What's our plan for Iran?

Patriotic Americans will understand that we must very soon address Iran’s growing nuclear weapon capabilities in order that the U.S. face the future with realistic confidence.

Can we live in a world with an Iran that has parity with us in modern nuclear destructive ability and considers itself our mortal enemy?

If Eisenhower were in the White House instead of the non-entity who has now reduced our military to an occasional concern, I don’t think we would be worrying about Iran for long.

Israel, which earlier destroyed an Iraqi nuclear facility, would probably give us a hand in any way possible to bolster our intelligence and our placing of weaponry for handling Iran. (Operation Babylon was a surprise Israeli air strike carried out in June 1981 that destroyed a nuclear reactor under construction 10.5 miles southeast of Baghdad.)

If Iran were aware of the fact that the U.S. is on the verge of making a move, perhaps it would say farewell to its dreams of opposing us in the big leagues of modern nuclear politics.

The appalling Mr. Obama has consigned a piteous percent of our gross national product to defense, and it makes me wonder more and more if he did not take the presidency with the idea of converting us into a scared third-rate nation.

“Where are the eagles and the trumpets?” wrote T.S. Eliot.

“Buried beneath some snow-deep Alps,” he concluded. The great poet may well have been writing about the power and glory of our country, buried in the non-productive skittishness of our leader.

One thing you learn as a boy in the schoolyard: When you know someone is going to hit you, you hit first, and as hard as you can.

Retaliation in warfare must be swift and terrible. When the Japanese mounted their cowardly attack on Pearl Harbor, killing thousands of sleeping American military men on Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, the next morning I caught the subway into Boston and joined a throng of young men volunteering in our Navy. We had but one thought in mind: to kill Japanese, and make them regret the idea that they could attack the U.S. without courting their own massive destruction. The condition of Tokyo in 1945 said all there was to say about “retaliation American style.” Oh, for Harry Truman or Dwight Eisenhower today!

Can you imagine what would happen if New York City were bombed in a nuke attack? Panic, pure panic! Would Iran dare to bomb New York? Can we afford to proceed any longer without the answer? The only deterrent is Iran’s knowledge that an attack on New York would bring swift and total annihilation of Iran by U.S. military might.

To preserve peace one must be strong. Weakness invites attack, for the attacker is granted time and sees less risk.

Most people are either bold and somewhat dangerous or weak and spineless. The bold may have their cards on the table, and one can negotiate with them as much as one can with anyone.

I believe that much of the world sees Obama as an indecisive man with a smile on his face and one hand behind his back. In that hand he carries a dagger, which one suspects he may employ in whatever way will serve his own politics best.