Iran, the world's party-poopers

IN THE NEWS
Just when you felt you could enjoy a moment like the Iraq election, here comes the Iranians, vowing that they'll never give up their nuclear ambitions.

Don't get too alarmed by this single news item. It's the larger picture that's truly frightening. The Iranian government will continue to slide back and forth on the nuclear question. On some days, they'll tantalize their allies and opponents with promises that they'll suspend further uranium enrichment. On other days, they'll spit at the world's feet and disavow any earlier promises they made about slowing or reversing their nuclear program. The mullahs know how valuable leverage is, far beyond what power they'll get once they do develop nuclear weapons. Iran is perfecting its strategy of nuclear deterrence and compellence, well in advance of actually getting nuclear weapons. In many ways, that development is far more significant even than the warheads themselves.

Comments

[Don Meaker]

I rather would credit the American people, who appreciate Human rights for themselves, and by projection, consider that others would care for them also. Carter recognized this, and positioned himself. He specialized in attacking our allies to curry favor with the enemy. Fortunately, he did manage one very good thing: His attacks on our allies, though annoying to our friends, were fatal to the enemy. He fooled the enemy to giving him air time, and this convinced the people of our enemy's nation that human rights were a good thing, and eventually they demanded it for themselves.

I submit the big difference between GW Bush and JE Carter is that Carter would continue to berate Israel, the only democracy while terrorist governments continue their preparations and oppression. Bush has taken down two governments who were full of oppression, and is helping them to their first faltering steps toward democracy.

Perhaps faced with an attack of the scale of 9/11 Carter would have been forced to action. That is one of the imponderables. We know that Clinton did very little after the first WTC attack. If there was a muslim connection to the OKC atrocity, it was swept under the rug. We know that Carter did just about nothing when faced with Irans violation of our embassy. We also know that he sold out the Shah, our imperfect ally, and got very little gratitude from the Mullahs.