NEXT!

Can it be that people still just really don’t get it … I mean come on … Iran starting up a nuclear program … are they really that dense? Are they really going to start pushing those buttons at this point in time?

Of course the only thing that they’ve been threatened with directly is the UN Security Council. This is something like threatening a rabid pit bull with a wet noodle, and I’m sure that it will be pretty much just as effective. [Read – they will ignore any resolutions passed by the UN, undermine any sanctions placed against them by the UN, and in response the UN will pass more sanctions and resolutions but won’t actually DO anything about it.]

The UN is a joke … not a very funny one, but still a joke. They have no military, no authority, and no spine. Any country out there can (and many do) blatantly defy the UN without fear of reprisals because the UN idea of reprisals amounts to telling you ‘Bad country don’t do that anymore’ again.

I can’t even call them hopeless idealists … they know they’re a useless, corrupt, political body that is irrelevant in the global theater, but this way they can play with power and feel important.

Now, I will say that we need to TRY diplomacy in regards to the situation with Iran, yes. But we need to make damn sure and not pussy foot around the issue for the next 12 years either …. We (and by ‘we’ I mean primarily the US but including those allies that agree to come along) need to tell them in no uncertain terms that the path they are on is unacceptable … that we expect them to cease such work AND submit to inspections to prove that they have ceased the work … and we need to give them a firm deadline. If they do not meet the requirements by the deadline then we resort to a military option.

And make it absolutely clear that that option can be any of our available military solutions ….

The leaders of the free world have already spoken out against Iran’s program. President Chirac of France (*gasp*) recently said that states such as Iran “must understand that they would lay themselves open to a firm and adapted response on our part…this response could be a conventional one. It could also be of a different kind.” Senator John McCain "There is only one thing worse than the United States exercising a military option. That is a nuclear-armed Iran” on Face the Nation recently. Signaling his belief that the US must keep the ‘military option’ on the table and not very far down in the deck so to speak.

Of course many people in the US will say thing like “we shouldn’t get involved” or “We need to get out of there not send more troops over” or even “We need to finish up in Iraq first.”

I’m sure that, in part, this is what Iran is counting on. The perceived reluctance on the part of the American people to continue the effort in Iraq, is translating to the Iranian government as ‘they won’t be willing to do anything to stop us.’

But it’s not always that simple … what if we wait to finish up and Iraq and Iran builds and detonates a nuclear weapon killing millions in that time? Maybe it was in Israel or maybe it was in Chicago or possibly somewhere else … does it really matter where?

Sometimes you choose your actions based on the reward that action will bring ‘if I do this, I’ll get a cookie.’ Sometimes, however, you have to choose your actions based on the possible consequences of inaction ‘if I don’t get car insurance I might get a ticket.’

One of the hardest things to ballance is when is the risk of the possible consequences of our inaction greater than the possible problems created by our action.

Statements have been made to the effect that Iran wants to ‘remove Israel from the map’ (not an exact quote I don’t think, but that was certainly the gist of the conversation) and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has said that “Killing the infidels is our religion, slaughtering them is our religion, until they convert to Islam or pay us tribute.” The last time I checked ‘infidels’ includes pretty much everyone that is NOT Islamic … and even some people that are Islamic but don’t agree with al-Zarqawi.

Oddly enough … the ‘infidels’ don’t want to eradicate Islam … rather we just want Islam to stop trying to slaughter everyone else on the planet … and make no mistake Abu Musab al-Zarqawi won’t stop with Iraq, or the middle east … if we were to pull out of the middle east entirely it would only embolden him and he would say ‘see! We pushed them back. Now we must press the infidels until they are broken completely.’

Strangely enough when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi made those remarks, CAIR (Council for American-Islamic Relations) was silent … but call Abu Musab al-Zarqawi an Islamic terrorist (which is what he most certainly is) and they’ll be all up in arms threatening lawsuits and demanding apologies.

As for those people saying that the Iraqis and/or Afghans want us out of their countries … I am sure that there are some there that do have that sentiment, yes. However we have agreed to completely withdraw from the countries when and if the governments request that we do so. Not only have these countries NOT made any such request, they have, in fact, asked that we NOT leave.

We HAVE to treat the Iran situation as though it is a grave and real threat to our country … if we fail to do so people … lot and lots of people … could be killed. The problem is … that if you can never really know if you prevented an attack because it didn’t happen ... however you will certainly know if you fail to prevent an attack; and no matter how much you've done, no matter how hard you've worked ... the attack that gets through will be the one that you're remembered for as a failure.

Bah ... I'm just rambling now so I'm just going to post this before I fall off a cliff and hurt myself.....