A Nuclear Iran and Wise Words on the Middle East Dilemma
By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
At the risk of being accused of browning up the boss, let me link to Mort Zuckerman's column from the U.S. News Weekly on Iran. What can we do about Iran's nuclear weapons program, short of military action? Mort has a list:
We must press harder to coordinate four measures:
- An arms embargo.
- A ban on exports to Iran of gas and other refined products to cripple transport.
- A global boycott of the entire banking system of Iran, instead of helping it as European banks are.
- A prohibition on Western countries supplying spare parts to the oil industry.
And here are some wise words from Michael Ledeen on Pajamas Media. He provides a nice riposte to Barack Obama's recent videotape to the Iranian people on the Nowruz holiday (which, by the way, is a Zoroastrian holiday disdained by the mullahs):
Then he provided his vision of the Iranian peoples' belief in hope and change. "You will be celebrating your New Year in much the same way that we Americans mark our holidays," he earnestly intoned, "by gathering with friends and family, exchanging gifts and stories, and looking to the future with a renewed sense of hope."
NOT. Most Iranians look to the future with a deepening mood of despair. The mullahs have long since wrecked the economy, and things are getting worse now, what with the price of oil at one-third its recent highs. The single word that best describes the state of the Iranian people—to whom Obama explicitly directed these words—is "degradation." The drop in Iranian birth rates during the reign of the mullahs is the most dramatic in the history of fertility statistics, and is now below replacement. The level of opiate addiction is five times that of China at the time of the Opium Wars. Any Iranian hearing the American president talk of renewed hope, would wonder if he was thinking of the Iranians in Beverly Hills, who rule the place.
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Tags: Iran | Middle East | nuclear weapons | foreign policy | nuclear power
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Reader Comments
irainian nuclear energy
i am a student of university in iran. i am not agree with what you say about iran .how do you convince yourself to give nuclear rockets to israel and if a country which is under bycott wants to stand on its own feet you dont like?.just look at what you think.our religeous dose not allow us to use nuclear bombs you can ask mollahs!!this is the reality of of irainian nuclear energy .i , as an educated person who lives in iran love my right to use peacefull nuclear energy in bycott
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Nuclear Iran: Get used to It
So now the American mullahs, having destroyed OUR economy, are ready to sit down with THEIR mullahs.Now that's equality! So Iran having nuclear weapons will provide yet another excuse for America to act civilized for a change, though it is sad and pathetic that we seem to only be able to do that when the other dude has nukes. A nuclear Iran is a good thing, which only a neo-conman would disagree with, since a strong Iran that is not threatened by a failing America, desperate to maintain hegemony, will play cautiously from a strong hand. States with strength treat other strong states with prudent respect.
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