Can't lose what you never had

Betsy Pisik reports in today's Washington Times that Iran is planning to build an additional 10 nuclear plants. Obama administration Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said , as quoted in her article, that, "Our patience and that of the international community is limited, and time is running out. The IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and the United Nations have to enforce the rules of the road." 

Also quoted is British Foreign Secretary David Milband, who, in something of an understatement, called the Iranian move, "provacative." He went on to say that he recognizes that Iran has a right to a civilian nuclear program, but that the Iranians must "restore international confidence in their intentions." 

Just what "rules of the road" does Mr. Gibbs expect the impotent IAEA and the equally flaccid U.N. to enforce? "Restore international confidence" in Iranian intentions? Is he kidding? The Iranian intent to build a nuclear weapon has always been transparently obvious. Their intent to build these new facilities into mountainsides in order to protect them from military attack should make it even more obvious. Even Mohammed ElBaradei, who last week stepped down as the head of the IAEA, said that Iran was losing its "credibility" on the issue. What does he mean "losing its credibility?" The Iranians have never once had even a shred of credibility on the issue.

The Iranians know that the United States is involved in two wars already, and public support for an American attack on its nuclear facilities would be questionable at best. They also view President Obama's desire to exhaust all diplomatic options, including international sanctions "with teeth," as weakness. The President's ill-advised decision to revoke plans to install long-rang missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic in return for illusory Russian support for international sanctions only served to reinforce their perception of his weakness. That the President chooses to "act" through the U.N. is seen by the Iranians as an opportunity to further their nuclear ambitions. They know that the Russians and the Chinese will not support sanctions, and must feel reasonably certain that the administration will not authorize military strikes. Time is on their side. All that they have to do is to keep stalling.

The unfortunate truth is that the Iranians are probably correct in their judgement of the President's weakness. Mr. Obama should inform the Iranians, in no uncertain terms, that they must dismantle their nuclear program or that he will do it for them. Given Iran's support for international terrorism, there is really no other rational choice.

It says here that President Obama has no stomach to do what must be done. The blood will be on his hands if he does nothing.  

Note to KPC: It didn't take very long at all to come up with the LSD (liberal/socialist/Democrat) party label. Like the dog in the movie, "Beethoven," they named themselves through their own words and actions.

Your statement that my attacks on John Kerry border on being "dishonest and puerile," is puzzling. What Kerry said before Congress is a matter of public record. His meaning was clear and not open to interpretation. The man has fashioned a lucrative career from his dishonest attacks on his comrades-in-arms. He has done nothing over the years to raise my low opinion of him. Before Congress, he spoke of standing by and watching as his fellow soldiers "cut off heads." If atrocities such as he said he witnessed were taking place in his presence, and he did nothing to stop them, then he was a coward and should have been court-martialed.

I personally watched on television as he threw away his campaign medals at an anti-war rally. When he produced those same medals years later, when his military service was a politically useful tool which he saw fit to use to his advantage, it made me sick. His 'Reporting for duty" comment at the Democratic National Convention was just as nauseating.   

I did not say that he wrote the report on Tora Bora, only that he was Chairman of the committee which did.

That he accused American soldiers of kicking in doors and terrorizing Iraqi civilians is undeniable. There was nothing noble about that accusation. The statement was pure political theatre.

Though I never served in Vietnam, it has been my privilege to have served with many who did. Several of my family members are Vietnam vets. Not one of them has ever testified to the truth of Kerry's account before Congress, or that they ever witnessed the kind of atrocities that Kerry says he witnessed. Most of them see him as a political opportunist who stabbed his brothers in the back for political gain, and have no use for him. The rest just have no use for him. Feel free to admire him if that's what floats your boat.