THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 116, May 7, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
HILLARY CLINTON'S RIGHT TO SAY "OBLITERATE"
By Dr. Michael Rubin
THE SINGLE GREATEST DANGER TO INTERNATIONAL PEACE & SECURITY: IRAN'S ADVANCE TOWARD NUCLEAR
MILITARY CAPABILITY -- THE LIMITS OF A U.S. FOREIGN POLICY OF RELIANCE ON INSPECTIONS & NEGOTIATIONS AS THE
PRIMARY OR EXCLUSIVE MEANS TO DEAL WITH AN IRANIAN POLITICAL REGIME BENT ON ACQUIRING A NUCLEAR
MILITARY CAPABILITY -- WHAT THE NEXT U.S. PRESIDENT MUST KNOW ABOUT IRAN, THE IRANIAN REGIME, ITS
ANTI-WESTERN IDEOLOGY, & ITS NUCLEAR AMBITIONS -- THE IGNORANCE & INEXPERIENCE OF PRESIDENTIAL CONTENDER
BARAK OBAMA
FULL STORY:
On April 29, 2008, answering a question on ABC's "Good Morning America," U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton warned that, if
Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons, "we would be able to totally obliterate them." On NBC's "Meet the Press,"
Sunday, May 4, U.S. Senator Barack Obama chided Clinton. "It's language reflective of George Bush. ...This kind of
language is not helpful," Obama told Tim Russert.
If peace and stability are Obama's goals, one only needs to read the Iranian newspapers to see that he is dead wrong. On
Sunday, the economic daily Donya-e Eqtesad declared the most recent diplomatic initiative -- a package of
incentives offered by the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany -- to be a validation of Iranian
defiance. Then, the next day, Kayhan, the daily newspaper that is the mouthpiece of the Iranian Supreme Leader,
ridiculed international diplomats' offers of incentives to Iran if it stops its nuclear enrichment, chiding them "for mistaking
Iran today with Iran four years ago" and noting that "Iran's bargaining position has strengthened considerably" since it
began to accelerate its enrichment.
Obama must confront reality: While everyone wishes for diplomacy's success, it is Iran's nuclear advance, not American
"saber-rattling," that is the single greatest danger to international peace and security.
The civilian nature of Iran's nuclear program is fiction. First, there is original sin: Iran experimented with warhead design
until 2003. It spent millions to conceal its enrichment capability. It rests on a sea of oil and gas, giving it almost limitless
generating capability for a fraction of its nuclear investment. Most damning, Iran does not possess the uranium resources
to power its reactors beyond 2023.
Iran's Foreign Ministry officials -- basically out-of-the-loop minders for Western diplomats and journalists -- deny military
ambitions. But those closer to Iran's leadership tell a very different story. On December 14, 2001, then-President Hashemi
Rafsanjani raised the possibility that, because Iran has the size to withstand a nuclear response, a nuclear first strike on
Israel might be worthwhile.
On May 29, 2005, Hojjat ol-Islam Gholam Reza Hasani, the Supreme Leader's representative in West Azerbaijan, declared
possession of nuclear weapons to be one of Iran's top goals. "An atom bomb ...must be produced as well," he said. While
University of Michigan Professor Juan Cole has made a cottage industry of denying that Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad said he wished to wipe Israel off the face of the map, the Iranian President's official translation affirmed his
genocidal intent, as did the missiles paraded through Tehran with banners calling for Israel's demise.
The next U.S. President will confront a very different Iran from that faced by George Bush. That Obama, while not taking
military options off the table entirely, seems bent on relying primarily on inspections and negotiations, shows ignorance
and inexperience.
The International Atomic Energy Agency inspects only Iran's declared facilities. It does so once a month. But, if Iran has
installed 6,000 centrifuges, as Ahmadinejad has claimed, the Islamic Republic could produce a bomb's worth of highly
enriched uranium in a matter of weeks.
If Iran goes nuclear, no amount of diplomacy will put the nuclear genie back in the bottle. And, while most Iranians are
peaceful, they do not control the country's nuclear program; the Supreme Leader and the Revolutionary Guards -- the
most ideological and reactionary faction within the Islamic Republic -- do.
And so, in the face of a saber-rattling Iran, the next U.S. President will have just two main policy options: containment and
deterrence. Both are military strategies. Containment requires alliances with regional states, forward deployment, and, yes,
permanent bases. Deterrence requires all Iranians to understand the collective responsibility that accompanies any use of
nuclear weapons.
Clarifying red lines and consequences is not warmongering; it is responsible diplomacy.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
American Government & the U.S. Presidency:
Presidential Politics & National Leadership
Military Weaponry & International Security:
Weapons of Mass Destruction & Arms Control
The Middle East & the Problem of Iran
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Dr. Michael Rubin, a Ph.D. in History (Yale University) and a specialist in Middle Eastern politics, Islamic culture and Islamist
ideology, is Editor of the Middle East Quarterly, a senior lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School, and a resident
scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. Dr Rubin is author of Into the Shadows: Radical
Vigilantes in Khatami's Iran (Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2001) and is co-author, with Dr. Patrick Clawson,
of Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). Dr. Rubin served as political advisor to the Coalition
Provisional Authority in Baghdad (2003-2004); staff advisor on Iran and Iraq in the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense
(2002-2004); visiting lecturer in the Departments of History and International Relations at Hebrew University of Jerusalem
(2001-2002); visiting lecturer at the Universities of Sulaymani, Salahuddin, and Duhok in Iraqi Kurdistan (2000-2001); Soref
Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (1999-2000); and visiting lecturer in the Department of History at Yale
University (1999-2000). He has been a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, the Leonard Davis Institute at Hebrew
University, and the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs.
The foregoing article by Dr. Rubin was originally published in the New York Daily News, May 7, 2008, and can be
found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum, a foreign policy think tank which seeks to
define and promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam,
working for Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote
constitutional democracy in the Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly
asserting U.S. interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian threat.
(Article URL: http://www.meforum.org/article/1889)
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
May 7, 2008
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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