The Middle East is once again in the news. After Iran revealed that it has a second nuclear facility, it tested new long-range missiles. News after news report is being made to encourage a negative public reaction against, all while Israel seems ready to strike Iran.
Where is President Obama in this? While, he is opening up dialogues with Iran, it seems that the dialogue seems to be one-way, where the U.S. is giving Iran demands: open up nuclear plants to inspectors, and allow inspectors to have open discussions with those who have developed the plant.
Do these demands sound familiar? They do to me. It’s the demands the U.S. made with Iraq. And like with Iraq, Iran says it will open itself up to such inspectors. I hope Obama will not follow the route which lead to war in Iraq. I fear he is being directed to do just that. Right now we are threatening severe sanctions. But Obama has consistently said all options are possible.
Have we learned our lessons from the Iraq War? Have we learned not to take accusations at face value? I fear not. Without having to look into the moral question of preemptive war, we need to look into the logistics. Can we take on a war on three fronts? Can we afford such a war? To both questions, the answer should be obvious: no.
Interestingly enough, the UN has recently encouraged Israel to open up its own nuclear program for similar inspections. Do we think this will happen? Obviously not. Should the US start threatening sanctions?
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