Source: Investor’s Business Daily
Investor’s Business Daily, July 10, 2007 – Iran’s goal is to make the U.S. miserable, and it’s all but openly declared war against us. The country’s leaders, led by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have been implicated in the deaths of some 200 U.S. troops. They’ve funded terrorist militia groups in Iraq, and trained and aided Hezbollah and Hamas terrorists.<\/p>\n
Worse, they’ve got an active nuclear program. Already they’ve produced some 100 kilograms of refined uranium, enough for two smallish Hiroshima-sized nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n
But Iran really wants a weapon of sufficient megatonnage that could completely destroy a major city of an enemy — like, for instance, Tel Aviv in Israel, or New York or Los Angeles in the U.S.<\/p>\n
Hardly a week goes by without some new milestone in Iran’s nuclear program being passed. This week, it was announced that recent U.S. satellite photos show a flurry of tunneling in "the back yard of Iran’s most ambitious and controversial nuclear facility" in Natanz.<\/p>\n
"We think (the tunnel) is probably for storage of nuclear items," said former U.N. weapons inspector David Albright, who now heads the Institute for Science and International Security.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman, one of a few in Washington who actually gets what’s happening, wrote late last week that the "fanatical regime in Tehran has concluded that it can use proxies to strike at us and our friends in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine without fear of retaliation."<\/p>\n
He’s right. As Jed Babbin, a former deputy undersecretary of defense, recently noted, the U.S. and the West have tried everything to appease the mullahs. We’ve offered to talk. We’ve eased trade restrictions on Iranian caviar, pistachios and carpets. We’ve stopped calling them a "rogue" state. And, of course, we’ve offered to talk some more. Nothing has worked.<\/p>\n
Members of both parties in Congress ignore the threat, while European members of the International Atomic Energy Agency propose a nuclear "timeout." When Iran gets its nuclear weapon, it will dictate what happens across much of the Mideast.<\/p>\n
It may install a puppet regime in Iraq, for instance, giving the mullahs de facto control over a major swath of the world’s oil. It may feel emboldened to attack Israel with a nuclear weapon, thinking that the West is too weak and too decadent to come to a friend’s aid.<\/p>\n
Who can blame them for thinking such things? They’re already attacking our troops and aiding Shiite militias inside Iraq. Things are so bad even al-Qaida this week warned Iran to stop helping Iraq’s Shiite-led government and militias. Al-Qaida gets it. Why don’t we?<\/p>\n
No doubt, given political realities in Washington, a full-on war is out of the question. So what can we do? Plenty, as it turns out.<\/p>\n
Already Iran has begun to ration gasoline, setting off major riots. Because of Iran’s heavy subsidies and failure to attract new investment, some analysts believe it will have to start importing oil within five to 10 years — even though it has the world’s No. 2 oil reserves.<\/p>\n
A well-targeted strike on Iran’s main gasoline refinery would ruin its economy. So would a strike, now rather than later, on its nuclear facilities at Natanz and Bushehr.<\/p>\n
We might also ratchet up our political pressure on Iran, giving more support to internal dissident groups. Iran’s economy suffers from double-digit inflation and joblessness. Its government is hopelessly corrupt. And with 70% of its budget coming from oil, its shrinking oil output couldn’t come at a worse time.<\/p>\n
It’s also losing about 150,000 educated people a year, an intolerable brain drain that’s killing its economy. Iran is vulnerable.<\/p>\n
It won’t take much to topple the regime. That should be our goal. Taking action today will save us a lot of heartache tomorrow. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Source: Investor’s Business Daily Investor’s Business Daily, July 10, 2007 – Iran’s goal is to make the U.S. miserable, and it’s all but openly declared war against us. The country’s leaders, led by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have been implicated in the deaths of some 200 U.S. troops. They’ve funded terrorist militia groups in Iraq, and trained […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[175],"class_list":["post-3826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-iran-a-world","tag-updated"],"yoast_head":"\n