Friday, October 28, 2005

The Growing Iranian Threat

As gleeful as I am about my first, but hopefully not last, Fitzmas present, there are more serious things to talk about today. In the past three days, the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has called for the destruction of Israel. Not the withdrawal of troops from the west bank and Gaza, but the complete and utter destruction of the state of Israel. The presidents comments go way beyond inappropriate.

Iran is a growing threat to the stability of the world (whatever little there actually is). Unfortunately, as I have posted on in two prior posts (Nuclear Illogic & Iran's Nuclear Ambition) it has been our own foreign policy that has embolden Iran's rhetoric, not diminished it.

Something needs to be done about Iran and its intentions towards Israel, but at this point, I really can't see what we can do about it. Invasion? Not an option while we are stuck in Iraq. Sanctions? Already been tried for decades with little effect. Nor would we be able to handle Iran supplying men and materials to the insurgency in Iraq.


Iranian leader refutes critics over Israel remarks

Thousands of Iranians staged anti-Israel protests across the country Friday and repeated calls by their ultraconservative president demanding the Jewish state's destruction.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- marching with the protesters -- signaled he stood by his remarks, even as Iranian officials tried to defuse the issue.

"My word is the same as that of (the) Iranian nation," he told the official IRNA news agency.

"They are free to say but their words lack any credit," he said, when asked about global reaction to his comments.

During a meeting with protesting students at Iran's Interior Ministry on Wednesday, Ahmadinejad quoted a remark from Ayatollah Khomeini -- founder of Iran's Islamic revolution -- that Israel "must be wiped out from the map of the world."


(Full Story)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I recently read a book titled, "Nuclear Terrorism" by Graham Allison. I also had the opportunity to attend a lecture by Allison over the summer. He presents a pretty compelling argument for pre-emptive war, but he also states that we picked the wrong country. WMDs or not, Iraq was not a direct threat to the United States. Both Iran and North Korea, however, are developing nuclear weapons and pose an extreme threat to our national security.

Dingo said...

I agree with you on that assesment Bob. I think we have dug ourselves into a hole here that we didn't need to. I have long asserted that Iran and NK are our biggest threats and that they have grown even larger since our invasion of Iraq.