Who Will Stop The Next War?
If Americans sickened by the carnage of Iraq wish to stop an even more disastrous war on Iran, they had best get cracking.
For the “On-to-Baghdad!” boys are back, warning us that the only way to prevent an atom bomb from being detonated in an American city is to attack and destroy Iran’s nuclear sites. And the forces needed to execute an attack are moving into place. Army Gen. John Abizaid has been replaced as CENTCOM commander by Adm. “Fox” Fallon, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, who knows little about counterinsurgency but a lot about co-ordinating air strikes.
The carrier group Stennis is headed for the Gulf to join the Eisenhower. Minesweepers are headed for the Strait of Hormuz. American fighter-bombers have returned to Incirlik. Iranian officials have been seized in Iraq. Patriot missiles are being moved into Kuwait and Qatar. Why all this firepower—to secure Anbar province and Sadr City?
Bush’s anti-Iran rhetoric has been ratcheted up. Announcing his surge, Bush interjected that Tehran “is providing material support for attacks on American troops. … [W]e will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.” This threat was followed by shoot-to-kill orders to U.S. troops encountering Iranians aiding the insurgency.
But even Pat sees past the smoke and mirrors and fear-mongering.
What is the threat? Iran has no missiles that can reach us, no atom bombs. Though the Mullahs have been in power 27 years, they have yet to launch their first war. The war they fought was in self-defense. They can no more want a Sunni-Shia regional war than we, for they would be in the isolated minority. They want the Taliban kept out of Kabul and Iraq to remain united under a Shia majority, as do we.
It is said that we cannot negotiate with men responsible for the Khobar Towers. But Bush negotiated with Muammar al-Gaddafi, who was responsible for Pan Am 103, and Gaddafi agreed to forego nuclear weapons. Sanctions were lifted and relations restored.
If FDR can talk to Stalin, and Nixon to Mao, and Bush to the North Vietnamese (who tortured John McCain), why can’t we talk to Mullahs who held 52 Americans hostage for a year?
Never know where reality will come from. Sometimes even a crazy like Pat Buchanan.
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