Countering Iran’s Designs

As Americans wonder how to cope with Iran, Iran keeps killing Americans. The primary battleground is Iraq, where agents of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards fund and arm the Shiite extremists whose IEDs pierce the armor of U.S. soldiers and whose bombs massacre Iraqi civilians. Within the next few days, four senators will introduce legislation that faces these facts unflinchingly and calls on America to win.

The resolution — an amendment to a defense appropriations bill — is sponsored by Jon Kyl, Joseph Lieberman, Norm Coleman, and Lindsey Graham. It expresses the sense of the Senate that the U.S. should “combat, contain, and roll back” Iran’s “violent activities and destabilizing influence inside Iraq.” It counsels doing so “through the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of [U.S. power], including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military instruments.” It also urges the administration to designate the Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization.

No great imagination is required to predict the Left’s attack on the amendment. “Needlessly provocative,” they will say. “What we need is more diplomacy.” And, “If you don’t like American soldiers dying from Iranian-made IEDs, bring them home.”

The last is of course another way of saying, “Surrender” — not a bad policy, if you don’t mind giving an Islamist, terrorist-sponsoring, nuclearizing theocracy the dominant role in the Middle East. There can be no question that this is what Iran’s rulers intend. Sometimes they’re even nice enough to tell us so. “The political power of the occupiers [a.k.a. the United States] is collapsing rapidly. Soon we will see a huge power vacuum in the region. Of course we are prepared to fill the gap.” That’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a little over three weeks ago. Perhaps the faculty of Columbia University can get further details when they roll out the red carpet for his visit to their campus. But you don’t have to take his word for it. Simply cast your eyes toward any of Iran’s proxies in the region — Hamas lobbing missiles at Israel, Hezbollah doing its best to destroy Lebanon, Syria serving as a transit hub for banned weapons — and what you see is the handiwork of an aspiring hegemon.

That last item — the Syrian connection — especially bears watching in light of the Sept. 6 Israeli air strike on a target in Syria. U.S. government sources have confirmed to the Washington Post that the strike came after intelligence sharing with the U.S., and that the target was a suspected nuclear site set up in cooperation with North Korea. Syria is of course a client state of Iran, and the Islamic Republic has a long history of cooperating with North Korea on banned weapon technologies. Iran’s membership in this axis makes it an even greater threat to the United States, and to global security generally, than it would be on its own.

Of course, the stakes within Iraq are high enough, which is probably why Iran has been intensifying its proxy attacks on U.S. troops. That isn’t a partisan opinion, but the conclusion of the latest National Intelligence Estimate, a consensus document prepared by the U.S. intelligence organizations: “Iran has been intensifying aspects of its lethal support for select groups of Iraqi Shia militants . . . since at least the beginning of 2006. Explosively formed penetrator (EFP) attacks have risen dramatically.” And a Sept. 18 Defense Department report to Congress projected that, once final tallies are available, the number of EFP attacks in Iraq for the period from June to August will have risen by 39 percent over the period from March to May.

In that vein, let us pause and give thanks for the fruits of “talking to Iran.” Since May, Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, has talked to his Iranian counterpart twice. “The impression I came [away] with . . . is that the Iranians were interested simply in the appearance of discussions,” Crocker recently explained to Congress. “I haven’t seen any sign of earnest[ness] or seriousness on the Iranian side.” We’ll take Crocker’s word on how the talks went. As for signs of seriousness, we think that 39-percent rise is a good one, though it isn’t exactly what the Baker-Hamilton Commission had in mind. Iran’s shielding of al Qaeda leaders, and its weapons shipments to Taliban forces in Afghanistan (one of which was intercepted earlier this year), make its intentions perfectly clear as well.

What emerges from these details is a simple story: Iran is striving mightily to defeat the U.S. in Iraq because it knows that only by doing so can it impose its designs on the Middle East. Those designs include the rollback of American influence in the region, the formation of alliances to challenge U.S. power, the expansion of rule by sharia, and the destruction of Israel. Iranian dominance within this order is to be guaranteed by the atomic bombs that no one seriously doubts the mullahs are trying to build. Today’s Senate amendment won’t do a lot to stop all that. But it will give senators a chance to tell us whether they think it should be stopped.

I am thoroughly sick and tired of hearing the opponents of the war constantly saying the American people are against the war and fostering the belief that the only people for the war are a few Bush administration cronies who stand to gain from it politically or financially. Granted, most of the polling results you see reported in the MSM show a majority of Americans are against the war, but the only thing they know about it is what they’ve heard on the news and in addition to that the questions on the polls are slanted in such a way as to assure the results they want to get and report.

It has become abundantly clear, to me at least, that Iran is the major cause of problems throughout not only the Middle East, but around the world. And running a close second is Saudi Arabia. In the case of the Saudis they have played footsie with the bad guys for decades in order to assure the continuation of the royal family’s reign. They don’t seem to realize, or at at least aren’t willing to deal with, the fact that in the end all they have bought themselves is an agreement with the Islamofascist alligator that it will eat them last.

The Iranians must laugh themselves to sleep at night thinking about how stupid we are to adhere to some sort of politically correct rules in dealing with them while they spend their time getting ready for the next blow against us. No wonder they think their god is so powerful. They have been allowed to run free all over the world, all the while proclaiming their successes are because their religion is so proper. They honestly believe that their god will give them nuclear weapons to use to destroy their enemies and they are making every move possible to make that happen. Meanwhile, we let their nut job leader not only come to our country, but make an appearance at a major university.

God (literally) help us.

Last week Dennis Prager had a guest Michael Ladeen who says we need to assist the Iranian resistance. The majority of Iranians hate the people in charge and want to overthrow them. But the State Department is still traumatized over the hostage taking in the late 70s, and they think if they negotiate with the current Iranian government, it shows that they didn’t really fail in the Carter administration. It’s hard to know what could get the White House to act, though. But leaving the situation as is, will lead to disaster. Sometimes I hate politics...

The easiest way to counter the Iranians is to withdraw from Iraq

points to tagline

Well, I can certainly assure both Mr. Prager and Mr. Ladeen that welcoming the President of the country they hate so much will do little to embolden the dissidents in Iran to rise up against the government! It’s bad enough that letting this POS even step foot on American soil but the message it sends to those who would be tempted to rise up against him and his ilk in Iran is even worse.

I am convinced that well over half of what ails our nation in foreign affairs comes from the State Department. It’s chock full of federal bureaucrats who once they get a position are there until they die. It would not surprise me one bit to find out that many of those who were there when Carter was in office are still there. And who knows how many Clinton hangers-on still pull strings at State, not to mention CIA, a la Plame et al!

It’s like the old B-grade movies where the guy was getting hysterical and someone stepped up and slapped the crap out of them and told them to “get hold of yourself!” Iran or Syria or the Islamofacicsts or N. Korea or China are going to step up one of the days and slap the crap out of us. I would have thought 9-11 would have done the trick, but the fact that so many in positions of power have long since forgotten the lessons of that awful day just goes to show how deeply entrenched the liberal’s unrealistic views of the world are.

If we think 9-11 was bad just wait until it’s mushroom cloud that towers over what was left of an American city. I pray daily that someone at the top will wake up and decide to take the WOT seriously BEFORE it takes the loss of an American city and tens of thousands of Americans to do the trick.

The only comfort I can take in all of this is that one day I believe we will all be required to stand before our Creator and give an account of our lives and what we did with them. I firmly believe that those who have stabbed our fighting men and women in the back will be called to an accounting for their treason.

If I had my way the car carrying that POS to the UN and to Columbia would be swarmed by over a million angry Americans, so many that the police and secret service assigned to protect him would be completely powerless to do a thing to stop them. I would not hurt him in any way, but I would make it abundantly clear to him that the BS he reads in the MSM and the BS he hears from the mouths of traitors like Reid and Pelosi and Murtha does not in any way represent the feelings of the American people. In any event I would love to see a mass of citizens so large that his car couldn’t even move from its parking space at the airport.

Russia and China are a big part of our troubles in the middle east. They are arming our enemies throughout the middle east and giving them ideological and moral support. Russia wants us tied down in Iraq as long as possible. Putin is setting the stage for a rebirth of the Russian Empire. The more support we give to pro democracy movements in the non-Russian states of the former Soviet Union, the more support he will give Iran and the Iraqi insurgency in the form of weaponry to use against us. China wants us tied down in the middle east so they can move on Taiwan if they feel its necessary to do so.

A lot of the trouble we get, or are likely to get, from China and Russia has to do with the feckless way that we deal with our enemies. We let our love of money, the root of all evil according to the scriptures, interfere with our ability to think straight. Any damage China ends up doing to us will be done using strengths and weapons purchased with our own money. We would rather get a pair of jockey shorts for less than tell China to shove it and pay the price to make them here in the US.

If we would deal with Iran the way a country normally deals with its enemies there would be no Iran for China or anyone else to set against us.

Don’t think for a minute that China and Russia, as well as a host of other nations around the world who wish us ill, aren’t paying very close attention to how we let the PC crowd in our midst set the tone for our handling of our enemies. If we had taken the fight to Iran when they first launched a war against us they would be a whole lot more concerned about our response if they move against Taiwan.

But you are certainly correct about the extent to which our Middle East problems are compounded by China and Russia.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.