Curmudgeon's Corner

A Cancerous Tumor...

Posted by Al Campbell on Aug. 18, 2012

U.S., Political, Economy, Quality of Life

A French newspaper published the following which are excerpts from a longer piece, during the past twenty-four hours, from a speech made by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad marking Quds Day in Iran.  Of course, his tirade goes directly to the fact, in his mind, that Israel needs to be “finished off” soon.  His specific statement in that regard was, “Israel is a cancerous tumor that will soon be finished off.”

“The nations of the region will soon finish off the usurper Zionists in the Palestinian land…A new Middle East will definitely be formed.  With the grace of God and help of the nations, in the new Middle East there will be no trace of the Americans and Zionists.”

This is the reality with which those in Israel live day-to-day.  Our country, under the policies of the Obama Administration, is cautioning Israel to let this play out, believing that Iran is further from operable nuclear weapons than does Israel.  That is not as crucial a decision for our country’s leaders as it is for Israel’s leaders.  They are well within striking distance of Iran while only small segments of our country’s forces and holdings are within striking distance.

Oil fields upon which we rely heavily are certainly among the assets important to us and our economy could be struck with no problem, but we seem to downplay that in our policy circles.  The Strait of Hormuz is critical, at least until a new oil pipeline is finished, to the passage of oil tankers, and that body of water could be greatly damaged by the strategic sinking of vessels to block ingress and egress.  That could also trap several key U.S. naval vessels.  We know this is part of the Iranian plan should they decide to go forward.  The U.S., of course, states that it would not permit that to occur, but that does not help Israel when it considers its options and the timing they believe to be critical for the actions necessary.

We seem to believe that we can negotiate through the U.N. to get Iran to come to its senses.  That certainly has shown no success to this point, and there is nothing that suggests this will change.  The U.N. is really good at the ‘slow dance’ and Iran knows full well exactly how to play the U.N. until it, Iran, has the nuclear resources it needs along with the delivery systems necessary to stage the attack on Israel.

In the meantime, Iran has moved, and continues to move, strategic facilities deep under mountains thinking these facilities will survive even the newest U.S. ‘bunker buster’ bombs recently tested.  We slowed some of that through use of the Stuxnet virus that our President felt he had to mention was part of the effort by Israel and the U.S. (just as he felt the need to expose all, or nearly all, of the resources brought to bear in finding and fixing the location of Obama for the action taken by Seal Team 6).

We seem remarkably naïve in our political assessment of Iran and the threat it poses to Israel and to us.  We seem remarkably naïve in our belief that we can expose our operational secrets to film makers and to support political campaigns.  If I were in Israel, I’d sure be urging my country to move without respect to the position of the United States.  If our position seems so fraught with peril to us being thousands and thousands of miles away from imminent danger, imagine, if you can, how this must hang over Israel day-in and day-out as they wait for the hammer to fall. 

We didn’t take that kind of threat for too long when the Russians began threatening us with the movement of missiles and troops into Cuba many years ago.  But, we expect Israel to “let this play out” while we play our little political games during a Presidential campaign.

We are simply too naïve for Israel’s good or for our own good.  Correction:  Our leadership is simply too naïve for Israel’s or for our own good.