This was a thoughtful article by Dan Murphy, and for the most part, I agree with him. I actually agree with PlainOl.....I think.
As Murphy pointed out:
"The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, told the Financial Times' German edition yesterday: 'What we know suggests the development of nuclear weapons' ".
This is cause for concern. At least to most Americans, who are familiar with the region and the theocratic regime in Tehran.
Nevertheless, the distinction, is that I don't see (or hear) ANYONE (other than maybe Rick Santorum, and Santorum's even set preconditions for such an attack) calling for an immediate attack on Iran. Should there by concern over the fact that Iran seems to be hiding their research and development over their nuclear enrichment program? Absolutely.
I do think that collectively as a people, and as a Nation, we have learned that, "Nation Building" don't work! We are not all that eager to engage another theocratic Nation-State when we haven't even concluded whatever the Hell it is that we are doing in Afghanistan, and especially if there is no visible, obvious, clear convincing danger posed to the United States and/or the world, I'm not hearing anyone suggest that an attack on Iran is imminent. Even the article that Murphy references written by Helprin in the WSJ is not calling for an imminent attack on Iran.
We would neverhtless be fools not to watch with interest what takes place and transpires in that region of the world. Iran's recent arrogant military manuevers in the Straights of Hormuz should have been dealt with, and forcefully. This doesn't mean we need to have an all out attack on Iran.
On Sun, Jan 22, 2012 at 9:06 AM, plainolamerican <plainolamerican@gmail.com> wrote:
Diplomats and leaders, from President---
Obama to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, will sit back
awhile
and watch to see if sanctions are working, if the regime will start to
unravel from within, well aware that wars are much easier to start
than to
get out of.
those who want war should go expediently
the peaceful will not miss them
> Visit our main page!!http://www.rumormillnews.com/
On Jan 22, 6:28 am, Bruce Majors <majors.br...@gmail.com> wrote:
> --------
>
> http://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/print/content/view/print/452210
>
> By Dan Murphy, Staff writer
> posted January 19, 2012 at 11:57 am EST
>
> The war drums on Iran continue to beat onward. Hawkish editorials and
> opinion pieces adopt the style and content of articles from a decade ago,
> in which a Middle Eastern country run by a "madman" was on the brink of
> obtaining weapons of mass destruction – weapons that would almost
> certainly be used to threaten the security of the world.
>
> The older articles were about Iraq and the weapons of mass destruction
> that Saddam Hussein almost certainly had (except he didn't). The current
> crop are about Iran. Front and center is an op-ed by Mark Helprin in the
> Wall Street Journal yesterday titled "The mortal threat from Iran." He
> writes that the "primitive religious fanatics" who rule Iran don't think
> rationally about their own nation's interests, and that, absent a US
> attack soon, "Iran will get nuclear weapons, which in its eyes are an
> existential necessity."
>
> Mr. Helprin, a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute in California,
> even echoes Condoleezza Rice's January 2003 warning that the smoking gun
> of an Iraqi nuclear program could be a "mushroom cloud." He writes: "We
> cannot dismiss the possibility of Iranian nuclear charges of 500 pounds or
> less ending up in Manhattan or on Pennsylvania Avenue."
>
> RELATED: Iran nuclear program: 5 key sites
>
> To be sure, Iraq and Iran are not the same; Iran is indeed enriching
> uranium, a key component of a nuclear weapon. But the fear-mongering
> sounds the same. What today's arguments about Iran ignore, however – much
> as the arguments in favor of the Iraq war ignored – was the position of
> the US intelligence community that Iran is not currently building a
> nuclear weapon. The US position appears to be that Iran is seeking the
> ability to build a weapon, without actually taking that final step.
>
> Two weekends ago, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said: "Are they trying to
> develop a nuclear weapon? No. But we know that they're trying to develop a
> nuclear capability and that's what concerns us and our red line to Iran
> is: Do not develop a nuclear weapon."
>
> And it's not just the US assessment. Israel's liberal newspaper Haaretz
> reported yesterday that "Iran has not yet decided whether to make a
> nuclear bomb, according to the intelligence assessment Israeli officials
> will present later this week to [visiting] Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman
> of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff." Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak
> poured cold water on speculation that his country is planning a unilateral
> attack against Iran. "This entire thing is very far off. I don't want to
> provide estimates [but] it's certainly not urgent," he said.
>
> To be sure, there are concerns. US, European, and Israeli officials
> suspect that Iran is concealing much of its nuclear work, which it insists
> is for peaceful purposes only, and that weapons-related work that they
> don't know about could be taking place. The head of the International
> Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, told the Financial Times' German
> edition yesterday: "What we know suggests the development of nuclear
> weapons," according to a Reuters translation.
>
> War with Iran? A briefing.
>
> But the flow of recent statements has been mostly in the opposite
> direction. Concern? Yes. Redoubled efforts to use sanctions to force more
> light onto Iran's nuclear activities? Yes, absolutely. Hair-on-fire panic?
> No.
>
> The tone from private-sector analysts is something else, however. One of
> the latest examples is from Jamie M. Fly and Gary Schmitt, writing in
> Foreign Affairs. They even quote former Secretary of Defense Donald
> Rumsfeld's line about "known unknowns," (that is, things that Saddam
> Hussein might be hiding) being a cause to consider going to war with Iraq
> in February 2002.
>
> They write that in the case of Iran, the "known unknowns" are "troubling,"
> and go on to outline a case for a broad US war to bring down the Islamic
> Republic. Having asserted that US airstrikes targeting Iran's nuclear
> sites would probably fail in ending the program, they write: "Given the
> likely fallout from even a limited military strike, the question the
> United States should ask itself is, Why not take the next step? After all,
> Iran's nuclear program is a symptom of a larger illness – the
> revolutionary fundamentalist regime in Tehran."
>
> They then suggest that a broad US air campaign against Iran would be
> popular with Iranians. "It is sometimes said that a strike would lead the
> population to rally around the regime. In fact, given the unpopularity of
> the government, it seems more likely that the population would see the
> regime's inability to forestall the attacks as evidence that the emperor
> has no clothes and is leading the country into needlessly desperate
> straits. If anything, Iranian nationalism and pride would stoke even more
> anger at the current regime."
>
> That flies in the face of Iranian history and what most Iranians –
> including members of the Green Movement – say about how the population
> would respond to war. While there is clearly great discontent with the
> regime, and many millions of Iranians would like to throw off clerical
> rule, the history of Iran suggests that war would probably result in an
> uptick in support for the regime, confronted as it would be by a hostile
> foreign power. When Saddam Hussein gambled that Iran was weak in the wake
> of the 1979 Islamic Revolution and went to war, the result was a rallying
> of support for the fledgling Iranian regime and a ruinous war that helped
> the country's new theocrats consolidate their power.
>
> For now, the war talk looks set to go on. But with Iranian parliamentary
> elections scheduled for March – a chance for the opposition to perhaps
> show its political strength, or another occasion for Iran's rulers to fix
> the results, as happened in the 2009 presidential reelection – the chances
> of action soon are vanishingly slim. Diplomats and leaders, from President
> Obama to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, will sit back awhile
> and watch to see if sanctions are working, if the regime will start to
> unravel from within, well aware that wars are much easier to start than to
> get out of.
>
> Follow Dan Murphy on Twitter.
>
> ------------------------------------
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