Israeli military expert on bombing Iran
Israeli military expert Martin van Creveld agrees with Dem minority leader Harry Reid that "no good military options exist in Iran."
For his part, Reid laid into the administration for sitting on its hands while other nations take the initiative and talk to Iran. From Nico Pitney: "It is hard to comprehend," Reid said Tuesday in Reno. "We should be involved at trying to arrive at a diplomatic solution. … Not just these three countries."
Reid's referring to Germany, France and Great Britain, all of whom are talking to Iran, which, by the way HAS NOT SAID THAT IT IS BUILDING NUCLEAR WEAPONS.
Sorry about the caps, but in this age of blunt pronouncements and oops, my mistake, but it was close blunders, you can't be too careful. Or too subtle, apparently.
Hebrew U's van Creveld first traces the history of each successive "evil" regime as they built their first nuclear weapon and ensuing US rhetoric about getting blown off the face of the Earth. From the Soviet Union to Britain and France, to China and Israel, to India and Pakistan right up through North Korea and Iran, "As the record shows, in none of these cases did the pessimists' visions come true. Neither Stalin, Mao nor any of the rest set out to conquer the world. It is true that, as one country after another joined the nuclear club, Washington's ability to threaten them or coerce them declined."
Be that as it may, he still warns that not only is our intelligence weak on Iran's current activities (reports from our and other intelligence agencies talking "about Tehran building a bomb in three and five years have been made again and again � for more than 15 years.") but what can they do if they DO build a bomb?
Arguing that "Jerusalem can quickly turn Tehran into a radioactive desert � a fact of which Iranians are fully aware," Van Creveld's analysis undermines every serious Bush talking point on Iran.
In fact, there's mounds of evidence pointing to the weakness and unpopularity of the Iranian leadership. Saber-rattling and provoking the US is widely seen as a desperate attempt to rally Iranians around the flag. Sort of like... well, you can do the math.
Harry Reid, the Democratic leader has it right on this one. We have everything to gain by negotiation. Bush's failure to do so is just another sign of his administration's weakness when it comes to security... (ThinkProgress, the Forward)
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