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EDITORIAL: Iran a challenge -- and opportunity(Santa Fe New Mexican, The (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Apr. 13--So now the sabers are being rattled at Iran. It's a worthier target than Iraq, whose people have died by the tens of thousands, and where more than 2,300 of our young men and women have lost their lives in a war fraudulently staged and incompetently managed by our nation's commander in chief. But that's no reason -- yet -- for threats, veiled or otherwise, of air strikes against wherever we think the Iranian Islamic-extremist regime is cooking up nuclear weapons and building missiles to tote them. To be sure, Tehran's chip-on-shoulder displays of enriched-uranium technology and ever-more-effective missiles aren't advancing the cause of world peace, especially with its continual cries for the destruction of Israel. Such stunts don't match the ayatollahs' insistence that they want atoms only for peace. Their warlike ululating has prompted the Pentagon to dust off its contingency plans for further dealing with Iran. This time, the generals and admirals aren't looking at hapless helicopter assaults President Carter called out in an attempt to free our country's hostage diplomats; no, our full aerial power could possibly be unleashed on this latest enemy. And since the White House isn't fixated on a single leader, as it was on Saddam Hussein, some strategists are daydreaming of a war without our troops on the ground. That's potentially tragic thinking: We might -- or might not -- neutralize some of Iran's nuclear laboratories; some intelligence reports say they're widely scattered across tens of thousands of square miles of mountain and desert, and far underground to boot. Beyond that, we'd outrage that nation's many, if muffled, moderates; from that frenzy would emerge thousands more terrorists for a suicide-retaliation campaign. Like Bill Clinton, George W. Bush is a president desperate to distract his nation from the lies enveloping his administration. Clinton limited his military feint to missile attacks -- on a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, and a few wild shots at Osama bin Laden's supposed hideouts. Bush has what might be a credible target for American revenge, pre-emption, or both. But with any luck, this latest episode could amount to a bluff -- by both sides. And Bush, to his credit, is sounding something like a diplomat in the face of Iranian irrationality. He knows he can't spare a single soldier against Iran, even if he's able to close down our operation in -- remember? -- Afghanistan late this summer. The president also seems vaguely aware of the diplomatic damage he did by cobbling together a "coalition of the willing" instead of enlisting NATO or the United Nations against Saddam. So, having raised a more-than-faint possibility of attacking Iran, he was quick to dismiss such notions as wild speculation. Diplomacy, he says, will play at least as big a role as threats of pre-emption in turning down the heat on Iran. Bush, and whoever succeeds him, probably have time on their side: Weapons experts say it could take Iran five to 10 years to be able to wage nuclear war; by then, perhaps, that country will see a second wave of moderation. If that happens, Iran's new leaders could make a case before the United Nations for nuclear development -- the civilian kind; worrisome, but subject to monitoring. All this assumes our president won't fabricate a weapons-of-mass-destruction scenario in Iran, with all that could portend; and that Iranian leaders won't play into his hands with more of the potentially lethal nonsense they've been spewing. Surely Bush recognizes how short he is on credibility with his own nation -- and how much of it he could regain by effectively facing down the Iranian regime. |