"Pressuring" Iran While Ahmedinijad Strolls the Red Carpet
By Ayn Rand Institute: Elan Journo (10/11/07)
Irvine, CA--Some people fear that Washington is taking overly aggressive steps in an attempt to stop Iran's nuclear program. The U.S. is lobbying the UN to impose yet more, putatively tougher, sanctions on Iran. And the U.S. Senate has urged the White House to brand Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist organization--a designation that will allegedly enable Washington to deter Teheran's nuclear quest.
But according to Elan Journo, resident fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute, "in reality these supposedly tough measures are hollow; they cannot deter, let alone intimidate, Iran. That these measures are in fact a pretense at confronting Iran was underscored by Mahmoud Ahmedinijad's visit to New York City this week."
"The U.N. sanctions imposed on Iran several months ago were mere inconveniences that taught Iran that it has nothing to fear from us. More pinprick-sanctions, if they ever materialize, cannot stop Iran from waging its proxy terrorist war against us, nor from killing more U.S. troops in Iraq, nor from developing nuclear weapons. The notion of singling out the Revolutionary Guard Corps--an organ of Teheran's militant regime--as a terrorist organization is as ludicrous as narrowly declaring Hitler's SS as an enemy force. In reality our government has abdicated its responsibility to protect us from the threat of Iran.
"Far from confronting Iran, Washington is utterly meek--a fact highlighted during Ahmedinijad's flamboyant speaking tour in New York. Ahmedinijad is the head of a regime stained with the blood of hundreds upon hundreds of Americans, victims of an Iranian-backed terrorist war that began in 1979. Our leaders busily draft word-splitting sanctions and hollow declarations, but they cannot stir themselves sufficiently to reject the diplomatic protocol allowing world leaders visiting the UN to enter America--and to forbid Ahmedinijad from setting foot on U.S. soil.
"Why do our leaders behave like timorous, submissive lambs? Because they do not believe we have the moral right to stop Iran's nuclear quest. To do that would mean putting America's interests first, which today's prevailing ethical standard condemns as selfish, and immoral. Washington's moral premise rules out as illegitimate U.S. self-assertion; it rules out the dedicated pursuit of American self-defense. This does not mean we should launch another Iraq-like crusade to bring them elections; it means asserting ourselves in self-defense; it means protecting U.S. lives by destroying Iran's militant regime.
"Who could seriously believe that Washington is being 'tough' on Iran, when the Islamist Ahmedinijad is permitted to swagger into New York City?"
Elan Journo is an analyst at the Ayn Rand Institute.
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