Posted on 03/10/2015 11:16:31 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
America, we have a problem.
In the blood-soaked chaotic Middle East, with few exceptions like the Kurds, our friends either can't or won't fight.
The Free Syrian Army folded. The U.S.-armed Hazm force in Syria has just collapsed after being routed by the al-Nusra Front. The Iraqi army we trained and equipped fled Mosul and ran all the way to Baghdad.
The Turks could annihilate ISIS in Syria, but they won't fight. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arabs have sent zero troops to fight ISIS. A handful of air strikes is it.
Now consider what our old enemies have done and are doing.
Hezbollah and Iran have sustained Bashar Assad's Syrian army for four years and have ISIS and the al-Nusra Front on the defensive around Aleppo.
Iran and its allied Shiite militia in Iraq are battling ISIS for Tikrit.
Backed by Hezbollah, Houthi rebels have seized Yemen's capital and are battling al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. AQAP is the No. 1 terrorist threat to the U.S. homeland.
While Iran and its allies are fighting al-Qaida and ISIS, Turkey and our Arab allies are malingerers at best and collaborators at worst.
How explain this? Not difficult.
The Shiites, a religious minority in the Muslim world -- Hezbollah, Assad's regime, Baghdad, Tehran -- see ISIS as a mortal threat and are willing to fight to kill the monster.
Our Sunni allies won't go out and fight ISIS, because that would make them allies of Iran and the Shiites, whom they fear even more.
Our Sunni friends want America to crush ISIS and al-Qaida, then to crush Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. But why is it in our interest to send U.S. troops back into any of these wars?
Is America more threatened than our Arab allies?
Rather than listening to allies who are non-combatants, we should take a hard look at the Mideast. To whom does the future belong? And with what can we live?
The Republicans want to give a blank check to Obama and any future president to fight ISIS and al-Qaida everywhere and forever. And they want the United States to treat Iran as we should have treated Nazi Germany had Hitler been about to get the bomb.
But if the GOP platform takes the neocon-Netanyahu line that we must not only fight ISIS and al-Qaida, but also Iran and Syria, the party will imperil its improving chances for 2016.
Americans don't want another war.
And if John Kerry comes home with a deal on Iran's nuclear program, Americans are likely to reject a party that is seen as trying to torpedo that deal, when the alternative is war with Iran.
We do not know exactly what is in the Kerry deal, but what has been revealed thus far is no cause for panic or hysteria.
Though Israel has 200 atomic bombs, Iran has not produced a single ounce of uranium enriched to bomb-grade 90 percent.
Since talks began, Iran has diluted all of its 20-percent enriched uranium and halted production. Tehran is willing to cut her operating centrifuges by a third.
Inspectors and cameras are now in all of Iran's nuclear facilities. The heavy-water plant at Arak, which would produce plutonium, has been halted. The reprocessing plant that would be needed to extract bomb-grade material has not even been started.
U.S. intelligence agencies in 2007 and 2011 declared, with high confidence, that Iran has no active bomb program.
While Bibi Netanyahu says the Ayatollah tweeted that Israel must be "annihilated," the same Ayatollah issued a fatwa against Iran ever producing nuclear weapons.
We cannot trust Iran, we are told. Correct. Nor should we, as history has proven. Moscow cheated on Nixon's SALT I agreement by replacing its light single-warhead SS-11 missiles with heavy SS-19s with multiple warheads.
But as Meir Dagan, ex-head of Mossad points out, if Iran cheats at any of its facilities, we will know it, and it would take a year before Tehran could produce enough highly enriched uranium even to test a bomb.
Plenty of time to gas up the B-2s.
Another question, too rarely raised, is this:
Why would Iran test and build a nuclear bomb, when this would set off a nuclear arms race across the Middle East and put Iran in mortal peril of being smashed by the United States, or by Israel with a preemptive strike?
Right now, Hezbollah dominates Lebanon. Assad is gaining ground in Syria. Iraq, thanks to "W," is Iran's ally, not the mortal enemy of Saddam's day. The Houthi have Sanaa.
The Shiite majority in Bahrain, where the U.S. Fifth Fleet is berthed, will one day dominate that Gulf state. And the Shiites in oil-rich northeast Saudi Arabia will one day rise up against Riyadh.
Why build a bomb, why get into a war with a nuclear-armed superpower, when everything's going your way?
Pat Buchanan Asks: Does Iran Really Want a Bomb?
Well Obummer will make sure they get one whether they want one or not.
PB still blowing the same leftist propaganda, I see, to wit that the Iranian Twelvers think just like Americans do.
Buchanan, proving that brain death is not always fatal.
Does a duck quack?
Buchanan has always been pretty creative.
I have a feeling “Netanyahu-neocon line” is Buchananspeak for something even less attractive.
Generally a fan of Buchanan (I voted for him for president one year) but he goes off the reservation on Mideast issues with a barely hidden contempt for Israel which reminds me of the current cluster foxtrot who now occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
“Americans don’t want another war.”
Americans want ISIS crushed. A growing number want another revolutionary war.
How can they possible hasten Armageddon without an atomic bomb. Yes, they certainly do.
They don’t want a bomb the same way North Korea did not want a bomb. Read some more of your wonderful history books, Pat.
But if the GOP platform takes the neocon-Netanyahu line that we must not only fight ISIS and al-Qaida, but also Iran and Syria, the party will imperil its improving chances for 2016 …Yeah, just like government shutdowns, right Pat, you antisemite?
I think he’s reached the pinnacle of stupid on this one.
“Why would Iran test and build a nuclear bomb, when this would set off a nuclear arms race across the Middle East...”
The answer is simple. To be in the position Buchanan is in, and still not know the answer, is unforgivable. In other words, he’s propagandizing: pimping the same naive isolationism that has him siding with Putin and Nazi Germany at times.
This from the man who thinks Hitler had the right to conquer Europe and Hitler had the right to kidnap and murder Pope Pius XII.
There’s some truth to this.
Let’s say Iran nukes Jerusalem. They would kill many Arabs, but not all the Jews. The area would eventually be cleaned up and repopulated. See Japan.
However, Tehran would cease to exist as a Persian center of power for many generations. The west could not chance another nuke. They would be sealing their demise if they used a nuke.
Korea is is different story, they have little to lose.
LOL...why would insane Jew-hating muslims want a bomb?...Took me a lot of microseconds to figure that one!
I don't believe that for a nanosecond!
As I recall, Buchanan was fairly hawkish when the primary enemy of freedom in the world was the USSR and its Communist allies.
But when it comes to radical Islam, he seems to have a turned blind eye and has a penchant for always blaming Israel first.
I know, right?
And Buchanan just can’t figure it out... Mr. Magoo in a way.
The real reason they want a bomb is to take out the “Great Satan”. I believe an EMP is the endgame here. I can’t believe this is not talked about more. They have the launch vehicle, just need the payload.
Apocalypse is what they want, without including the US in the equation, it is not a win win...
Pat is still upset the Germans lost WW2
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