Bingo!
The left's mantra will continue to be: "Bush lied... people died."
I've been saying here for years that it will take another 9-11 attack before the sheeple wake up. Those that said, "Never Forget!," forgot a year after 9-11.
Posted on 01/04/2007 10:45:57 AM PST by Max01
Time to Fight the Real War Apr 14, 2006
Robert Tracinski is the editor of The Intellectual Activist and TIADaily.com. Four and a half years after September 11—which was supposed to awaken us to the threat of devastating attacks by state-sponsored terrorists—America is finally beginning to confront the world's largest and most dangerous state sponsor of terrorism: the Islamic Republic of Iran.
For the past week, newspapers and magazines have been filled with discussion of possible military action against Iran. The debate, so far, is between those who merely want to "threaten" the use of force, and those who argue that the Iranian threat is illusory. No one is yet willing to face the fact that Iran is already at war with the United States—and that Iran is the central enemy we have to defeat if we are going to win the War on Terrorism.
In all of the obfuscation generated by the backward-looking debate over what happened to Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, it has been easy for some to claim that the Iranian threat is being blown out of proportion by the Bush administration. But grasping the case against Iran doesn't depend on secret dossiers and obscure intelligence reports. All it requires is that you open up your newspaper and read the pronouncements of Iran's own leaders.
In early April, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hosted a pep rally at which dancers in traditional Persian garb held aloft vials of refined uranium, while Ahmadinejad announced that Iran had succeeding in enriching uranium, the first step toward producing a nuclear bomb. Iran "has joined the club of nuclear countries," he boasted. An Iranian official followed up by announcing that Iran would immediately take the next step, expanding uranium enrichment to an industrial scale, allowing Iran to start building its nuclear arsenal as early as the end of this year.
Why does Iran want to enrich uranium? Ahmadinejad isn't interested so much in joining a nuclear club as he is in wielding a nuclear club. He has openly boasted that Iran wants to "wipe Israel off the map." Is Ahmadinejad just a wild-eyed "radical," out of touch with the rest of the Iranian regime? A few years ago, Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani—a man considered "moderate" by the standards of the Iranian regime—boasted that "a single atomic bomb has the power to completely destroy Israel." In case you don't think they're serious, Iran's religious establishment recently released a fatwa sanctioning the use of nuclear weapons.
But the biggest threat posed by an Iranian nuclear weapon is not in Israel, but in Iraq—where Iran is already fighting a proxy war against America and its allies.
In the Iraqi conflict, Iran has been playing both ends against the middle—that is, against the United States. In Western Iraq, the Sunni insurgency is supported by a flow of terrorists, weapons, and money from Syria—a key Iranian ally. In Southern Iraq, Shiite insurgents have been using sophisticated Iranian-built shaped charges in their bomb attacks on American convoys. But this is the least of the Iranian threat. Violent Shiite militias that seek to impose an Islamist dictatorship are funded, organized, and take their ideological inspiration from Iran. The leader of the most pro-Iranian faction, Muqtada al-Sadr, has publicly pledged to fight on Iran's behalf if it is attacked by America.
There is no need to invoke the doctrine of pre-emption against Iran. Iran is already fighting a war against the United States. We just haven't been fighting back. We have held our fire as if Iran were protected by a shield of nuclear weapons. How much more aggressive will the Iranians become when they are actually protected by such a nuclear shield?
Iran's reach is not limited to Iraq. Late last year, when Bashar Assad's Syrian dictatorship was reeling from the loss of Lebanon, Ahmadinejad made a trip to Damascus in which he urged Assad to stand fast and pledged Iranian support. The Assad regime, which had been sending up trial balloons about political liberalization, instead threw hundreds of dissidents into prison. At the same time, Ahmadinejad met with leaders of Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed terrorist militia in Southern Lebanon, and representatives of two Palestinian terrorist groups: Islamic Jihad and Hamas. Now that Hamas has won the Palestinian elections, it is looking for diplomatic and financial support from—where else?—Iran.
Iran's tentacles even extend beyond the Middle East. Iran has been cultivating an alliance with Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, including discussions about providing the anti-American firebrand and protégé of Fidel Castro with nuclear technology.
This expansionist pattern is no accident. The mullahs who rule Iran's system from behind the scenes maneuvered Ahmadinejad into power last year because they knew he had the fiery fanaticism to go on the offensive, pressing Iran's advantage in the face of American wavering on Iraq. Ahmadinejad has not disappointed them. Like the super-villain of a corny James Bond film—but one who commands actual armies and actual missiles—Ahmadinejad has a master plan for the domination of the world. In a document presented to Iran's parliament last year, he declared that the US is a fading "sunset power," while Iran is poised to become the "core power" of the Islamic world, the center of a totalitarian Islamic empire.
Everywhere you look in the Middle East, if you ask who is the biggest threat to America's interests, you will find the same answer—Hamas in the Palestinian territories, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Assad regime in Syria, the Sunni terrorists and Shiite militias in Iraq—directly or indirectly, Iran is supporting them all.
Iran's global ambitions are as grandiose as anything put forward by Osama bin Laden—but they are backed by control of a country of 70 million people with an army, navy, and air force, a vast network of terrorist organizations across the Middle East, and, very soon, nuclear weapons.
If America's failure to act against the comparatively minor threat from Bin Laden in the 1990s resulted in the horrors of September 11, we can expect far worse if we fail to act against Iran.
A war with Iran must begin with the destruction of its nuclear facilities, but it must not end there. Iran is likely to respond to any American attack by escalating, inciting an uprising in Southern Iraq, unleashing a wave of terrorist attacks, launching missiles against US targets in the Middle East, attacking oil tankers in the Persian Gulf. And even if we neutralize all of these threats, Iran's theocrats will not drop their global ambitions. They will merely wait for our attention to wander and attempt to strike us again. The goal of a war against Iran must be to topple the Iranian regime—and to support the rise of a new government formed by the secularist dissidents who now languish in Iran's prisons.
The wars we have fought so far, against the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Baathist regime in Iraq—were necessary, but they left the largest, most dangerous Islamist regime untouched. The Iranians know it. Sensing American weakness, they are moving against us on all fronts—and any further delay in pushing them back will only make the task more difficult. We have to act—and we have to act now.
There can be no victory in the War on Terrorism until we confront—and defeat—the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is the real war, and it's time we started fighting it.
Source: TIA Daily — April 14, 2006
The new carrier group heading toward Iran is a good sign.
I'm sure the Queen Bee and her nancy-boys will get right on that...for the children.
Nothing will happen for a few years. Then, an American city or two will be blown to kingdom come; then the MSM and Democrats will blame the GOP.
I see it clearly.
Can't we send the Iranians a peace envoy? I hear that Jimmy Carter is available.
Should be fairly easy.............just do it from the air. No boots on the ground. Knock out the leadership and the people will take over. And........if we are going to do it, do it right.
Ha, and I thought freepers were particularly anti-objectivist today. Just proves we're not all bad.
The modern era of Terrorism began in Tehran in 1979. The modern era of Terrorism will end when Tehran is finally dealt with.
Bingo!
The left's mantra will continue to be: "Bush lied... people died."
I've been saying here for years that it will take another 9-11 attack before the sheeple wake up. Those that said, "Never Forget!," forgot a year after 9-11.
Sadly, you are correct. Unfortunately, standing atop the rubble saying "I told you so" will bring none of our people back from the dead.
let alone the locomotive effect.
once they kick it in gear there will be a progression
The war in Iraq and Afghanistan is with Islamofascists.
The 'real' war begins with Democrats and Liberal Media right here at home.
But President Bush has never directly confronted that enemy either.
I don't think that we would do it. We would blame the government and try to fight a compassionate war... like with Iran.
The only consolation is that the target areas for the madmen who want to kill us are all blue.
>>Nothing will happen for a few years. Then, an American city or two will be blown to kingdom come; then the MSM and Democrats will blame the GOP.<<
Exactly! And then we'll find out the attackers came across the Mexican border, and every slimeball pol will rush to the podium to demand we secure our borders.
We might consider rationality tests and locking up all the conspiracy theory believers in mental hospitals. Then run elections without them. Better than a civil war.
I agree, but all I can say is, good luck making it happen. Instead, we'll kick the can down the road (while biting our lips and saying "I feel your pain!") :(
Correct analysis and policy prescription.
Unfortunately, a decision against doing that very thing was clearly made at the HIGHEST LEVEL back in 2003.
Which of course allowed them to conduct their proxy war against us by "insurgency." Thus shattering the pro-defense consensus that upheld the most politically inept war administration in U.S. history...which was too PC to do the needful things. From handcuffing our troops, yanking them back, kid-gloves-treatment of Iranian agents, and Infantile hand-wringing over widespread open-treason instead of forceful prosecution. No Presidential prime time addresses reviewing the findings of the Iraqi Survey Group...which concluded that Saddam was even more dangerous than we had imagined going into the conlict...
Or instead of nailing Sandy Hamburglar's felonious hide to the wall...letting him off with a promise not to do it again...and giving him back his security clearance just in time for Hitlery in '08.
Lame.
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