, it is the best kept secret of his administration.
So, what will Obama do to stop Iran from getting the bomb? Make no mistake: if Iran has the bomb, the world is changed, hugely. When Iran has the bomb, we won’t know which terrorist organization has been given the bomb. We won’t know when or if Iran plans to destroy Israel, even at the price of the enormous retaliation that would follow. Iran will surely shake its nuclear stick at Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, et. al., and Iran probably has, or will have soon, missiles capable of reaching large parts of Europe. Within 10-20 years, it is likely to have missiles that can reach the USA.
Even more concerning, if terrorists got a nuke from Iran and destroyed a US city, how would we prove the origin of the nuke? Would our response be paralyzed?
All of Obama’s foreign policy advisers seem to be in the old Clinton era mindset. That mindset was shown to be disastrously wrong on 9/11, and yet, they’re back. Have they learned anything? More to the point, has Obama learned anything? Or is he captive to his own rhetoric, and the expectations of his Leftist supporters? Does he really plan to merely try sanctions and hope they work? Is he really prepared to gut missile defense?
The destruction of the United States will not require enough nuclear bombs to annihilate cities and towns across America. After all, the nuclear destruction of just two cities was enough to force Japan to surrender– and the Japanese had far more willingness to fight and die than most Americans have today.
How many Americans are willing to see New York, Chicago and Los Angeles all disappear in nuclear mushroom clouds, rather than surrender to whatever outrageous demands the terrorists make?
Neither Barack Obama nor those with whom he will be surrounded in Washington show any signs of being serious about forestalling such a terrible choice by taking any action with any realistic chance of preventing a nuclear Iran.
Once suicidal fanatics have nuclear bombs, that is the point of no return. We, our children and our grandchildren will live at the mercy of the merciless, who have a track record of sadism.
There are no concessions we can make that will buy off hate-filled terrorists. What they want– what they must have for their own self-respect, in a world where they suffer the humiliation of being visibly centuries behind the West in so many ways– is our being brought down in humiliation, including self-humiliation.
Even killing us will not be enough, just as killing Jews was not enough for the Nazis, who first had to subject them to soul-scarring humiliations and dehumanization in their death camps.
This kind of hatred may not be familiar to most Americans but what happened on 9/11 should give us a clue– and a warning.
The people who flew those planes into the World Trade Center buildings could not have been bought off by any concessions, not even the hundreds of billions of dollars we are spending in bailout money today.
They want our soul– and if they are willing to die and we are not, they will get it.
We learned from 9/11 that low-tech solutions can be very effective in creating death and havoc. When Iran has the bomb, how much faith can we have the a particular container ship doesn’t have a bomb on board? Or, worse in many ways, how hard is it to launch a short range missile from what was assumed to be a cargo vessel? Imagine that New York, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles were removed at the same time. Imagine that this killed the President and the bulk of national leadership, both civilian and military, as well devastating the investigative abilities of the DIA, FBI, CIA, NSA, etc., due to loss of leadership and facilities. Would we be able to strike back? Sure: one missile sub has the ability to devastate Iran, or North Korea, etc. But how would we know for sure where the weapons came from that destroyed our cities? Nuclear weapons leave radiation signatures, and isotopic signatures, that can be traced, given time, technology and personnel. But consider the impact on our national defense networks.
The point is simple: it doesn’t take a super-power to cripple a super-power, or to blind one. It just takes someone with a sharp enough stick who knows where to jab it.
Pray for Obama. Pray for his advisers. Pray for wisdom and clear seeing, and for courage and resolution.
January 20th, 2009 10:48 am
[…] Negotiate, Mr. O., negotiate. Yeah, that’ll work. Or maybe not. […]
January 20th, 2009 8:36 pm
What’s keeping the Left from realizing that negotiation doesn’t work?
All we can do is pray for Mr. Obama and hope for the best.
January 20th, 2009 8:49 pm
Negotiating with people who plan to do evil to you may work sometimes, provided they understand clearly that you can and will stop them, and are offering them a better deal than they’ll get if they don’t take your offer.
Unfortunately, that kind of negotiation, to be successful, requires that your opponent see clearly that you have the means AND the will to take action if the negotiation is not successful. I think many of our opponents have figured out that very many US politicians don’t have that will, and are busy trying to reduce the means.