Friday, September 25, 2009

Pressure For Whom?

Jake Tapper:
This morning President Obama, French President Sarkozy, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will accuse Iran of building a clandestine underground nuclear fuel manufacturing plant, which Iran's leaders have hidden from weapons inspectors, senior administration officials tell ABC News...

The president is expected to say that this news "increases pressure on Iran to come clean about its nuclear program," a senior administration official tells ABC News. He will described "great and increasing doubts about the strictly peaceful nature of the program -- which is what the Iranians suggest."
Uhhhh...How does this even remotely increase pressure on Iran to come clean about its nuclear program? Saddam Hussein violated international law for years, ignored sanction after sanction, kicked weapons inspectors out of his country, and refused to say where his weapons of mass destruction were. So Bush invaded and bingo, people around the world called Bush's war illegal and dubbed him Hitler.

Will Obama et al have have the stones to roll the dice like that? Unlikely. Obama has been saying for over a year that he's willing to have a chat with Iran. He said this even though he knew about the second secret reactor. So for him, this is just old news. When the US failed to condemn Ahmadinejad's "election" and the violence that followed, this sent a clear message: no matter what happens, we're still willing to talk. And talk. And talk. Which translates as "time."

At a stretch, I can one day see some cruise missiles or an Israeli airstrike. But a full-on, "Here's your pressure, jerkwad" invasion is a fantasy. And Ahmadinejad knows it.

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