Opinion/Editorial
LIKE A THIEF IN THE NIGHT
America, with Israel as a rotten partner and example, went over, bombed a country it was not at war with, and destroyed (apparently) its nuclear program, both peaceful energy and potential enrichment for weaponry facilities. That the country was, and will likely remain, ever more fully committed to building deliverable nuclear weapons seems beside the point. America, following in the most effective and excellent example of lying prevarication, fooled the Iranians twice by lying about negotiating for peace while it was readying a surprise attack. Days later, the entire allied world must wait for Iran to respond and trust that this supposedly terrorist founded and operational country will (and cannot) do something violently stupid that will cause many lives to be lost and a true wartime conflagration.
That bombing Iran without congressional approval or in violation of United Nations rules and agreements appears not to matter at all as the country heads deeper into dictatorial executive leadership, following its steadfast Israeli partner. Why would other countries want to develop nuclear weapons? Because they are afraid, ever more so by this sneak attack on Iran. The world got to see, and gets to see, the daily reports of what has happened to Ukraine when it surrendered its nuclear weapons and enrichment program. Those citizens there counted on the signed treaty agreement with the U.S. and Great Britain, that they would be protected from Russian attack. That proved to be another U.S. leadership lie. The other countries of the world have not missed the well-published fact that nobody attacks countries that have the bomb (glaring example: North Korea). Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan have been attacked, however, and decimated by Israel and the United States. Canada, Greenland, Panama, and occasionally Mexico have been threatened with attack, all without nuclear weapons, and threatened by the United States.
The world waits, with the United States the country that has placed itself in the crosshairs of a counterattack by another country, wounded, down, but in no way defenseless. Simply moving their Navy to close the Straits of Hormuz may disrupt (even more than the U.S. tariffs) all Western economies on a vast scale. The other deeply dark and potentially fearful point to consider is one evaluating the expressed and published fact that the Iranians have been nearing the development of their nuclear bomb, or bombs, over the past thirty years. They have been admittedly and pointedly accused of being right on the verge of that development for most of those thirty years. It makes all the sense in the world to conclude that at some point they made it and therefore have nuclear arms.
If that rather obvious conclusion is true, then the world is now waiting for Iran’s response to being so badly treated and then brutally attacked may be of earth-shaking potential. Delivery of such a weapon would not be much of an issue. The Iranians would merely have to transport a weapon of significant megatonnage to near their northern border and set it off on its property. The radiation clouds from such a ground-level blast would blow east, across Iraq, and on to cross over and onto Italy, Spain, Great Britain, Ireland, and more. That’s just one weapon. What if Iran has more?
Should the Israelis and the Americans have gambled that the Iranians indeed have never reached the ability to create such a critical mass? Is there any rationality for allowing this terrorist-leaning culture to be a group of humans, rather small next to the world’s population, to make such a decision? And so, night falls across the United States, as it (mostly unknowingly) waits for such a decision, or even one of less earth-shaking proportion. The Iranian leader is in hiding and preparing his successor to take leadership because he does not believe he will survive whatever is coming. Who, in the wildest of nightmarish dreams, would ever have imagined that Israel and the United States, both countries and cultures that fought and lost so much defeating the evil enemies of World War II, would turn out to be near carbon copies of what both so abhorrently hated? This writer hopes against hope that the Iranians were not able to build their weapon.
This writer hopes as well that the Iranians will respond to this attack in a much more rational and reduced way than the forces of Israel and the United States have illegally and irrationally applied. This writer went to grade school in Duluth, Minnesota, where the playground was dominated daily by a big bully. This writer accidentally assaulted the bully one day. Amazingly, to everyone, including this writer, the bully was shattered. He lost all support and all his friends. The writer ended up becoming his only friend, only to discover that the bully had been a bully because he was afraid. Why is the United States so afraid?
