|
Home | Forums | Gallery | Register | Video Directory | FAQ | Members List | Calendar | Games | Today's Posts | Search | Chat Room |
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
||||
|
||||
Arab diplomat: Bombing Iran less costly in the long run
Arab diplomat: Bombing Iran less costly in the long run
posted at 10:55 am on July 7, 2010 by Ed Morrissey While Western nations debate over the finer points of sanctions to dissuade Iran from its pursuit of nuclear weapons, the neighbors of the Iranian mullahcracy are making much more practical calculations. The ambassador from the United Arab Emirates shocked his audience yesterday by openly calling for military strikes on Iranian targets if sanctions do not reverse the mullahcracy’s course in the short term. Yousef al-Otaiba said that talk of “containment and deterrence” makes him nervous, given the 30-year history of futility of such policies: The United Arab Emirates ambassador to the United States said Tuesday that the benefits of bombing Iran’s nuclear program outweigh the short-term costs such an attack would impose.Otaiba made a more telling point, however, in attacking the fundamental rationale for the sanctions: The ambassador also said that “talk of containment and deterrence really concerns me and makes me very nervous.”Otaiba is right. That policy has led us to where we are today, with the Iranian regime entrenched behind a military police state and well on their way to acquiring weapons of mass destruction. They already have the means to deliver them, if they choose to do so in open military conflict. However, they would more likely use their proxy terrorist armies, Hamas and Hezbollah, to park a nuke in Tel Aviv in order to claim deniability. The ongoing existence of both forces, which rely on Iranian funding and direction, is another plague that the policies of deterrence and containment have rendered unto the region. However, military action against Iran is much more difficult than it was against Iraq or Afghanistan. Iran is three times the size of Iraq in mainly mountainous territory. The Iranians have no doubt dispersed their nuclear efforts to keep a single strike or even a series of them from completely destroying those facilities. Despite our presence in the Gulf, those factors — plus the fact that Iran has not had to fight a war for a few decades and so has more strength than Saddam Hussein had in either conflict with the US — means successful strikes that would halt their nuclear progress and disable the Revolutionary Guard would be hard to accomplish, dangerous to try, and likely would cost the West a great deal of nascent sympathy among Iranian democracy activists unless it also succeeded in decapitating the mullahcracy and the military leadership. That would be akin to drawing two cards to an inside straight flush. Otaiba understands these risks, though, and accepts the costs. As he told the startled policymakers in the audience, “The United States may be able to live with it [a nuclear Iran]. We can’t.” Neither can the other Arab states, not without a nuclear arms race that would raise the risk of putting nukes in the hands of Islamist extremists to an almost-certainty. The US cannot live with that outcome, either. http://hotair.com/archives/2010/07/0...-the-long-run/
__________________
|
Sponsored Links |
#2
|
||||
|
||||
Wow! A muslim who talks sense! Who'da thunk it?!
__________________
I'd rather be historically accurate than politically correct. |
#3
|
||||
|
||||
Not just a muslim but The United Arab Emirates ambassador to the United States.
Joy
__________________
|
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
The Arab Doctor | SparrowHawk62 | General Posts | 1 | 04-11-2007 09:48 AM |
Bombing Iran,... | SEATJERKER | General Posts | 4 | 01-28-2006 07:48 AM |
Costly Bind For FBI Software | David | Homeland Security | 1 | 02-08-2005 05:33 PM |
Missile Fix Costly For U.S. Planes | David | Homeland Security | 0 | 01-25-2005 03:55 PM |
US diplomat calls for closer ties with Vietnam | Otis Willie | General | 0 | 02-15-2004 06:25 PM |
|