'Can the United States live with a nuclear-armed Iran? Despite its rhetoric, it may have no choice," concluded the report by Judith Yaphe and Air Force Col. Charles Lutes, which was released on Thursday.
The potential for rolling back Iran's program, once it produces a nuclear weapon, "is lower than preventing it in the first place and the costs of rollback may be higher than the costs of deterring and containing a nuclear Iran," they said.'
Read that second paragraph closely. The potential for "rolling back" Iran's program AFTER it produces a bomb is lower than PREVENTING it in the first place. But then why does the report then conclude that PREVENTION is impossible? I thought the entire context of Iran's nuclear ambitions were focused on prevention, and never rollback. Rollback is a non-option when dealing with nukes, because the nukes are the spears that prevent any possible rollback option at all. Everyone dealing with Iran has been focused on prevention. But the authors of this report aren't even hanging their hopes on prevention:
"Nothing in the intervening four years has diverted Tehran from the "systematic pursuit of nuclear technology that could contribute to a weapons program," the new report concluded."
Perhaps because having the Euro-weenies offer them bribes for playing nice has only made them conclude that the West is full of prissies. Britian has flatly ruled out a military option on Iran, making the US and Israel the sole countries possibly willing to hold out the threat of a strike. Iran has correctly concluded that, given the international opposition to the Iraq war, it can wait out the clock on its nuclear bomb while the Western countries argue amongst themselves.
On the threat of a military strike, the report concludes the following:
"...the U.S. researchers warned that a U.S. or Israeli pre-emptive military strike likely would rally Iranians around a religious fundamentalist government in Tehran that they might otherwise want to replace, spur new attacks by Iran-allied groups like Hizbollah. "
So OBVIOUSLY we shouldn't do that. But since it earlier noted that Iran hasn't been deterred by anything attempted by the West to date, it probably will not be deterred at all. Hence, we have to live with a nuclear Iran. But don't worry, says this pathetic report, because:
"On living with a nuclear-armed Iran, the analysts said Tehran was unlikely to use its nuclear capability unless facing an overwhelming threat and while it might become more assertive in the region, superior U.S. capabilities could probably deter significant mischief. "
A country run by fanatical muslims who want to destroy the United States cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons, period. It should be the #1 security priority of the United States to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. That means we get in covert ops to destroy the facilties, we engage in active promotion of democratic opposition in Iran, or we engage in a full-blown pre-emptive strike or let Israel do it.
Iran with nukes is a nightmare scenario. That effectively gives the bomb to the terrorists. There is no distinction between Iran and "terrorist groups" anyway. Their policies and goals are one and the same. Iran has not been subtle in its rhetoric:
Iran’s new hardline president launched a blistering attack on America and its allies at the United Nations last night as he fiercely defended his country’s right to nuclear technology.
“Let me be blunt. State terrorism is being supported by those who claim to fight terrorism,” Mahmood Ahmadinejad said in a thinly-veiled tirade against the West at the UN General Assembly.
Mr Ahmadinejad proposed that unnamed third-party countries could be allowed to share in Iran’s nuclear programme, an offer that is too vague to satisfy the country’s critics....
Broadening his verbal assault, he also called for “foreign occupation forces” to leave Afghanistan and Iraq and even raised questions about who was behind the September 11 attacks.
This is a terrorist leading a terrorist country that is doing everything in its power to acquire nuclear weapons it has no problem sharing with other terrorists. Anyone willing to live with this scenario doesn't appreciate the threat or is too deluded to understand it.
Iran must be stopped, right the hell now.
No comments:
Post a Comment