Wednesday, March 11, 2009

US might engage Iran before June Elections

http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20090311_1427.php

The above article is from the Global Security Newswire, dated March 11, 2009

I continue to wish President Obama well in his efforts to diplomatically curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The Bush administration couldn’t do it with threats; so perhaps Obama’s administration can with other means. However, as we see from the article: “Iran's top military officer said Obama was as "warmongering" as his predecessor, George W. Bush, Reuters reported yesterday.

"We cannot claim that the (U.S.) Democrats are not warmongering like the Republicans. They are just as warmongering and mischievous, and they would like to do that (attack Iran)," Maj. Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi said.”

What in Obama’s background or in any of his acts since becoming president has convinced General Firouzabadi that he is a “warmonger”? I literally wince when I read such things. I was an engineer for 39 years and must see evidence for arguments. I want to see” this has happened. He said this and this. Therefore.” If Firouzabada really did build that sort of argument then Reuters is at fault for deleting it, but I have read too much material from Iran and from Arab news to think that. They are traditionally, both Shiites and Sunni, very fond of conspiracy theories. If we were to somehow get General Firouzabada to explain himself, chances are he would produce something so bizarre, so impossible, that we would shake our heads in disbelief. No, General. President Obama is not a warmonger. You will have to do something very dangerous and provocative to force him into a war. I trust that wiser heads in Iran will prevent you from doing that.

General Firouzabada thumbs his nose at the US adding that even though the US would like to attack Iran "'. . .they are unable to do that and there is no way to stage an attack against Iran. America is not able to incur the cost of attacking Iran,' he added.”

Ah, General, you have us there. Not only does Obama not want to attack you, he isn’t able to. So much for warmongering. But I would suggest that you look elsewhere for a more immediate threat. Israel has judged Iran's nuclear program to pose a greater, more immediate threat [than the US does] . . . the Israelis are far more concerned about it, and they take more of a worst-case approach to these things from their point of view. . ." Obama, coming from an anti-war, semi-pacifistic background is probably going to dither, but I’m not at all sure that Israel will. Why do you keep underestimating Israel over there?

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