Tehran can't be deterred

Submitted by Pat (United States), May 10, 2006 at 11:33

I fully agree with your sentiments. It's the equivalent of the police reading someone the Riot Act. Since the UN refuses to do anything about obvious violations of its own charter, it's up to the US to do the dirty work. Our problem is that we are too concerned with the world liking us than with protecting ourselves

There are two more problems. First Iranians are not Arabs and they don't particularly care what the Arab world thinks of them. Second, no matter how much antipathy exists between Iranians and Arabs, they each hate the US far more than they do each other. Arabs will not worry about a nuclear Iran if they think it will be enough to keep the US off their backs. For a people that think in terms of centuries and millenia, this is a shortsighted view but, for them, the destruction of the US and Israel (Great and Little Satan) is first priority and they'll deal with the repercussions afterward. For some of them, killing half the world (themselves included) is acceptable, as long as the end result is universal Islam.

My instincts also are to sit back and let these countries go nuclear, with the full understanding that they will be destroyed if they use those weapons offensively. If their neighbors are worried, let THEM form a coalition and pass a resolution and only then come to the US for help, not the other way around. As for the UN, the US should withdraw from it immediately and then the UN should be thrown out of the US.

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