Posted on 05/17/2006 1:09:01 PM PDT by knighthawk
There's a reason few people write letters anymore. In a world of BlackBerrys, e-mail, cell phones and fax machines, the old-fashioned letter is simply too slow to deliver important information.
Unless, of course, your intention is to send a message to someone other than the person to whom the letter is actually addressed.
That's why lawmakers often issue open letters to the president. If they really wanted to influence him, they'd call the White House. But when they want to use the media to influence us, they send off a letter encouraging the president to do something.
This probably explains the recent missive from Iran's mercurial president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He proposes "new solutions for getting out of international problems and the current fragile situation of the world."
But it's not actually aimed at President Bush. His real intention is to influence public opinion. He doesn't actually want to open a dialogue with the United States. Ahmadinejad's simply stalling for time so Iran can finish building its nuclear weapons program.
Frighteningly, they're quickly closing in on their goal, and the international community isn't doing much to interfere. In March the United Nations Security Council urged Iran to suspend its uranium-enrichment activities and fully cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency. But the IAEA admitted on April 28 that Iran has ignored that warning.
In fact, the Iranian government has repeatedly violated the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and has made clear that it intends to keep right on doing so until it has the bomb. When faced with the threat of U.N. Security Council sanctions, Ahmadinejad was refreshingly clear. Iran "won't give a damn about such useless resolutions," he announced.
It's time for the United States to act.
As a first step, we should demand that the U.N. Security Council impose targeted diplomatic and economic sanctions on Iran unless it immediately freezes its nuclear research and allows international access to its facilities. These inspections must be allowed "anytime, anywhere," to preclude Iranian cheating.
Russia and China probably will block these measures, as they have so far blocked any Security Council action. If that happens, the United States should push ahead by leading a coalition of the willing to impose sanctions outside the U.N. framework. And we certainly won't be alone.
Our longtime ally Britain likely would join the effort. Iran is a growing threat, and as Prime Minister Tony Blair said last October: "If they carry on like this, the question people will be asking us is -- when are you going to do something about Iran? Can you imagine a state like that, with an attitude like that, having nuclear weapons?"
At the same time, Washington should make it clear that if Iran presses ahead with its nuclear research, the United States will invoke its right to self-defense under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.
There's little doubt that Israel and the United States would be the top targets of a nuclear Iran. After all, Ahmadinejad himself has announced that, "God willing, with the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world without the United States and Zionism," and he's called for Israel to be "wiped out from the map." Even if the United Nations won't take such threats seriously, the United States and our democratic allies must.
Iran's president is using old-fashioned methods to get his message across, and the United States should answer in kind. We should use Ahmadinejad's letters to try to determine what he'll do next. But we should also make clear -- to Iran and the U.N. -- that the United States isn't going to allow Iran to go nuclear. It's time to remind our enemies we're ready, willing and able to act in our own defense.
Ed Feulner is president of the Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based public policy research institution, and the co-author of Getting America Right.
Ping
And they won't consult *anyone* before taking action.
I hope you are 100% right about that. Europe has lost its mind, officially.
One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half.
Sir Winston Churchill
"His real intention is to influence public opinion"
Yyyyeeeeaaaahhh...well, good luck with that. His letter is a rambling, incoherent mess.
Fabulous Churchill quote, and true.
Total thermonuclear annihilation has been just around the corner since 1956. That's fifty years, a long time to hold one's breath.
We need to consider that a nuclear armed Iran will happen in the very near future unless the US or Israel militarily intervenes. Israel may take this step perhaps with tacit help from the US, but there is no way, save an Iranian nuke being detonated on our shores, that the US will intervene militarily in Iran. No evidence will convince the Democrat members of Congress and I'm sure that more than a few Republican members would also have cold feet. If Bush uses his executive powers to bomb Iran he will be impeached by Congress and lynched in the MSM.
We need to hope the Israelis can successfully intervene, though the Arab states will have a cow and may embargo oil or some other such posturing in retaliation for the attack. Otherwise we need to be formulating our policy assuming Iran will be nuclear armed perhaps by the end of 2007.
There is no doubt that if we allow Iran to proceed with it's nuclear program we can look forward to terrorists with nuclear bombs. You are right, it should be spelled out so there is no doubt about what will happen. I don't think they will pay any attention to what we say, and we won't have the OO to do anything about it. At least we will be on the record.
Scenario....word gets to one or more members of Israeli intelligence that Iran's close (or worse).The info is sent up to whoever is Prime Minister at the time.
Said Prime Minister,for some reason,ignores or dismisses the info.
How long would it take for leaks to reach the Jerusalem Post and/or rich,influential Zionists in Europe and the US?
And what would happen to said PM once *that* happens?
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