July 26, 2004

Hawks

Nashville newspaper The Tennessean urges the Bush administration to "deal now with Iran" Hawks? Urging military engagement with the mad nuke-seeking terrorist-funding mullahs of Tehran? No. The editorial urges that America engage Iran diplomatically, and echoes a recent Council of Foreign Relations report on Iran that recommended "constructive engagement" with the Iranian regime and "use areas of mutual interest to draw Iran into a constructive dialogue," in the belief that those contacts would "help promote political evolution from within Iran."

It's good to see the paper urging the nation to deal with the growing Iranian threat sooner rather than later, but I don't accept that the CFR has the right approach.

The Iranian mullarchy has shown no signs of willingness to cease its ceaseless pursuit of nuclear technology and, as oft documented by Michael Ledeen, the regime has of late been making serious and specific threats about terrorist attacks inside the U.S. I fear that a policy of "constructive engagement" will simply cost us time and we'll wake up one day to find a nuclear-armed Iran.

Given Iran's role in creating and sustaining the Islamist terror organization Hezbollah, it is certainly within the realm of possibility that a nuclear armed Iran woould provide such a weapon to terrorists.

The good news is, the population of Iran is young, pro-democracy and pro-American. The aging mullahs are running out of time. We don't need to invade and occupy Iran - but we ought to be providing arms and assistance to internal revolutionaries, to be helping organize a new government-in-exile, and to be making it crystal clear through presidential statements and a congressional resolution that America will support the overthrow of the Iranian regime by the Iranian people.