[Mb-civic] FW: Mushrooming Crisis

[Golsorkhi]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Samii Shahla <shahla at thesamiis.com>
Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2006 11:24:08 -0500
Subject: Mushrooming Crisis



Fact and Comment 
Steve Forbes, 01.09.06

Mushrooming Crisis

Iran's soon-to-be successful push for atomic weapons, not the Iraq war, will
be the global hot potato of 2006. All diplomatic efforts to dissuade Tehran
from going nuclear have predictably failed. Russia is not going to pull this
radioactive chestnut out of the fire, either, even though members of the
Bush Administration still pretend it will.

The prospect of Iran's having a nuclear capability is especially frightening
because its new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is lethally delusional. He
is obsessed with the Mahdi (who is to return just before Judgment Day) and
believes he must prepare the way for his reappearance. Ahmadinejad has
repeatedly declared that the Holocaust never took place and that Europe and
the U.S. should provide some of their own land for a Jewish state. Israel
itself should be wiped off the map.

Last month Iran cut a deal with Russia to buy an advanced weapons system
that can destroy incoming missiles and laser-guided bombs. Russia also
helped Iran launch a satellite that could give early warning of an air
attack against Iranian nuclear facilities.

For Iran's black-robed fascists to develop nuclear weapons would be an
immense setback in the war against Islamic fanaticism. It would embolden
terrorists. Tehran would see itself in a position to encourage the overthrow
of the Saudi monarchy--or, at the least, bend it to its will. Is military
action the only alternative? Yes, unless somehow internal Iranian pressures
(the mullahs are despised by most Iranians), as well as international
pressures, force either a fundamental change in this fascist theocracy or
its actual overthrow. Iraq's impressive progress since mid-2004 in building
an economy in which new businesses are proliferating, property prices are
rapidly rising, new schools and hospitals are opening, and a new democratic
political order is under way can only undermine the mullahs, who preside
over a sick economy kept alive solely by the oil windfall. But time is
running short. 

Could the Bush Administration summon the internal fortitude to undertake the
necessary air strikes and possible ground action to set back Iran's nuclear
ambitions for five to ten years? Alternatively, could one imagine the White
House giving Israel the green light to launch air strikes?

Alas, the White House has done next to nothing to prepare and persuade the
U.S. public of the possible need for stern measures here. Thankfully
President Ahmadinejad's consistent public statements on the "myth" of the
Holocaust will make clear to not only us but also the European masses and
elites that this regime poses an increasingly mortal threat to our safety,
that European-style diplomacy (a mechanism for doing nothing) is no longer
viable. 
---
URL: http://www.forbes.com/opinions/free_forbes/2006/0109/023.html



------ End of Forwarded Message

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.islandlists.com/pipermail/mb-civic/attachments/20060102/4ee59d4d/attachment.htm