670AM KIRN RADIO IRAN LA!(Persian)

[17]

Although many persist in denying it, I continue

to believe that what September 11,

2001 did was to plunge us headlong into nothing

less than another world war. I call this new war

World War IV, because I also believe that what is

generally known as the cold war was actually

World War III, and that this one bears a closer resemblance

to that great conflict than it does to

World War II. Like the cold war, as the military

historian Eliot Cohen was the first to recognize,

the one we are now in has ideological roots, pitting

us against Islamofascism, yet another mutation of

the totalitarian disease we defeated first in the

shape of Nazism and fascism and then in the shape

of Communism; it is global in scope; it is being

fought with a variety of weapons, not all of them

military; and it is likely to go on for decades.

What follows from this way of looking at the last

five years is that the military campaigns in

Afghanistan and Iraq cannot be understood if they

are regarded as self-contained wars in their own

right. Instead we have to see them as fronts or theaters

that have been opened up in the early stages

of a protracted global struggle. The same thing is

true of Iran. As the currently main center of the Islamofascist

ideology against which we have been

fighting since 9/11, and as (according to the State

Department's latest annual report on the subject)

the main sponsor of the terrorism that is Islamofascism's

weapon of choice, Iran too is a front in

World War IV. Moreover, its effort to build a nuclear

arsenal makes it the potentially most dangerous

one of all.

The Iranians, of course, never cease denying

that they intend to build a nuclear arsenal, and yet

in the same breath they openly tell us what they intend

to do with it. Their first priority, as repeatedly

and unequivocally announced by their president,

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is to "wipe Israel off the

map"-a feat that could not be accomplished by

conventional weapons alone.

But Ahmadinejad's ambitions are not confined to

the destruction of Israel. He also wishes to dominate

the greater Middle East, and thereby to control the

oilfields of the region and the flow of oil out of it

through the Persian Gulf. If he acquired a nuclear

capability, he would not even have to use it in order

to put all this within his reach. Intimidation and

blackmail by themselves would do the trick.

Nor are Ahmadinejad's ambitions merely regional

in scope. He has a larger dream of extending

the power and influence of Islam throughout

Europe, and this too he hopes to accomplish by

playing on the fear that resistance to Iran would

lead to a nuclear war. And then, finally, comes the

The Case for Bombing Iran

June 2007

largest dream of all: what Ahmadinejad does not

shrink from describing as "a world without America."

Demented though he may be, I doubt that Ahmadinejad

is so crazy as to imagine that he could

wipe America off the map even if he had nuclear

weapons. But what he probably does envisage is a

diminution of the American will to oppose him:

that is, if not a world without America, he will settle,

at least in the short run, for a world without

much American influence.

Not surprisingly, the old American foreign-policy

establishment and many others say that these

dreams are nothing more than the fantasies of a

madman. They also dismiss those who think otherwise

as neoconservative alarmists trying to drag

this country into another senseless war that is in

the interest not of the United States but only of Israel.

But the irony is that Ahmadinejad's dreams are

more realistic than the dismissal of those dreams as

merely insane delusions. To understand why, an

analogy with World War III may help.

At certain points in that earlier war, some of

us feared that the Soviets might seize control

of the oil fields of the Middle East, and that the

West, faced with a choice between surrendering to

their dominance or trying to stop them at the risk

of a nuclear exchange, would choose surrender. In

that case, we thought, the result would be what in

those days went by the name of Finlandization.

In Europe, where there were large Communist

parties, Finlandization would take the form of

bringing these parties to power so that they could

establish "Red Vichy" regimes like the one already

in place in Finland-regimes whose subservience

to the Soviet will in all things, domestic and foreign

alike, would make military occupation unnecessary

and would therefore preserve a minimal degree

of national independence.

In the United States, where there was no Communist

party to speak of, we speculated that Finlandization

would take a subtler form. In the realm

of foreign affairs, politicians and pundits would

arise to celebrate the arrival of a new era of peace

and friendship in which the cold-war policy of containment

would be scrapped, thus giving the Soviets

complete freedom to expand without encountering

any significant obstacles. And in the realm

of domestic affairs, Finlandization would mean that

the only candidates running for office with a prayer

of being elected would be those who promised to

work toward a sociopolitical system more in harmony

with the Soviet model than the unjust capitalist

plutocracy under which we had been living.

Of course, by the grace of God, the dissidents behind

the Iron Curtain, and Ronald Reagan, we won

World War III and were therefore spared the depredations

that Finlandization would have brought.

Alas, we are far from knowing what the outcome of

World War IV will be. But in the meantime, looking

at Europe today, we already see the unfolding of

a process analogous to Finlandization: it has been

called, rightly, Islamization. Consider, for example,

what happened when, only a few weeks ago, the Iranians

captured fifteen British sailors and marines

and held them hostage. Did the Royal Navy, which

once boasted that it ruled the waves, immediately retaliate

against this blatant act of aggression, or even

threaten to do so unless the captives were immediately

released? Not by any stretch of the imagination.

Indeed, using force was the last thing in the

world the British contemplated doing, as they made

sure to announce. Instead they relied on the "soft

power" so beloved of "sophisticated" Europeans and

their American fellow travelers.

But then, as if this show of impotence were not

humiliating enough, the British were unable even

to mobilize any of that soft power. The European

Union, of which they are a member, turned down

their request to threaten Iran with a freeze of imports.

As for the UN, under whose very auspices

they were patrolling the international waters in

which the sailors were kidnapped, it once again

showed its true colors by refusing even to condemn

the Iranians. The most the Security Council could

bring itself to do was to express "grave concern."

Meanwhile, a member of the British cabinet was

going the Security Council one better. While registering

no objection to propaganda pictures of the

one woman hostage, who had been forced to shed

her uniform and dress for the cameras in Muslim

clothing, Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt pronounced

it "deplorable" that she should have permitted

herself to be photographed with a cigarette

in her mouth. "This," said Hewitt, "sends completely

the wrong message to our young people."

According to John Bolton, our former ambassador

to the UN, the Iranians were testing the

British to see if there would be any price to pay for

committing what would once have been considered

an act of war. Having received his answer, Ahmadinejad

could now reap the additional benefit of,

as the British commentator Daniel Johnson puts it,

"posing as a benefactor" by releasing the hostages,

even while ordering more attacks in Iraq and even

while continuing to arm terrorist organizations,

whether Shiite (Hizballah) or Sunni (Hamas). For

fanatical Shiites though Ahmadinejad and his ilk as-

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Commentary June 2007

suredly are, they are obviously willing to set sectarian

differences aside when it comes to forging jihadist

alliances against the infidels.

If, then, under present circumstances Ahmadinejad

could bring about the extraordinary degree

of kowtowing that resulted from the kidnapping of

the British sailors, what might he not accomplish

with a nuclear arsenal behind him-nuclear bombs

that could be fitted on missiles capable of reaching

Europe? As to such a capability, Robert G. Joseph,

the U.S. Special Envoy for Nuclear Non-Proliferation,

tells us that Iran is "expanding what is already

the largest offensive missile force in the region.

Moreover, it is reported to be working closely

with North Korea, the world's number-one missile

proliferator, to develop even more capable ballistic

missiles." This, Joseph goes on, is why "analysts

agree that in the foreseeable future Iran will

be armed with medium- and long-range ballistic

missiles," and it is also why "we could wake up one

morning to find that Iran is holding Berlin, Paris

or London hostage to whatever its demands are

then."

As with Finlandization, Islamization extends to

the domestic realm, too. In one recent illustration

of this process, as reported in the British

press, "schools in England are dropping the Holocaust

from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim

pupils . . . whose beliefs include Holocaust denial."

But this is an equal-opportunity capitulation,

since the schools are also eliminating lessons about

the Crusades because "such lessons often contradict

what is taught in local mosques."

But why single out England? If anything, much

more, and worse, has been going on in other European

countries, including France, Germany,

Italy, Spain, Denmark, and the Netherlands. All of

these countries have large and growing Muslim

populations demanding that their religious values

and sensibilities be accommodated at the expense

of the traditional values of the West, and even in

some instances of the law. Yet rather than insisting

that, like all immigrant groups before them, they

assimilate to Western norms, almost all European

politicians have been cravenly giving in to the

Muslims' outrageous demands.

As in the realm of foreign affairs, if this much

can be accomplished under present circumstances,

what might not be done if the process were being

backed by Iranian nuclear blackmail? Already some

observers are warning that by the end of the 21st

century the whole of Europe will be transformed

into a place to which they give the name Eurabia.

Whatever chance there may still be of heading off

this eventuality would surely be lessened by the

menacing shadow of an Iran armed with nuclear

weapons, and only too ready to put them into the

hands of the terrorist groups to whom it is even

now supplying rockets and other explosive devices.

And the United States? As would have been the

case with Finlandization, we would experience a

milder form of Islamization here at home. But not

in the area of foreign policy. Like the Europeans,

confronted by Islamofascists armed by Iran with

nuclear weapons, we would become more and

more hesitant to risk resisting the emergence of a

world shaped by their will and tailored to their

wishes. For even if Ahmadinejad did not yet have

missiles with a long enough range to hit the United

States, he would certainly be able to unleash a wave

of nuclear terror against us. If he did, he would in

all likelihood act through proxies, for whom he

would with characteristic brazenness disclaim any

responsibility even if the weapons used by the terrorists

were to bear telltale markings identifying

them as of Iranian origin. At the same time, the opponents

of retaliation and other antiwar forces

would rush to point out that there was good reason

to accept this disclaimer and, markings or no markings

(could they not have been forged?), no really

solid evidence to refute it.

In any event, in these same centers of opinion,

such a scenario is regarded as utter nonsense. In

their view, none of the things it envisages would

follow even if Ahmadinejad should get the bomb,

because the fear of retaliation would deter him

from attacking us just as it deterred the Soviets in

World War III. For our part, moreover, the knowledge

that we were safe from attack would preclude

any danger of our falling into anything like Islamization.

But listen to what Bernard Lewis, the greatest

authority of our time on the Islamic world, has

to say in this context on the subject of deterrence:

MAD, mutual assured destruction, [was effective]

right through the cold war. Both sides had

nuclear weapons. Neither side used them, because

both sides knew the other would retaliate

in kind. This will not work with a religious

fanatic [like Ahmadinejad]. For him, mutual assured

destruction is not a deterrent, it is an inducement.

We know already that [Iran's leaders]

do not give a damn about killing their own

people in great numbers. We have seen it again

and again. In the final scenario, and this applies

all the more strongly if they kill large

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The Case for Bombing Iran

numbers of their own people, they are doing

them a favor. They are giving them a quick

free pass to heaven and all its delights.

Nor are they inhibited by a love of country:

We do not worship Iran, we worship Allah. For

patriotism is another name for paganism. I say

let this land [Iran] burn. I say let this land go

up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant

in the rest of the world.

These were the words of the Ayatollah Khomeini,

who ruled Iran from 1979 to 1989, and there is no

reason to suppose that his disciple Ahmadinejad

feels any differently.

Still less would deterrence work where Israel was

concerned. For as the Ayatollah Rafsanjani (who is

supposedly a "pragmatic conservative") has declared:

If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly

equipped with the arms Israel has in possession,

. . . application of an atomic bomb would

not leave anything in Israel, but the same thing

would just produce damages in the Muslim

world.

In other words, Israel would be destroyed in a nuclear

exchange, but Iran would survive.

In spite of all this, we keep hearing that all would

be well if only we agreed-in the currently fashionable

lingo-to "engage" with Iran, and that

even if the worst came to the worst we could-to

revert to the same lingo-"live" with a nuclear

Iran. It is when such things are being said that,

alongside the resemblance between now and

World War III, a parallel also becomes evident between

now and the eve of World War II.

By 1938, Germany under Adolf Hitler had for

some years been rearming in defiance of its

obligations under the Versailles treaty and other international

agreements. Yet even though Hitler in

was now preparing to pursue, scarcely anyone took

him seriously. To the imminent victims of the war

he was soon to start, Hitler's book and his inflammatory

speeches were nothing more than braggadocio

or, to use the more colorful word Hannah

Arendt once applied to Adolf Eichmann, rodomontade:

the kind of red meat any politician might

throw to his constituents at home. Hitler might

sound at times like a madman, but in reality he was

a shrewd operator with whom one could-in the

notorious term coined by the London Times-"do

business." The business that was done under this

assumption was the Munich Agreement of 1938,

which the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain

declared had brought "peace in our time."

It was thanks to Munich that "appeasement" became

one of the dirtiest words in the whole of our

political vocabulary. Yet appeasement had always

been an important and entirely respectable tool of

diplomacy, signifying the avoidance of war through

the alleviation of the other side's grievances. If

Hitler had been what his eventual victims imagined

he was-that is, a conventional statesman pursuing

limited aims and using the threat of war only as a

way of strengthening his bargaining position-it

would indeed have been possible to appease him

and thereby to head off the outbreak of another

war.

But Hitler was not a conventional statesman

and, although for tactical reasons he would sometimes

pretend otherwise, he did not have limited

aims. He was a revolutionary seeking to overturn

the going international system and to replace it

with a new order dominated by Germany, which

also meant the political culture of Nazism. As such,

he offered only two choices: resistance or submission.

Finding this reality unbearable, the world

persuaded itself that there was a way out, a third alternative,

in negotiations. But given Hitler's objectives,

and his barely concealed lust for war, negotiating

with him could not conceivably have led to

peace. It could have had only one outcome, which

was to buy him more time to start a war under

more favorable conditions. As most historians now

agree, if he had been taken at his own word about

his true intentions, he could have been stopped

earlier and defeated at an infinitely lower cost.

Which brings us back to Ahmadinejad. Like

Hitler, he is a revolutionary whose objective is to

overturn the going international system and to replace

it in the fullness of time with a new order

dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-political

culture of Islamofascism. Like Hitler, too, he is entirely

open about his intentions, although-again

like Hitler-he sometimes pretends that he wants

nothing more than his country's just due. In the

case of Hitler in 1938, this pretense took the form

of claiming that no further demands would be

made if sovereignty over the Sudetenland were

transferred from Czechoslovakia to Germany. In

the case of Ahmadinejad, the pretense takes the

form of claiming that Iran is building nuclear facilities

only for peaceful purposes and not for the production

of bombs.

But here we come upon an interesting difference

between then and now. Whereas in the late 1930's

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Commentary June 2007

almost everyone believed, or talked himself into

believing, that Hitler was telling the truth when he

said he had no further demands to make after Munich,

no one believes that Ahmadinejad is telling

the truth when he says that Iran has no wish to develop

a nuclear arsenal. In addition, virtually everyone

agrees that it would be best if he were stopped,

only not, God forbid, with military force-not

now, and not ever.

But if military force is ruled out, what is supposed

to do the job?

Well, to begin with, there is that good old standby,

diplomacy. And so, for three-and-a-half years,

even pre-dating the accession of Ahmadinejad to

the presidency, the diplomatic gavotte has been

danced with Iran, in negotiations whose carrotand-

stick details no one can remember-not even,

I suspect, the parties involved. But since, to say it

again, Ahmadinejad is a revolutionary with unlimited

aims and not a statesman with whom we can

"do business," all this negotiating has had the same

result as Munich had with Hitler. That is, it has

bought the Iranians more time in which they have

moved closer and closer to developing nuclear

weapons.

Then there are sanctions. As it happens, sanctions

have very rarely worked in the past. Worse

yet, they have usually ended up hurting the hapless

people of the targeted country while leaving the

leadership unscathed. Nevertheless, much hope has

been invested in them as a way of bringing Ahmadinejad

to heel. Yet thanks to the resistance of

Russia and China, both of which have reasons of

their own to go easy on Iran, it has proved enormously

difficult for the Security Council to impose

sanctions that could even conceivably be effective.

At first, the only measures to which Russia and

China would agree were much too limited even to

bite. Then, as Iran continued to defy Security

Council resolutions and to block inspections by the

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that

it was bound by treaty to permit, not even the Russians

and the Chinese were able to hold out against

stronger sanctions. Once more, however, these

have had little or no effect on the progress Iran is

making toward the development of a nuclear arsenal.

On the contrary: they, too, have bought the

Iranians additional time in which to move ahead.

Since hope springs eternal, some now believe

that the answer lies in more punishing sanctions.

This time, however, their purpose would be not to

force Iran into compliance, but to provoke an internal

uprising against Ahmadinejad and the

regime as a whole. Those who advocate this course

tell us that the "mullocracy" is very unpopular, especially

with young people, who make up a majority

of Iran's population. They tell us that these

young people would like nothing better than to get

rid of the oppressive and repressive and corrupt

regime under which they now live and to replace it

with a democratic system. And they tell us, finally,

that if Iran were so transformed, we would have

nothing to fear from it even if it were to acquire

nuclear weapons.

Once upon a time, under the influence of

Bernard Lewis and others I respect, I too subscribed

to this school of thought. But after three

years and more of waiting for the insurrection they

assured us back then was on the verge of erupting,

I have lost confidence in their prediction. Some of

them blame the Bush administration for not doing

enough to encourage an uprising, which is why

they have now transferred their hopes to sanctions

that would inflict so much damage on the Iranian

economy that the entire populace would rise up

against the rulers. Yet whether or not this might

happen under such circumstances, there is simply

no chance of getting Russia and China, or the Europeans

for that matter, to agree to the kind of

sanctions that are the necessary precondition.

At the outset I stipulated that the weapons

with which we are fighting World War IV

are not all military-that they also include economic,

diplomatic, and other nonmilitary instruments

of power. In exerting pressure for reform on

countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, these nonmilitary

instruments are the right ones to use. But

it should be clear by now to any observer not in denial

that Iran is not such a country. As we know

from Iran's defiance of the Security Council and

the IAEA even while the United States has been

warning Ahmadinejad that "all options" remain on

the table, ultimatums and threats of force can no

more stop him than negotiations and sanctions

have managed to do. Like them, all they accomplish

is to buy him more time.

In short, the plain and brutal truth is that if Iran

is to be prevented from developing a nuclear arsenal,

there is no alternative to the actual use of military

force-any more than there was an alternative

to force if Hitler was to be stopped in 1938.

Since a ground invasion of Iran must be ruled out

for many different reasons, the job would have to be

done, if it is to be done at all, by a campaign of air

strikes. Furthermore, because Iran's nuclear facilities

are dispersed, and because some of them are

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The Case for Bombing Iran

underground, many sorties and bunker-busting munitions

would be required. And because such a campaign

is beyond the capabilities of Israel, and the

will, let alone the courage, of any of our other allies,

it could be carried out only by the United States.*

Even then, we would probably be unable to get at

all the underground facilities, which means that, if

Iran were still intent on going nuclear, it would not

have to start over again from scratch. But a bombing

campaign would without question set back its

nuclear program for years to come, and might even

lead to the overthrow of the mullahs.

The opponents of bombing-not just the usual

suspects but many both here and in Israel who have

no illusions about the nature and intentions and

potential capabilities of the Iranian regime-disagree

that it might end in the overthrow of the

mullocracy. On the contrary, they are certain that

all Iranians, even the democratic dissidents, would

be impelled to rally around the f lag. And this is

only one of the worst-case scenarios they envisage.

To wit: Iran would retaliate by increasing the trouble

it is already making for us in Iraq. It would attack

Israel with missiles armed with non-nuclear

warheads but possibly containing biological and/or

chemical weapons. There would be a vast increase

in the price of oil, with catastrophic consequences

for every economy in the world, very much including

our own. The worldwide outcry against the inevitable

civilian casualties would make the anti-

Americanism of today look like a love-fest.

I readily admit that it would be foolish to discount

any or all of these scenarios. Each of them is,

alas, only too plausible. Nevertheless, there is a

good response to them, and it is the one given by

John McCain. The only thing worse than bombing

Iran, McCain has declared, is allowing Iran to get

the bomb.

And yet those of us who agree with McCain are

left with the question of whether there is still time.

If we believe the Iranians, the answer is no. In early

April, at Iran's Nuclear Day festivities, Ahmadinejad

announced that the point of no return in the

nuclearization process had been reached. If this is

true, it means that Iran is only a small step away

from producing nuclear weapons. But even supposing

that Ahmadinejad is bluffing, in order to

convince the world that it is already too late to stop

him, how long will it take before he actually turns

out to have a winning hand?

If we believe the CIA, perhaps as much as ten

years. But CIA estimates have so often been wrong

that they are hardly more credible than the boasts

of Ahmadinejad. Other estimates by other experts

fall within the range of a few months to six years.

Which is to say that no one really knows. And because

no one really knows, the only prudent-indeed,

the only responsible-course is to assume that

Ahmadinejad may not be bluffing, or may only be

exaggerating a bit, and to strike at him as soon as it

is logistically possible.

In his 2002 State of the Union address, President

Bush made a promise:

We'll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side.

I will not wait on events, while dangers gather.

I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and

closer. The United States of America will not

permit the world's most dangerous regimes to

threaten us with the world's most destructive

weapons.

In that speech, the President was referring to

Iraq, but he has made it clear on a number of subsequent

occasions that the same principle applies to

Iran. Indeed, he has gone so far as to say that if we

permit Iran to build a nuclear arsenal, people 50

years from now will look back and wonder how we

of this generation could have allowed such a thing

to happen, and they will rightly judge us as harshly

as we today judge the British and the French for

what they did and what they failed to do at Munich

in 1938. I find it hard to understand why George

W. Bush would have put himself so squarely in the

dock of history on this issue if he were resigned to

leaving office with Iran in possession of nuclear

weapons, or with the ability to build them. Accordingly,

my guess is that he intends, within the next

21 months, to order air strikes against the Iranian

nuclear facilities from the three U.S. aircraft carriers

already sitting nearby.

But if that is what he has in mind, why is he

spending all this time doing the diplomatic dance

and wasting so much energy on getting the Russians

and the Chinese to sign on to sanctions? The

reason, I suspect, is that-to borrow a phrase from

Robert Kagan-he has been "giving futility its

chance." Not that this is necessarily a cynical ploy.

For it may well be that he has entertained the remote

possibility of a diplomatic solution under

which Iran would follow the example of Libya in

voluntarily giving up its nuclear program. Besides,

once having played out the diplomatic string, and

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Commentary June 2007

* However, a new study by two members of the Security Studies

Program at MIT concludes that the Israeli Air Force "now possesses

the capability to destroy even well-hardened targets in Iran

with some degree of confidence." The problem is that all of the

many contingencies involved would have to go right for such a mission

to succeed.

thereby having demonstrated that to him force is

truly a last resort, Bush would be in a stronger political

position to endorse John McCain's formula

that the only thing worse than bombing Iran would

be allowing Iran to build a nuclear bomb-and not

just to endorse that assessment, but to act on it.

If this is what Bush intends to do, it goes, or

should go, without saying that his overriding

purpose is to ensure the security of this country in

accordance with the vow he took upon becoming

President, and in line with his pledge not to stand

by while one of the world's most dangerous

regimes threatens us with one of the world's most

dangerous weapons.

But there is, it has been reported, another consideration

that is driving Bush. According to a recent

news story in the New York Times, for example,

Bush has taken to heart what "[o]fficials from 21

governments in and around the Middle East

warned at a meeting of Arab leaders in March"-

namely, "that Iran's drive for atomic technology

could result in the beginning of ‘a grave and destructive

nuclear arms race in the region.'" Which

is to say that he fears that local resistance to Iran's

bid for hegemony in the greater Middle East

through the acquisition of nuclear weapons could

have even more dangerous consequences than a

passive capitulation to that bid by the Arab countries.

For resistance would spell the doom of all efforts

to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, and it

would vastly increase the chances of their use.

I have no doubt that this ominous prospect figures

prominently in the President's calculations.

But it seems evident to me that the survival of Israel,

a country to which George W. Bush has been

friendlier than any President before him, is also of

major concern to him-a concern fully coincident

with his worries over a Middle Eastern arms race.

Much of the world has greeted Ahmadinejad's

promise to wipe Israel off the map with something

close to insouciance. In fact, it could almost be said

of the Europeans that they have been more upset

by Ahmadinejad's denial that a Holocaust took

place 60 years ago than by his determination to set

off one of his own as soon as he acquires the means

to do so. In a number of European countries,

Holocaust denial is a crime, and the European

Union only recently endorsed that position. Yet for

all their retrospective remorse over the wholesale

slaughter of Jews back then, the Europeans seem

no readier to lift a finger to prevent a second

Holocaust than they were the first time around.

Not so George W. Bush, a man who knows evil

when he sees it and who has demonstrated an unfailingly

courageous willingness to endure vilification

and contumely in setting his face against it. It

now remains to be seen whether this President,

battered more mercilessly and with less justification

than any other in living memory, and weakened

politically by the enemies of his policy in the

Middle East in general and Iraq in particular, will

find it possible to take the only action that can stop

Iran from following through on its evil intentions

both toward us and toward Israel. As an American

and as a Jew, I pray with all my heart that he will.

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The Case for Bombing Iran