September 12, 2004
LOOKS LIKE A BUSY SECOND TERM:
U.S. refuses to rule out Iran attack (Reuters, 12 September, 2004)
The United States is determined to stop Iran getting atomic weapons, and has signalled Washington will not rule out an attack if peaceful diplomacy failed to achieve this.Posted by Orrin Judd at September 12, 2004 2:08 PMPresident George W. Bush's top official on nuclear on-proliferation, Undersecretary of State John Bolton, was asked during a brief visit to Israel if the United States could consider such an attack.
"President Bush is determined to try and find a peaceful and diplomatic solution to the problem of Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons," he said. "But we are determined that they are not going to achieve a nuclear weapons capability."
Now that's nuance! What else could he say? Anything less would have been criminal. He's just stating the rules of the game so no one makes a wrong move unintentionally. That's how wars start. Saddam proved it by not understanding the rules. He started the Iraqi war by listening to France. Bush just called his bluff. He had no other choice based on what we knew, or thouight we knew, at the time. Saddam could have cleared all that up but decided to play the "smart" ass. In that scenario, if accurate, anything less by Bush would have been negligent ... and we would probably have had another homeland attack by now.
Posted by: genecis at September 12, 2004 9:36 PM