Saturday, March 21, 2009

Iran: Is the US ready to crawl

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ijvpLmMqmCD3xTcG5uYQ9HYYe_gAD972H9CO0

The above AP article Brian Murphy is entitled “Iran's response to US sign of theocracy's mind-set”

I did wish Obama well in his plan to “dialogue” with leaders in Iran over the ending of their nuclear weapons program. I was inclined to think it wouldn’t work. I sided with the idea of using some sort of force. I hoped for awhile we would use this force before Bush left office, but he decided not to use it, perhaps because we were over extended in Iraq and Afghanistan; so Obama decided to try diplomacy.

Lots of people around the world disagreed with Bush. Why not use diplomacy. Diplomacy is better than war. Okay, I agreed, let’s try it. It is worth a try.

Obama made his diplomatic offer. Was there anything in Khamenei’s response, any tiny little thing, that provides hope that diplomacy might work? Brian Murphy doesn’t exactly say no, but if there is, it must be entirely on Iran’s terms: “. . . Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's response was more than just a dismissive slap at the outreach. It was a broad lesson in the mind-set of Iran's all-powerful theocracy and how it will dictate the pace and tone of any new steps by Obama to chip away at their nearly 30-year diplomatic freeze.”

Many of us would consider the matter ended. We tried diplomacy and it didn’t work; so let’s go back to the military option. Murphy, however, thinks Obama might crawl – at least that’s how I take his comment that Iran “will dictate the pace and tone of any new steps by Obama to chip away at their nearly 30-year diplomatic freeze” – also the idea that we intend to keep sending them offers in hopes they will change their minds.

Is Obama ready to crawl? He doesn’t look like the crawling type, but if one is a true pacifist, a true opposer of war, then that involves a certain amount of crawling. You can’t give up your right to self-defense and oppose crawling at the same time.

No comments: