The Islamic Bomb
Iran Will Have Nuclear Weapons
By D.W.

I hate to shatter hopes and dreams but Iran will develop a nuclear weapon and we are not going to stop them. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Ayatollah puppet masters are going to have weapons of mass destruction and we just have to face that reality.

The U.S. and the West can banter around all of the threats and make all kinds of aggressive gestures but Iran will not be stopped unless we invade with overwhelming combat power and that is not going to happen.

First of all, the United States congress is now largely under the control of Liberals who lack the political will to do anything more than trying to bribe terrorists and then hope that they can be reasoned with. And even if President Bush wanted to take military action, the Democrats would never accept such a move and they would hamstring him at every level.

Sadly, the American people seem to lack the will to ensure victory in Iraq and they definitely do not have the will to tackle Iran.

The second reality is that the U.S. simply cannot take an aggressive military action towards Iran because we don’t have the available forces to engage them. Between the conflict in Iraq, Afghanistan, and with all the other commitments we currently have, the military simply cannot accomplish this goal. And even if the U.S. were to attack Iran with missiles from the air, we would have to defend Iraq and Afghanistan against an Iranian conventional and unconventional attack. That already requires most of the forces we have and we don’t have enough troops as it is for those commitments.

Furthermore, our NATO allies are too afraid of Iran to do anything to stop them.

Post war Europeans are excessively risk averse and with good reason. The mighty French military couldn’t even defend helpless Bosnians against a rag tag Serbian militia, so how are they going to stand up to the more formidable Iranian?

And even if we did impose sanctions against Iran it is doubtful that they would be very effective or widely enforced.

The only real strategy we can pursue is to contain Iran and deter the country from supplying other reckless regimes and terror organizations. We would just make it clear to them that a nuclear attack against the West, even if it was done by a stateless terror group, would be reciprocated in kind.

The Iranians may appear to be crazy but they are rational actors and they are pursuing what they perceive to be in their best interest. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has indicated that he would be willing to lose half of his country to destroy Israel and we must make him understand that in fact he will lose all of it.

Another realistic strategy we can pursue with some hope of success is to undermine the regime from within.

The Mullahs have a tenuous hold over their country, with much less power than Saddam ever held over Iraq. The regime is vulnerable to subversion and co-option from their youthful population that is less than enthusiastic about their theocracy. The Islamic state has largely failed to provide the social benefits that it promised it could and the people are not better off than they were under the Shah. Iran also has a severe drug and crime problem and religious laws just aren’t holding the population under control.

Unlike Iraq, Iranians have a lot more exposure to the Western world and they have greater access to information. Our success in Iraq terrifies the Iranians because a stable democracy would definitely encourage their people to demand the same thing. It would further erode the regime’s ability to influence their people and maintain an air of legitimacy. Thus, we must stay focused and determined for a victory in Iraq and marshal our resources there. In essence, our failure there would be a significant victory for Iran.

The strategy of last resort is to continue arming the Israelis and give them the capability of conducting strategic nuclear strikes against Iran. They already have nuclear weapons and they probably just need more of them and better delivery platforms. While the United States may be averse to destroying the Persian race, I doubt the Israelis are.

Let’s face it; if Iran displays a grave and imminent threat to Israel, they will attack them with overwhelming firepower. And if the Israelis do conduct a nuclear strike against Iran, we really can’t blame them.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeatedly stated that he wants to see the Israeli nation destroyed and the Jewish race annihilated. He denies the existence of the Holocaust and he seems to be sincere about it. Now we don’t know if he actually wants to blow Israel up and I would suppose that he is smarter than that.

But can we blame the Israelis for believing him?

Now I certainly do not want a nuclear war with Iran and I definitively do not believe that a pre-emptive nuclear strike by the U.S. or by Israel would be morally and politically just. However, we should do everything we can to avoid this crisis. The Iranian people deserve to exist and they should be encouraged and supported to conduct a regime change of their own.

But if we must destroy Iran, then they have only themselves to blame as no one made them build a nuclear weapon to threaten Israel or the West.

Any opinions or views expressed herein belong solely to the author and does not represent any employer, organization, political party, governmental agency, or any other entity and do not necessarily reflect the views of the site owner or its participants.