David

Karki

Read David's bio and previous columns here

June 2, 2008

The World Dithers While Iran Goes Nuclear

Last week, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) revealed that they had possession of Iranian documents dating from 2004 containing a drawing showing how to make part of an atomic warhead and its delivery system. They called this development “alarming.” Would that anyone might notice, much less be alarmed.

Furthermore, the documents indicate a clear and sole military purpose to the atomic technology involved – as if there were any peaceful purpose for a nuclear warhead. This runs directly counter to the repeated denials made by Tehran that their known uranium-enriching program was for domestic energy production. And this enriching will soon be up to 6,000 centrifuge cascades, meaning they would have sufficient fissile material to detonate this warhead by this autumn.

Supposedly, according to previous U.S. intelligence estimates, Iran had stopped pursuing nuclear weaponry in 2003. These documents, if genuine, would prove that completely wrong. And even if not, it would be a simple enough matter for Iran to start clandestinely pursuing them again.

Only the most myopic person would take it for granted that a regime that had previously pursued weaponry – which even the intelligence estimates acknowledge – would never do so again. Or that Iran might not have been able to surreptitiously continue a covert rogue weapon program all along, one that might well be unnervingly close to coming to fruition.

When added to the loony comments repeatedly made by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – denying that the Holocaust ever occurred yet enthusiastically calling for another one to be perpetrated against Israel – it makes for a frightening total picture that has no good solution to the problem.

Ultimately, there can be only two logical outcomes to this: 1) The West takes no chances and eliminates the Iranian regime and whatever nuclear weaponry it may possess before it can use them; or 2) Iran will have nuclear bombs and most likely the means to deliver them where it chooses within the region, if not farther.

Sadly, the West has chosen the latter. There is no one in any position of power in any nation with the wherewithal to stop this that is at all willing to try. They are apparently ready to believe in the fantasy that a radical regime headed up by a lunatic, who thinks his job is to usher in a Shiite Muslim messiah by wiping out Israel – a regime that is also, by most available signs, trying its hardest to build a nuclear weapon – will simply choose not to use it.

What's more, the party that seems ready to sweep to almost uncontested power this fall is perhaps the most naïve and stupid of them all. Between Sen. Barack Obama saying he'll be happy to meet with Ahmadinejad for talks with no pre-conditions (a good one might be a meaningful indication that you're not trying to kill us all), and Speaker Nancy Pelosi crediting “Iranian goodwill” for ending violence in Basra, Iraq (when in fact it was Iraqi and U.S. troops crushing Shia insurgents in spite of Iranian aid that accomplished it) it seems Democrats are positively giddy over the prospect of kissing up to a nuclear Iran.

It's enough to make one wonder: If a President Obama and Speaker Pelosi were to officially meet with Ahmadinejad, would he actually be the smartest and most sane person in the room?

The only prospect for stopping the seemingly inevitable might be Israel. If there is strong, credible evidence of an Iranian bomb and missile, that would be an existential threat to them and require the elimination of said materials, if not the regime that built them. (Please excuse Israel for believing your endless calls for their annihilation, Mahmoud.) 

The world would certainly go ballistic over such an act, and even the long-standing U.S./Israel relationship would be in serious jeopardy – especially if Obama/Pelosi are running the show – but the threat would be gone.

But why does it have to come to that? Why do we have to choose between burying our heads in the sand, risking countless innocent lives on the vain hope that Iran is building a bomb to not use it on the one hand, and letting Israel do the dirty work and take the grief for it alone on the other? (Not to mention the possibility that even they might wait until it's too late.)

If President Bush had grounded all airline flights on September 10, 2001, on the suspicion of a terrorist attack, most of us would have thought he was grossly overreacting. Yet the next morning, 3,000 innocent people were slaughtered and the Pentagon and World Trade Center were left in smoldering ruins. And if not for the heroism of those aboard Flight 93, another building full of casualties would have been added to that.

How can we be so blind to the evidence right in front of our faces? Maybe an attack isn't the best course, as Iran is much larger and mountainous, and therefore its putative targets much better defended, than the open desert of Iraq. But is it so much to ask that we at least take this seriously and do whatever it takes short of armed conflict before the blood of far more innocent souls than 3,000 flows at the hands of an Iranian nuclear bomb?

Or do we just have to live with – or die with, as the case may be – the ghastly consequences of a nuclear Iran and the foolishness and cowardice of our politicians?

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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