69 million page views

Should Have Done It a Long Time Ago

Reader comment on item: Is Iran on the verge of war with the U.S.?

Submitted by David Ryan (United States), Jul 1, 2019 at 00:12

Carter should have done it. Bush (43) was on an obvious path to regime change in Iran by putting it between two armies in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Iran-backed resistance in Iraq should have been just one more casus belli against Iran. Instead, by 2005 it gave Bush cold feet about taking on another occupation when it in fact would have simplified the situation leaving no resistance sanctuaries.

The Left clearly wants Iran to have the atomic bomb. For them it also simplifies the situation. A region in which the United States cannot deploy conventional troops due to a nuclear threat is a region it no longer has to. The money that would be spent maintaining conventional forces can then be redeployed to social spending and vote buying. And its lazy and coward wings no longer need fear potentially being sent to war.

It never works out that way in the end. Delay makes matters worse. Either the region gets entirely out of hand threatening global stability or the US comes under direct attack. In this case, a nuclear Iran can reach the US with an orbital Electromagnetic Pulse weapon that makes retaliation superfluous. Most Americans would die even if Iran were consequently annihilated in their self-fulfilling prophetic Muslim Apocalypse. And America would be foolish to let Iran's Russian, Chinese, North Korean and Pakistani backers off scot-free to inherit the world.

The best way to have closed this possibility would have been to remove the radical regime in Iran a long time ago. The second best way is to do it now. The third best way is to wait for its actuality to be closer but before Iran has the bomb, assuming they don't already. It is hardly necessary to describe the fourth and fifth "best" solutions.

Submitting....

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".

Reader comments (2) on this item

Title Commenter Date Thread
War or a Reasonable Facsimile of Such is Coming [103 words]Barry BlackJul 1, 2019 10:38251163
1Should Have Done It a Long Time Ago [297 words]David RyanJul 1, 2019 00:12251151

Follow Daniel Pipes

Facebook   Twitter   RSS   Join Mailing List

All materials by Daniel Pipes on this site: © 1968-2024 Daniel Pipes. daniel.pipes@gmail.com and @DanielPipes

Support Daniel Pipes' work with a tax-deductible donation to the Middle East Forum.Daniel J. Pipes

(The MEF is a publicly supported, nonprofit organization under section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code.

Contributions are tax deductible to the full extent allowed by law. Tax-ID 23-774-9796, approved Apr. 27, 1998.

For more information, view our IRS letter of determination.)