Hillary Clinton Tacitly Acknowledges Obama Administration Has Failed With Iran

Remember a shameless Bill Clinton telling us “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is” as he tried to wriggle out of his lies?

He won politically, as he was able to remain Liar-in-Chief.  But he lost factually, as he was deemed unfit to practice law, and had to surrender his law license.

There’s a joke that goes, “What do you call a million attorneys at the bottom of the ocean?  A good start.”  Well, Bill Clinton proved himself to be such a weasel that he wasn’t even fit to pursue the weasel’s favorite profession.

Well, the meaning is considerably more clear with Bill’s wife’s repeated usage of participles.  As in, “Iran is becoming a military dictatorship”; as in “Iran is sliding into a military dictatorship”; as in “an ever-dimming outlook for persuading Iran”; as in “Iran is increasingly dominated by the Revolutionary Guard Corps”; as in this increasing decision-making (by the Revolutionary Guard)”; as in “in effect supplanting the government of Iran.”

As in, words and their tenses are actually important.  All this “becoming” and “sliding” and “ever-dimming” and “supplanting” is in the tense of the present active participle.  Which is to say that it didn’t occur in the past while George Bush was president; it is something that is happening right now, under the failed presidency and the failed foreign policy of Barack Obama.

Clinton: Iran is becoming a military dictatorship
By ROBERT BURNS, AP National Security Writer Robert Burns, Ap National Security Writer   – 1 hr 21 mins ago

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday Iran is sliding into a military dictatorship, a new assessment suggesting a rockier road ahead for U.S.-led efforts to stop Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

As the first high-level Obama administration official to make such an accusation, Clinton was reflecting an ever-dimming outlook for persuading Iran to negotiate limits on its nuclear program, which it has insisted is intended only for peaceful purposes. The U.S. and others — including the two Gulf countries Clinton visited Sunday and Monday — believe Iran is headed for a nuclear bomb capability. […]

Earlier in the day, in Doha, Qatar, Clinton spoke bluntly about Iranian behavior and what she called the Obama administration’s view of Iran as increasingly dominated by the Revolutionary Guard Corps. […]

The Revolutionary Guard has long been a pillar of Iran’s regime as a force separate from the ordinary armed forces. The Guard now has a hand in every critical area, including missile development, oil resources, dam building, road construction, telecommunications and nuclear technology.

It also has absorbed the paramilitary Basij as a full-fledged part of its command structure — giving the militia greater funding and a stronger presence in Iran’s internal politics.

“The evidence we’ve seen of this increasing decision-making (by the Revolutionary Guard) cuts across all areas of Iranian security policy, and certainly nuclear policy is at the core of it,” Clinton told reporters flying with her from Doha to Saudi Arabia.

Asked if the U.S. was planning a military attack on Iran, Clinton said “no.”

The United States is focused on gaining international support for sanctions “that will be particularly aimed at those enterprises controlled by the Revolutionary Guard, which we believe is in effect supplanting the government of Iran,” she said. […]

Private U.S. experts on the Iranian regime said they agreed with Clinton’s assessment of Iran’s drift toward military dominance.

“When you rely on the power of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to remain in power it is only a matter of time before the regime becomes a paramilitary dictatorship — and it is about time we realize this,” Iranian-born Fariborz Ghadar, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in an e-mail to The AP. He said the current regime is “beholden to the Revolutionary Guard for its survival.”

Ray Takeyh, a former administration adviser on Iran who now follows Iranian developments from the private Council on Foreign Relations, said by e-mail, “The Revolutionary Guards are increasingly represented in all aspects of governance.”

Clinton told reporters it appears the Revolutionary Guard is in charge of Iran’s controversial nuclear program and the country changing course “depends on whether the clerical and political leadership begin to reassert themselves.”

She added: “I’m not predicting what will happen but I think the trend with this greater and greater military lock on leadership decisions should be disturbing to Iranians as well as those of us on the outside.”

Clinton said the Iran that could emerge is “a far cry from the Islamic Republic that had elections and different points of view within the leadership circle. That is part of the reason that we are so concerned with what we are seeing going on there.”

In her Doha appearance, Clinton also said she foresees a possible breakthrough soon in stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

“I’m hopeful that this year will see the commencement of serious negotiations that will cover every issue that is outstanding,” she said, adding that “everyone is anticipating” progress after more than a year of impasse between the negotiating parties. […]

And we have a clue as to how “hopey changey” relates to Obama foreign policy:

From Secretary Clinton: “I’m hopeful that this year will see the commencement of serious negotiations that will cover every issue that is outstanding,” she said, adding that “everyone is anticipating” progress after more than a year of impasse between the negotiating parties.

And a Haaretz article provides us with more “hope n’ change”:

We have Vice President Biden: “Referring to U.S.-led effort to force new sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, Biden told Meet the Press on Sunday that he hoped to recruit China’s support to the campaign.”

We have JCS Chairman Admiral Mullen: “He added that he still hoped a solution could be found through diplomacy and sanctions, and that there would not be a regional war.”

I am personally very hopeful that magic unicorns will fly over Iran and melt the mullahs’ heart with their rainbow sprinkles.  And my hope for change is no less ridiculous than the three above.

The Obama administration’s foreign policy is so desperately failed that they are now incredibly trying to claim credit for the Bush victory in Iraq which they did everything they could to prevent.

Thirteen months and counting, Barry Hussein has still not lived up to his promise of personally sitting down with the Ayatollah without preconditions and discussing why the latter wants to exterminate the state of Israel as a precursor to destroying the “Great Satan” America.

Barry Hussein’s foreign policy was so shockingly bad and so woefully pathetic that even then-candidate for president Hillary Clinton said he was “irresponsible and frankly naive.”

But now “naive and irresponsible” is the law of the land.  And Obama’s Good Ship Lollipop is steaming toward a nuclear-armed Iranian rogue regime.

As Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said, “Iran is now a nuclear state.” Which shortly follows their demonstration that they are well on their way to being an intercontinental ballistic missile state to deliver their nukes, too.

French President Sarkozy said that we haven’t gained anything whatsoever from Obama’s “irresponsible and frankly naive” policy of dialogue with Iran “but more enriched uranium and centrifuges.”

He has also said, ““We live in the real world, not the virtual world. And the real world expects us to take decisions.”

But not in Hopey Changey Land.

There wasn’t a single carbon-based conservative on the planet who didn’t say that Obama’s irresponsible and naive policy would utterly fail.  And surprise, surprise, it’s utterly failed.

You mark my words.  Due to Barack Obama’s irresponsible, naive, and failed leadership, Iran WILL obtain nuclear weapons and the ballistic missiles to deliver them.  And as a result of Iran’s successful defiance of Obama, the Sunni Arab world WILL develop their own nuclear weapons and ignite a terrifying new nuclear arms race in the most insane region in the history of the planet.

In addition to that terrifying outcome, Iran will have the capability to do any of the following:

1) Start a global nuclear holocaust in order to force the appearance of the Twelfth Imam.  Mutually Assured Destruction may very well play no part in the Iranian leaderships’ apocalyptic worldview.

2) Invade Israel with their nuclear weapons as a protective shield against Israel’s “Samson option.”  Iran would have numerous Islamic allies to attack with them.

3) Shut down the Strait of Hormuz and send oil prices (and therefore the cost of just about everything else that requires energy to produce) into the stratosphere.

4) Massively increase global terrorism with impunity.  If Iranian-trained or based jihadists manage another massive 9/11, what will we do if going to war will mean the destruction of several U.S. cities and millions of dead Americans?

Allow me to restate something I wrote back in April of 2008 (and cited again in December of last year):

A President John McCain can assure the Iranians, “We attacked Iraq when we believed they represented a threat to us, and we will do the same to you. You seriously might want to rethink your plans.” A President John McCain can say to Sunni Arab states such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, “We have stood by Iraq even when it was difficult, and we will do the same for you. You don’t need those weapons; the United States will be there for you.”

Barack Obama can’t do any of that.  He won’t go to war with Iran to stop their nuclear weapons program (did you notice Hillary Clinton’s “NO” to the question whether the US was planning any sort of attack?).  He can’t assure Arab allies that they can completely count on him to protect them.  And he is therefore completely powerless and completely useless.

Liberals will naturally (being deceitful, dishonest, and demagogic) want to blame George Bush for not dealing with Iran.  But an article from the Los Angeles Times from December of 2007 underscores why Bush was not able to mobilize America against the building Iranian threat.  In a word, it was DEMOCRATS:

“DES MOINES — Democratic presidential candidates teamed up during a National Public Radio debate here Tuesday to blast the Bush administration over its policy toward Iran, arguing that a new intelligence assessment proves that the administration has needlessly ratcheted up military rhetoric.

While the candidates differed somewhat over the level of threat Iran poses in the Mideast, most of them sought to liken the administration’s approach to Iran with its buildup to the war in Iraq.”

George Bush believed Iran was a threat that needed to be confronted.  Democrats like Barack Obama shrilly screamed him down.  This is therefore genuinely Barry Hussein’s mess, and it has become increasingly obvious that doesn’t have the stones to handle it.

America’s failure to wisely choose its 44th president leaves us in the greatest crisis we have ever known, both domestically and internationally.

And when the fecal matter hits the rotary oscillator, there won’t be anybody to bail us out.

Iran Sucessfully Launches Satellite: Ballistic Nuclear Missiles Not Far Off

As morally evil as the Iranian regime is, I have to hand it to them: they have been playing a naive and appeasing Barack Obama the way a master violinist plays a Stradivarius.  At every single turn, they have fooled him, blocked him, tricked him, or stalled him while they have just continued feverishly working on developing a full-blown nuclear capability.

And now here we are, on the verge of a truly dark and terrible development in world history:

Iran’s Satellite Launch a Signal of Missile Progress, Analysts Say
By Turner Brinton
Space News Staff Writer
posted: 12 February 2009

WASHINGTON – Iran’s launch of a satellite into orbit last week will likely give U.S. and European leaders greater cause for concern that the Islamic republic is approaching the ability to field long-range ballistic missiles while its nuclear program continues to progress, analysts here agreed.

The Iranian government-sponsored Islamic Republic News Agency reported Feb. 3 that Iran had launched a research satellite called Omid into orbit aboard a Safir-2 rocket. This is Iran’s first domestically produced satellite to reach orbit and the first to successfully launch on an Iranian-built launch vehicle, according to Press TV, an Iranian government-sponsored news outlet.

The U.S. government, while not explicitly confirming Iran has launched a satellite, has expressed concern that Iran’s development of a space launch vehicle establishes the technical basis to develop long-range ballistic missile systems.

“Iran’s ongoing efforts to develop its missile delivery capabilities remain a matter of deep concern,” U.S. State Department spokesman Robert Wood said in a Feb. 3 statement. “Many of the technological building blocks involved in [space launch vehicles] are the same as those required to develop long-range ballistic missiles. … We will continue with our friends and allies in the region to address the threats posed by Iran, including those related to its missile and nuclear programs and its support of terrorism.”

Satellite watchers using orbital data provided from U.S. Strategic Command’s space surveillance network said the satellite is in an elliptical orbit that ranges from 242 kilometers to 382 kilometers in altitude, at an inclination of 55 degrees relative to the equator. Ted Molczan, an amateur satellite observer, said the satellite and part of the rocket that took it to space are both cataloged by Strategic Command and in similar orbits. The satellite appears to be tumbling, as its brightness in the sky changes rapidly, indicating the satellite’s likely lack of a stabilization or attitude control system. Both the satellite and rocket body are likely to begin to deorbit this summer, Molczan said.

“Dear people of Iran, your children have sent Iran’s first domestic satellite into orbit,” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Press TV. “May this be a step toward justice and peace. Iran’s official presence in space has been added to the pages of history.”

Meanwhile, Iran continues to develop its nuclear program, which it says it has the right to develop for peaceful civil uses as a signatory of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Iran argues it needs nuclear power and will not use the technology to make weapons. The United Nations Security Council, which includes permanent members China, Russia, France, the United Kingdom and the United States, has urged Iran to suspend the program numerous times to no avail.

“This [Iranian satellite launch] I think highlights the dual-use issue again, just as the nuclear issue does, and that is technology can be used for peaceful purposes or for weapons that can threaten other countries,” said Ted Carpenter, vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, a think tank here. “In terms of any kind of direct missile threat [to the United States], it’s likely to be many years before they could have that capability. The people worrying more are others in the Middle East and Europe.”

Carpenter said perhaps even more unsettling than the Iranian satellite launch are recent media reports that North Korea is again preparing to launch its three-stage Taepodong-2 missile, which some believe will have the range to reach U.S. territory. North Korea tested one of these missiles in 2006, but it failed shortly after launch and broke apart in the air.

“North Korea poses a much more direct threat to the United States because if it is true North Korea is planning to test an advanced version of the Taepodong-2, that could put Alaska and the U.S. west coast in range,” Carpenter said.

Thomas Donnelly, a defense and security policy analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, said the United States and Europe ought to be concerned about the progression of Iranian technology. He argued that Iran is more of a threat to the United States than North Korea, based on Tehran’s backing of insurgents in Iraq.

“That has been a capability we have seen Iran developing, but the fact that it now has actually happened is a jarring punctuation mark,” Donnelly said. “Given what we believe about their nuclear program, it seems pretty clear they’re very close to having a complete, deliverable weapon that would have the ability to reach out to Europe.”

Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution here, said though the Iranian satellite launch may not show an increase in the physical range of Iranian weapon systems, it is perhaps a more impressive display of technological prowess than a missile test launch would have been.

“That suggests a certain amount of control and guidance mastery,” O’Hanlon said. “You’ve got to hit a fairly narrow band to put something in orbit, and the simple act of firing a missile doesn’t tell you anything about how close the missile landed to its target.

“It demonstrates more sophistication than I would have assumed, but I am not surprised they did this.”

Too few Americans (and for that matter Europeans) comprehend the magnitude of this development.

Israel certainly does, given the fact that Iran has repeatedly vowed that “Israel is a cancer” which they one day intend to “wipe off the map.”

The fact that Ezekiel prophesied some 2600 years ago that Iran (Persia) would one day attack Israel in the last days along with a coalition that looks eerily like the one being assembled today.

About a quarter of Israelis have said that they would leave Israel if Iran obtained nuclear weapons, which would literally mean the death of the Jewish state.  Israeli leaders cannot possibly allow Iran to become a nuclear power.

And time is running out on them.

But it’s running out on the United States and Europe, also.

If Iran has nuclear weapons – and particularly if they have an intercontinental ballistic missile delivery system – they will be immune to attack.  Do you believe that Barack Obama would attack a nuclear-armed Iran?  I submit that Obama won’t dare attack a NON-nuclear armed Iran.  And no American president would attack a nation at the cost of one or more major U.S. cities.

If Iran gets its nukes, it will be able to do a number of things: 1) attack Israel, assuring Israel that if it uses its nukes against Iran, Iran will use its nukes against Israel; 2) shut down the Strait of Hormuz, which would immediately drive up oil.  The cost of gasoline in the U.S. would soar above $15 a gallon; 3) dramatically increase Iranian-sponsored terrorism worldwide.

If you don’t believe that a nuclear-armed Iran would pick a minimum of one of these options, you’re just nuts.

What we are seeing with Iran developing nuclear weapons and the means to project them is akin to the armament of Nazi Germany during the 1930s.  Many immediately recognized the threat the Nazis posed, but those in leadership were appeasing weaklings who were more interested in “transforming” their own societies than they were confronting genuine evil abroad.  The result was the Holocaust and the meat-grinder of World War II.

Democrats who are demagogues at heart will assert that George Bush allowed Iran to develop nuclear weapons as will.  They are liars: George Bush TRIED to persuade the U.S. to strongly confront Iran, and Democrats in Congress shrilly attacked him for his prescient knowledge of the Iranian threat.  Democrats claimed that Iran had suspended its nuclear program, and that the regime no longer posed a threat.  They couldn’t have been more wrong.

I wrote something about Iran’s nuclear program in May of 2008, and I stand by it:

Finally, the dilemma of the Iranian nuclear program serves as a sober reinforcement of the rightness of President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq. As with Iraq, we have in Iran a closed, totalitarian society that our intelligence cannot reliably penetrate. How will we know for sure when and if Iran develops nuclear weapons? Do we simply choose to allow them to do so? Are we willing to suffer the consequences of the world’s largest terrorist state and supporter of terrorism to have nukes? Are we willing to give President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – who has publicly described his belief in an apocalyptic figure known as the “Twelfth Imam” who will come into the world via an act of global catastrophe – a nuclear trigger to place his finger upon? Are we willing to put nuclear weapons into the hands of someone who has repeatedly vowed to “wipe Israel off the map“?

If Iran gets nuclear weapons, you can pretty much figure that World War III is coming soon. For one thing, the country is led by apocalyptic religious fanatics who will likely either use the bomb to attack Israel, or else will smuggle it into the hands of terrorists who will do the job for them. For another, a nuclear weapon in Shiite Iran will trigger a nuclear arms race in the craziest region in the history of the world, as Sunni states feverishly work to build their own bomb to balance the power.

Meanwhile, we find both Democratic presidential candidates vocalizing longstanding opposition to the Iraq war, and promising a swift pullout if elected. The question is this: how can a president who claimed that the United States was wrong in attacking Iraq over legitimate concerns that it possessed weapons of mass destruction proceed to threaten to attack Iran over legitimate concerns that IT possesses nuclear weapons? And conversely, as the United States attempts to prevent Sunni Arab nations from developing their own nuclear weapons programs to balance Shiite Iran, how will a president – who refused to honor the American commitment to stand by Iraq – proceed to succeed in convincing Sunni countries that we will stand by them against any threat posed by Iran?

If we say that the United States was wrong to attack Iraq, then we tacitly affirm that it will be wrong to attack Iran even as it feverishly works on creating enough centrifuges to have the type of refined uranium it needs for one and only one purpose.

I also repeatedly pointed out in that three part series that countries such as Russia and China had protected Saddam Hussein by blocking every single United Nations resolution that could have prevented the Iraq War:

There was a process that the United Nations ostensibly provided by which two nations in material disagreement could come to a fair resolution. But what should have been an honest process was interfered with and corrupted by powerful member nations and by the United Nations itself. If we are going to blame anyone for the invasion, then let us blame countries like France and Russia, as well as the corrupt and grossly incompetent and negligent United Nations. They made it impossible for any just solution to prevail. In Saddam Hussein’s own words and thoughts, their protection and interference gave him the idea that he could defy the United States and keep the inspectors at bay without any meaningful consequence.

Those same countries are now protecting Iran the SAME exact way.  They are opposing sanctions and resolutions against Iran the SAME WAY they did against Iraq.  Since both countries are permanent veto-wielding members of the United Nations Security Council, they can absolutely shield Iran from ANY resolution as they choose.  And Barack Obama would have no choice but to go it alone if he wants to stop Iran’s nuclear program the same way Bush had to choose to go it alone.

But Obama WON’T DO THAT.  Which means Iran will have its nuclear capability during his watch.

Iran And The Bomb: What Are We Going To Do?

Remember that National Intelligence Estimate saying that Iran had ended its nuclear weapons program five years ago? A December 2007 Washington Post article cast it this way:

A major U.S. intelligence review has concluded that Iran stopped work on a suspected nuclear weapons program more than four years ago, a stark reversal of previous intelligence assessments that Iran was actively moving toward a bomb.

The new findings, drawn from a consensus National Intelligence Estimate, reflected a surprising shift in the midst of the Bush administration’s continuing political and diplomatic campaign to depict Tehran’s nuclear development as a grave threat. The report was drafted after an extended internal debate over the reliability of communications intercepts of Iranian conversations this past summer that suggested the program had been suspended.

If Iran ever truly did in fact suspend its nuclear weapons program, it did so immediately after – and obviously as a direct result of – the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Understandably Iran didn’t want to be the next country to face the consequences for illegal weapons programs.

When the story came out that Iran had suspended its nuclear weapons program (the one Iran claimed it never had in the first place), Democrats and liberals immediately pounced all over President Bush’s claim that Iran continued to represent a nuclear weapons threat. President Bush was called a liar, he was called a warmonger, for continuing to describe Iran as a threat. The left openly mocked conservatives for calling for a tough stance against Iran. We didn’t need to worry about Iran, they said.

The Washington Post claimed that Iran was actually ten years from developing the bomb.

Given these reports, liberals made the argument that any “threat” from Iran was theoretical or academic. And President Bush was merely proving that he was the paranoid neo-con that they had been casting him as all along.

When Barack Obama initially said that Iran did not represent a threat, he was merely assuming the longstanding standard doctrinaire liberal mentality. It was only when he began to be presented with the overwhelming evidence to the contrary that he “refined” his remarks to acknowledge that Iran was in fact a threat.

In any event, as the United States began to succomb to increasing internal division over the war in Iraq, and as the United States began to bog down, the facts now overwhelmingly reveal that Iran clearly decided to restart its nuclear weapons program.

How long until Iran develops enough nuclear material to build a bomb? Ten years, like the elite media says?

Try six months to one year. That abstract academic threat is getting real concrete and very, very real.

Israel has been warning for some time now that Iran could have the bomb far more quickly than many Western experts were willing to acknowledge. They’ve been claiming that Iran could have enough material to build a bomb far earlier than most estimates stated. But they were ignored. After all, in the leftist view of the world, Israel is the biggest and most paranoid warmonger of all (or at least a very close second to the United States).

But now someone else is affirming that President Bush and the state of Israel were right all along.

And it’s not some neo-con warmonger saying this but none other than the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency director-general, Mohamed ElBaradei:

Mohamed ElBaradei: “If Iran wants to turn to the production of nuclear weapons, it must leave the NPT, expel the IAEA inspectors, and then it would need at least… Considering the number of centrifuges and the quantity of uranium Iran has…”

Interviewer: “How much time would it need?”

ElBaradei: “It would need at least six months to one year. Therefore, Iran will not be able to reach the point where we would wake up one morning to an Iran with a nuclear weapon.”

Interviewer: “Excuse me, I would like to clarify this for our viewers. If Iran decides today to expel the IAEA from the country, it will need six months…”

ElBaradei: “Or one year, at least…”

Interviewer: “… to produce [nuclear] weapons?”

ElBaradei: “It would need this period to produce a weapon, and to obtain highly-enriched uranium in sufficient quantities for a single nuclear weapon.”

Sadly, ElBaradei – in the words of one writer – “seems to be more obsessed with politics than with doing his job. His job is to monitor the nuclear developments of countries, such as Iran, and to prevent them from developing nuclear weapons. That’s what he should be concerned about. Instead, he’s concerned with what countries may do when other countries ignore the UN and develop nuclear weapons regardless of world opinion.” Mohamed ElBaradei has claimed that any attack on Iran would be “unnecessary” and that he would resign if such an attack were to occur. That’s a pretty political statement from a supposedly apolitical weapons inspector.

And meanwhile Iran is getting closer and closer to the bomb with each passing day.

What would happen if Iran actually got the bomb? Many pooh pooh the possibility that Iran would start World War III by attacking an also nuclear-armed Israel. But only a fool would ignore the numerous “death to Israel” statements from both Iran’s president and its Ayatollah. What is particular frightening is that these Iranian rulers hold to an apocalyptic interpretation of Islam which holds to the doctrine that the last Imam will return during a period of crisis.

But Iran doesn’t actually have to use its nuclear weapons to make use of them. Ask yourself: would the United States dare attack a nuclear Iran? Even if Iran – through its terrorists surrogates – carried out another 9/11 attack against it?

Will they share nuclear technology and materials with terrorist organizations, and attempt to carry out nuclear attacks by proxy?

Iran is and has been the leading source of terrorism around the world. If they obtain a nuclear weapons capability, you can only expect them to be more emboldened and feel more invulnerable to meaningful retaliation than they have ever felt before. President Ahmadinejad has said, “I Have a Connection With God, Since God Said That the Infidels Will Have No Way to Harm the Believers”; “We Have [Only] One Step Remaining Before We Attain the Summit of Nuclear Technology”; The West “Will Not Dare To Attack Us.”

Are you ready for that? Are you ready for the kind of hell that a rogue, terrorist, totalitarian, jihadist, and Armageddonist state could unleash upon the world given the impunity of being protected by nuclear weapons?

What are you willing to do to prevent that nightmarish scenario from occuring?

One thing is certain: we absolutely cannot count on diplomacy to prevent this catastrophic threat to world stability and security.

Russia and China – both veto-wielding permanent United Nations security council members – have both repeatedly disallowed any meaningful sanctions against Iran. I write about this in detail in an article.

There’s all kinds of evidence of their refusal to all for any sanctions that would have any chance of forcing Iran to comply.

From August 5, 2008:

The United States, Britain and France warned Monday — two days after the deadline expired — that they would press for additional sanctions against Iran if it did not respond positively and unambiguously to the offer. The six powers will hold a conference call Wednesday to consider their response to the statement. But they remain divided, with China and Russia reluctant to support tough sanctions.

“I don’t see any reason to believe that the Russians and the Chinese are any more willing today to support really tougher sanctions against Iran,” said Flynt Leverett, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and former Bush National Security Council staffer.

Iran is clearly more interested in becoming a nuclear power than it is in taking any of our carrots. And with the stick being removed from the proceedings, diplomacy simply has no chance of succeeding.

And we’ve seen all this before. I have written a three part series titled, “Iraq War Justified” that points to the fact the United States was placed in this exact same situation prior to 2003 (Part 1; Part 2; Part 3). A pitifully pathetic and corrupt United Nations was absolutely incapable of doing anything. The United States had good reasons to believe that Iraq was engaging in the illegal production of weapons of mass destruction, and inspectors were blocked from carrying out any meaningful inspection program. Iraq was able to use its abundant oil – and even the United Nations’ own oil for food program – to buy allies who would prevent the implementation of tough UN sanctions. And an attitude of anti-Americanism and a view that American influence should be siphoned away in favor of “a multi-polar world” (which is really just a cosmopolitan way of being anti-American) all combined to make it impossible for diplomacy to work in forcing Iraq to open itself up to inspections.

The United States was forced to attack Iraq because every other available option had failed, and we were not willing to allow the possibility of an Iraq armed with weapons of mass destruction.

When we attacked Iraq in the Gulf War, it was learned that Iraq was FAR closer to developing nuclear weapons than had ever previously been believed by Western “experts.” It was also realized that this threat – stopped in 1990 – carried through into the future:

In summary, the IAEA report says that following the August 1990 invasion of Kuwait, Iraq launched a “crash program” to develop a nuclear weapon quickly by extracting weapons grade material from safe-guarded research reactor fuel. This project, if it had continued uninterrupted by the war, might have succeeded in producing a deliverable weapon by the end of 1992. [PBS source: Tracking Nuclear Proliferation, a Guide in Maps and Charts, 1998, Rodney W. Jones and Mark G. NcDonough, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. (1998). p. 191] …

Nuclear physicist and Iraqi defector Khidhir Hamza agrees. He told FRONTLINE that Iraq did not relinquish certain critical components of the nuclear program to the inspectors, and that it retains the expertise necessary to build a nuclear weapon. He believes that Iraq may have one completed within the next couple of years.

Even now, the United Nations is questioning the intelligence pointing to Iran developing the bomb. How are we ever going to attain the “consensus” that liberals demand we have in this sort of perennially hazy political environment?

How can one condemn the Iraq attack and then sanction an Iran attack given all the similarities? On just what logical or moral basis?

It’s the exact same thing happening all over again, and Israel and the United States will be faced with the same choice: Are we willing to allow an Iran with doomsday capability? Are we willing to carry out an attack alone given a pathologically weak, corrupt, and frankly both pathetic and apathetic world?

This is the question that will effect – and possibly haunt – American foreign policy for generations to come.

If we elect Barack Obama, we are tacitly choosing to allow Iran to develop the bomb. Any of his tough-sounding rhetoric aside, you need to realize that Barack Obama has already repeatedly philosophically condemned the very same sort of preemptive attack that would be necessary to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. And he continues to do so even today. Just how was a preemptive attack on Iraq wrong if a preemptive attack on Iran is right? If Barack Obama believes that our intelligence will be flawless regarding Iran’s nuclear program when it was so flawed regarding Iraq’s program, then he is a genuine fool of the very worst kind. And if he refuses to attack until the evidence against Iran is certain, he is an even greater fool. For Iran would greet our attacking soldiers with mushroom clouds.

Israel is clearly doing far more than threatening to attack Iran in order to prevent this patently anti-Semitic and defiantly evil regime from obtaining nuclear weapons. It is clearly merely a matter of time, with many thinking that Israel might even attack prior to the change in American administrations. If and when they do, we will see just how vulnerable the Democrats have made us over the past thirty years in refusing to allow America to develop its own source of domestic oil as the price of oil goes up to over $300 a barrel and over $12 a gallon for gasoline.