Which would you prefer? An Iran with nuclear weapons, or Iranians mounting terrorist campaigns all over the world? From the Washington Post:
As tensions increase between the United States and Iran, U.S. intelligence and terrorism experts say they believe Iran would respond to U.S. military strikes on its nuclear sites by deploying its intelligence operatives and Hezbollah teams to carry out terrorist attacks worldwide.
Iran would mount attacks against U.S. targets inside Iraq, where Iranian intelligence agents are already plentiful, predicted these experts. There is also a growing consensus that Iran’s agents would target civilians in the United States, Europe and elsewhere, they said.
Ouch. I can’t be the only one thinking the DHS is really not up to this. Unfortunately, according to the Telegraph, we may be about to run that second option:
It is believed that an American-led attack, designed to destroy Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear bomb, is “inevitable” if Teheran’s leaders fail to comply with United Nations demands to freeze their uranium enrichment programme. […]
The United States government is hopeful that the military operation will be a multinational mission, but defence chiefs believe that the Bush administration is prepared to launch the attack on its own or with the assistance of Israel, if there is little international support. British military chiefs believe an attack would be limited to a series of air strikes against nuclear plants – a land assault is not being considered at the moment.
Hmmm. That second paragraph sounds familiar to me. According to the article, it apparently sounds familiar to the Telegraph, too.
Polimom’s tempted to run screaming from the computer with all this, except…. they may still be dancing the “I’m tougher than you” dance. Certainly the Iranians can read the MSM as easily as Polimom. One wonders what their take is on our take (on their take…etc.)
It’s possible that the dance will continue for a while, but it’s also possible that the Iranians have noticed that the White House has a limping, feathered leader, and thus be willing to risk all. Certainly it’s hard to imagine Bush getting support to attack another country under the preemptive doctrine again – but he might try.
This posturing and threatening is much like a game of chicken, with Iran and the U.S. driving directly at one another down a one-lane highway at breakneck speed.
I don’t know who’s gonna blink first and turn aside, but I sure hope it’s Iran.