“The Iranians are on the march,” warned John McCain Sunday.<\/p>\n
“Iran is building a new Persian Empire,” echoed Col. Ralph Peters.<\/p>\n
So alarmed is Speaker Boehner, he invited Bibi Netanyahu to come and challenge U.S. policy toward Iran from the same podium where the president delivered his State of the Union address.<\/p>\n
Bibi will make the case for new U.S. sanctions on Iran; sanctions that Obama has said he will veto as they would sabotage talks on Iran’s nuclear program and potentially put us on the road to war.<\/p>\n
Why are Bibi’s insights needed?<\/p>\n
Because, says Sen. Robert Menendez, the outgoing chairman of foreign relations, White House statements sound like “talking points from Tehran.” This beloved poodle of AIPAC is always a strong contender for best in show.<\/p>\n
“Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence … a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government.”<\/p>\n
So warned our first and greatest president in his Farewell Address.<\/p>\n
But this column is not about how Washington would weep at what has become of this Republic, nor a polemic against the corruption of a capital where the currency is campaign cash and national policy is the commodity bought and sold.<\/p>\n
The issue is whether Iran represents a threat to our security worth risking a war. For that is where many, including Bibi, want us to go.<\/p>\n
Last week’s panic was triggered by the ouster of the pro-American Yemeni President by Houthi rebels. Suddenly, we heard wails that Iran has now captured four Arab capitals \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Baghdad, Beirut, Damascus and Sanaa.<\/p>\n
“Death to America, death to Israel,” is a slogan of the Houthis who are a Shia minority in Sunni Yemen. But who do the Houthis view as their mortal foes?<\/p>\n
Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, AQAP. Our enemy, too.<\/p>\n
The crown jewel of the new “Persian Empire” is said to be Iraq. So how did the Iranian imperialists manage to acquire it?<\/p>\n
George Bush sent an army up to Baghdad, ousted Iran’s greatest enemy, Saddam, disbanded his army, smashed his state, and brought to power a Shia majority with religious and historic bonds to Iran.<\/p>\n
A masterstroke of Bismarckian brilliance. And both parties voted in Congress to authorize it. Mission Accomplished! \u00e2\u20ac\u201d as they say in Tehran.<\/p>\n
As for Damascus, Iran is but backing the Alawite Shia regime of Bashar Assad, whose father, Hafez Assad, was Bush I’s ally in Desert Storm.<\/p>\n
As for Beirut, Hezbollah arose as a resistance movement when Ariel Sharon invaded Lebanon in 1982.<\/p>\n
Yitzhak Rabin would come to regret the consequences: “We let the Shia genie out of the bottle.”<\/p>\n
Looking over the chaos that is the Middle East today, we see failed states in Libya, Yemen and Syria, with Iraq and Afghanistan perhaps next.<\/p>\n
A strategic disaster, largely of our own making. But if al-Qaeda and ISIS are our real enemies now, Iran, Hezbollah, Assad and the Houthis are all de facto allies, fighting on the same side with us.<\/p>\n
Alarmists may see a new Persian Empire threatening all mankind.<\/p>\n
A closer look reveals a Shia minority in a Sunni-dominated world where Shia are despised heretics. And of all the terrorist organizations we have the most reason to fear and hate \u00e2\u20ac\u201d al-Qaida, Islamic State, Ansar al-Sharia, Boko Haram \u00e2\u20ac\u201d none is Shia, all are Sunni.<\/p>\n
What about Iran’s drive to build a nuclear bomb?<\/p>\n
Well, Israel has 100-300 atom bombs. America has thousands. Iran’s Muslim neighbor Pakistan has scores. And Iran? She has no bomb.<\/p>\n
Iran has never tested a nuclear device. She has never produced weapons-grade uranium. Her Fordow underground plant now has IAEA inspectors and its 20-percent-enriched uranium is all being diluted. Construction of the heavy-water reactor at Arak has been halted. Half of Iran’s centrifuges are not operating. There are International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors and cameras blanketing Iran’s program.<\/p>\n
The U.S. intelligence community has twice said Iran has no nuclear bomb program. And the most recent finding, 2011, has never been reversed by the Director of National Intelligence.<\/p>\n
And just how credible a foreign leader has Boehner invited to undercut his own president’s credibility?<\/p>\n
This is the same Bibi who told the Jewish community of Los Angeles in 2006, “It’s 1938 and Iran is Germany … racing to arm itself with atomic bombs.” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “is preparing another Holocaust for the Jewish state.” Bibi even had the war plans:<\/p>\n
“Israel would certainly be the first stop on Iran’s tour of destruction, but at [Tehran’s] planned production rate of 25 nuclear bombs a year, [the arsenal] will be directed against ‘the big Satan,’ the U.S.”<\/p>\n
Twenty-five Iranian nuclear bombs a year! What bullhockey it all was.<\/p>\n
Boehner seem to have concluded that new sanctions on Iran, even if it aborts negotiations and brings on a war with Iran, will be rewarded by the electorate in 2016.<\/p>\n
Perhaps. But if this is where the GOP is heading, we’ll be getting off here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"