Krauthammer: Making A Decision On Iran

Townhall.com ^ | 09/15/06 | Charles Krauthammer

[Froufrou]

In his televised 9/11 address, President Bush said that we must not ``leave our children to face a Middle East overrun by terrorist states and radical dictators armed with nuclear weapons.'' There's only one such current candidate: Iran.

The next day, he responded thus (as reported by Rich Lowry and Kate O'Beirne of National Review) to a question on Iran: ``It's very important for the American people to see the president try to solve problems diplomatically before resorting to military force.''

[Paloma_55]

OK. They win.

We can't do anything or they will cause economic damage to our economy. I guess we can wait for the nukes or maybe just convert to islam.

/sarc

[oldleft]

If oil went above $100, Chavez would be selling it like hot cakes.

[Froufrou]

Then there is the larger danger of permitting nuclear weapons to be acquired by religious fanatics seized with an eschatological belief in the imminent apocalypse and in their own divine duty to hasten the End of Days. The mullahs are infinitely more likely to use these weapons than anyone in the history of the nuclear age.

And, last paragraph, page two, makes it clear: here are the choices, with the decision "no more" than one year away.

[Political Junkie Too]

You left out page 2.

-PJ

[oxcart]

Thanks for posting this. It was posted under a different title from a different source, but deserves a second posting.

Watch out for the Posting Police...;)

[Froufrou]

I keep saying, what if we just quit consuming so much of the stuff? That's the only thing we ever cared about from them. If we stop using their oil, though, it would make them even madder. And Chavez would be hard put to sell us oil if we weren't buying from his buddies in the ME.

[alecqss]

It's about a half of an actual article and the article contains not only a description of the military option potential cost, but also describes the choice: high cost - now, or a catastrophic cost - later.

[what's up]

OK. They win.

Who says?

[Kenny Bunk]

Yo, Frouf,

At the moment, Hugo's oil can be refined at a limited number of refineries in the Caribbean and the US. If we bought more from him than we already do, we would have to bring other refineries online to process his oil. That would not be easy, as refineries are pretty much tailored to their particular feedstocks and it can take many months to switch them to efficiently handle new stuff.

Of course, we could build more refineries, but that is another story. There is absolutely no shortage of crude oil anywhere. The bottleneck is refining capacity to handle it.

[Check_Your_Premises]

I don't see why everyone is afraid of Iran.

If you look at a map, most of their oil assets are right along the coast, right next to Iraq. It is all located in flat terrain.

http://www.webcom.com/beacon/mapcorridor.html

We could probably shoot across the coast; south east from Iraq, south west from Afghanistan, and link up somewhere in the middle.

Simultaneously we begin a REAL shock and awe campaign to destroy all military and goverment assets.

We would take over management of the oil fields and ports. All funds generated from the sale oil would be turned over to any legitimatly elected government should one ever emerge.

The mullahs would be cut-off and their government would collapse. No more petro-dollars funding their mad dreams. The oil market would suffer a serious jolt, but would be back to normal in no time.

CYP

[RinaseaofDs]

"We can't do anything or they will cause economic damage to our economy. I guess we can wait for the nukes or maybe just convert to islam. "

That sums it up, I think. What we've really done is left the check to Israel. Iran WILL nuke Israel. The entire Muslim world is of one accord here in believing the cause of all their problems is Israel.

[M. Dodge Thomas]

Or, Iran might just announce that the "The Great Satan and it's Pygmy Leaders has once against demonstrated their impotence and criminality" and that its nuclear programs were still intact - likely neither we nor anyone else outside of Iran would know if this were true or not.

As recent events in Lebanon reminded us, if your are the militarily stronger power, anything less than a convincing victory is regarded in much of the world as a defeat.

Events in Iraq have already reduced the credibility of our ground forces as a deterrent, a "failed" air attack on Iran would do the same for our air-power. Unless we are prepared to bring such an effort to a convincingly successful conclusion - something that could not be done by air-power alone, but which would likely require occupying the country and ferreting out well-hidden installations - IMO we should not start down the road of half-measuers.

[Constitutions Grandchild]

My sincerest good wishes for the EU -- it's between the proverbial rock and hard place. Russia/Putin on the North and East and Islam on the South and East. Not a pretty place to be. Presumably, I'd be doing a lot of double-speak to keep treading water for as long as I could, as well.

All the disinformation and revisionist historical accounts of the poor Muslims, the brutish Crusades, and the simple Russian peasants who just love their borst and vodka and have no thoughts to globalization. It's too much for most -- I can understand why some folks just pull the covers up and put the pillows over their heads. It's too much to combat and the only solution seems too heartless to contemplate to those of us who simply want to live as the Good Lord gives us direction.

I hate it when you have to choose between two evils. It seems unfair at the least and downright cheating at worst.

[M. Dodge Thomas]

"All funds generated from the sale oil would be turned over to any legitimatly elected government should one ever emerge."

Would that be the government composed of the people who would be throwing flowers at our feet as we invaded their country and took over their oilfields?

Very likely, after such a occupation whatever government was "legitimately elected" would be even more anti-American than the current crop of Mullahs, so we would be looking at an open-ended occupation of Iran. That is, at the difficulties of our current occupation of Iraq, squared.

[SF Republican]

I was always amazed when reading about our Civil War or WWI when everyone knew war was coming and nothing could be done to stop it. It is interesting to see it occur. In addition we boomer's have never sacrificed during war time; it appears we may soon.

[Froufrou]

Good points, of course. All that nonsense about oil shortage in the 70's should remind us. We've got a new find off the Gulf of Mexico and Valero has a refinery on Aruba. Still, I wouldn't trust Chavez as far as I can spit.

[quantfive]

"Events in Iraq have already reduced the credibility of our ground forces as a deterrent, a "failed" air attack on Iran would do the same for our air-power. Unless we are prepared to bring such an effort to a convincingly successful conclusion - something that could not be done by air-power alone, but which would likely require occupying the country and ferreting out well-hidden installations - IMO we should not start down the road of half-measuers."

Agreed, if we don't attack with combined forces of air, ground troops, tanks, missles, special opps the works then we should bone up our intelligence like we did in the Cold War, secure our borders and put Iran on notice that a WMD strike on any of our allies guarantees a nuclear response from us.

[kenavi]

We need to acquire energy at the lowest possible prices in order to compete with other nations in our production and transportion of other goods, as well as to provide our citizenry a comfortable life.

If we boycott the unfriendly nations' oil, it will not lower the price they get, as other industrial nations will buy it.

Therefore, the only ways we can hurt them is by becoming more efficient in how we use energy, by alternative energies becoming more cost-efficient, or by developing U.S. oil reserves.

The market can do most of this the most efficiently. We should start our campaign by stopping the demonization of oil companies.

[Froufrou]

You're right. We haven't sacrificed, like our parents did. My mom had to save rations for meat and shoes. But we're Americans and we can do so, if need be. This is what makes us who we are [IMHO] and where others discount us. If we're pushed into a corner, watch out.