Posted on 07/23/2004 5:58:02 AM PDT by ICX
Edited on 07/23/2004 7:13:47 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Did we invade the wrong country? One of the lessons being drawn from the Sept. 11 report is that Iran was the real threat. It had links to al Qaeda, allowed some of the Sept. 11 hijackers to transit and is today harboring al Qaeda leaders. The Iraq war critics have a new line of attack: We should have done Iran instead of Iraq.
Well, of course Iran is a threat and a danger. But how exactly would the critics have "done" Iran? Iran is a serious country with a serious army. Compared with the Iraq war, an invasion of Iran would have been infinitely more costly. Can you imagine these critics, who were shouting "quagmire" and "defeat" when the low-level guerrilla war in Iraq intensified in April, actually supporting war with Iran?
If not war, then what? We know the central foreign policy principle of Bush critics: multilateralism. John Kerry and the Democrats have said it a hundred times: The source of our troubles is President Bush's insistence on "going it alone." They promise to "rejoin the community of nations" and "work with our allies."
Well, that happens to be exactly what we have been doing regarding Iran. And the policy is an abject failure. The Bush administration, having decided that invading one axis-of-evil country was about as much as either the military or the country can bear, has gone multilateral on Iran, precisely what the Democrats advocate. Washington delegated the issue to a committee of three -- the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany -- that has been meeting with the Iranians to get them to shut down their nuclear program.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Let's roll.
Fear not, Charlie; Iran's next in line.
(BTW, you can edit those ads out before posting...)
When there are multiple but disparate enemies, it is imprudent to attack the strongest first. This is especially true if a weaker and adjacent enemy with whom you are already engaged in a shooting war can be removed first.
His comments from the Peanut Gallery are very wide of the mark.
Pre-emptive strike ONLY if Bush is re-elected.
We should NOT have done Iran first, but we must eventually do Iran.
In fact, the long-term strategy has been brilliant. We have toppled countries on the east and west borders of Iran and we control the Persian Gulf. They are now enclosed within a ring of American troops and American-directed governments.
We can beam broadcasts into Iran without opposition.
We can infiltrate at will.
We can contact opposition groups within Iran for funding, advice, and cooperative efforts.
We can target specifically with high tech missiles, bombs, etc. AND time-to-target is absolutely minimal.
We can also INVADE at will.
Whoever set up this scenario against Iran was brilliant.
We did exactly the right thing invading Iraq. Iran sees that they are caught in a pincers, between Afghanistan and Iraq, with the potential of flyover air raids departing from Iraq, making a bomb drop, landing in Afghanistan, reloading and refueling, and making a drop again on the back haul. We may not even use this tactic, but if the Iranians think we can, it may stay their hand from doing something REALLY foolish.
And who knows? Under the standing threat, the theocracy in Iran may collapse within months, permitting at least a neutral government to arise. With Iran and Iraq now less committed to Islamic militancy, the pressure comes upon Saudi Arabia to either crush the Wahhabist apostasy in their midst, or lose the "Saudi" part of their designation.
A scorpion nest, that dearly needs to be cleaned out. But we may allow the scorpions to deal with each other, to first reduce their numbers.
Iraq WAS the right Country to invade first.
Saddam was far more blatant about attacks on U.S. and British aircraft flying over his country as they should have, in acordance with the terms of the agreement Iraq signed after the Persian Gulf War I.
Furthermore, a pacified Iraq is the perfect launching platform for attacks on Syria and Iran and for supporting the Saudi Regime - if necessary - against home grown Wahhibist nutcase, should such be needed, or seizing the Saudi oil fields if the Wahhabists take over there.
Iran must be attacked and its regime destroyed, along with its ability to manufacture nuclear weapons. We should do it and do it now. As for what happens afterwards, leave that to the Iranians themselves. If a group of sane Iranians takes over, and needs material and technical support to smash supporters of the Ayatollahs, we should provide it. But by no means should we be drawn into a peace-keeping operation there. It should be purely a massive search and destroy action, mainly conducted from the air.
And this nonsense about not having a draft must stop.
We are in WW3. Our "allies" are a collection of cowards who not only refuse to provide substantive assistance, but actively oppose us. This goes for even those countries with their miserable token forces in Iraq. Even the British population opposes their involvement there.
We CAN destroy the Iranian regime militarily from the air from bases in Afghanistan and Iraq and should do it now.
Our main problem is the fifth columnists here in America - the Democrats - who are willing to use this life and death struggle as an excuse to attack the present administration in a political campaign that is timed at the very worst possible moment in our present foreign policy crisis.
At best, this merely disrupts our efffort to respond to this crisis. But even worst, if Kerry gets elected, our entire offensive effort against these villains will collapse.
Great perspective.
Zulu is right, this IS World War III.
The geopolitical/strategic reasons already given here (Iran is surrounded, etc.) are sound. But there are other reasons, namely the Iraqi people which have traditionally been more secular and sophisticated than their neighbors. In spite of all the media's insistence on the proctologist's view of Iraq, the people have by and large proven this to be correct. They have been mostly receptive.
Afghanistan was the easiest domino to knock over, Iraq was a close second, and the Iran.
The President is going to have to take out that nuclear plant probably very soon, and if it should be necessary before election day, the smartest way for political cover is to just look the other way and let Israel do it, while at the same time providing any and all assistance the Israelis may need from us to pull this mission off, like air-to-air refueling over Iraq, whatever.
But if it can wait until after election day and Bush wins, we should do it ourselves in as visible and terrifying a manner possible.
" in as visible and terrifying a manner possible."
I like that. That's what they understand.
Couldn't have said it better myself.....career politicians are going to get a lot of us killed. They seem to avoid a necessary terrible, withering war at all costs...the "gloves" will come off at some point...but must it be after another million of Americans are killed by terrorists?.....3000 dead are clearly not enough....how many do you suppose it will take?
"..3000 dead are clearly not enough....how many do you suppose it will take?"
That can only be determined by he American public.
Politicians are like a cold pot of water on the stove - they only react to the heat.
Only when the American public DEMANDS clearly and loudly that this insane suicidal political correctness with respect to Muslims and people from Islamic lands ends, will they react; only when the public demands that we crush and wipe out those murdereing maggots in the Middle East who are trying so hard to kill us, will they do so.
So the only answer to the question you posed is when the American public becomes outraged enough to demand real action - not just window dressing domestically, and a thorough program of retaliation and extermination overeseas, as they did in WW2, will the politicians respond.
Right now, they appear to have totally forgotten what happened on September 11th. Americans can have short attention spans. If they hadn't, they would recognize the idiocy of Kerry's campaign and his nonesense about trying to get the gifters and cowards in Europe to help us.
We're in this battle alone, Pardner.
The Iranians know this. They ain't gonna get too frisky. That's why they're sponsoring the "low-level" guerilla war, they want to influence our elections by playing to the dim appeasers. As long as we're in Afgan. & Iraq they're in a box.
The tradgety is that many Americans are oblivious to what a masterstroke the war on terror has been to this point. The terrorists, however, are well aware of their danger and I expect they will ratchet up the beheadings in the months to come becuase of the effects such brutality has on some elememts in our country.
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