How could he not have threatened Iran with regime change? He said that the leaders could remain in power if they stopped pursuing nuclear arms. If Bolton did not mean that the leaders would be removed should they fail to comply, what did he mean? Certainly his words weren't empty; otherwise, they wouldn't merit being said. The only thing he could have meant is what he denied saying—that the leaders would be removed if they did not end their pursuit of nuclear arms.Bolton, addressing a meeting of B’nai B’rith International, a Jewish humanitarian organization, cited Washington's move last week to normalize relations with Libya after that country gave up its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and said Iran's leaders faced a similar “clear choice.”
“This is a sign to the rulers in Tehran that if they give up their long-standing support for terrorism and they give up their pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, that their regime can stay in place and that they can have a different relationship with the United States and the rest of the world,” he said.
Asked by reporters afterward about those comments, he said he did not mean to imply the United States would seek a change in the Iranian regime if Tehran refused to suspend its enrichment of uranium, as the U.N. Security Council has demanded.
Iran insists it wants only to produce energy for civilian use, but Western powers led by the United States, Britain, France, and Germany argue it is using a civilian nuclear program as a cover for producing the highly enriched uranium needed for atomic bombs.Of course the “Western powers” are saying that. They argued back in 2003 that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and that, since Hussein was not complying with UN inspectors, we had to take military action against Iraq.
The powers are saying that they don’t want war with Iran, but that’s exactly what they said in 2002, when they were getting uneasy with Iraq. The rest, as they say, is history.
Even if Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, the United States has no business disarming them: Iran has not attacked us. Preemptive war is a nasty thing. Attacking a country that we suspect might attack us is about as intelligent as shooting a random person on the street because you thought he might shoot you.
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2 comments:
I beg your pardon for posting, but I just clicked on that "next blog" for fun, because I was bored, and I found it quite ironic that the first word I saw on your blog was Iran, as I am half-Iranian. It is a topic I feel very strongly about because it is a complete hypocrisy. If Americans have nuclear arms, why can't Iran. I don't think anyone should have nuclear arms, of course, but you get my meaning.
God, that was weird, wasn't it?
Hey, no need to apologize for posting.
The point that Iran should be able to have nukes, too, because the U.S. does was actually one that I left out of the post—not because I didn’t think it was valid, but because I just couldn’t think of a good way to fit it in.
Thanks for posting! =)
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