Tuesday, January 24, 2012

My Letter to the NY Times re: An Effective Policy to Avoid War with Iran

From: patrickbarron@msn.com
To: letters@nytimes.com
Subject: An Efffective Policy for Iran that Will Avoid War
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:28:18 -0500

Re: Bomb-Bomb-Bomb, Bomb-Bomb-Iran? by Bill Keller

Dear Sirs:
Mr. Keller nicely explains the situation and various options regarding a potentially nuclear-armed Iran. Although he portrays Ron Paul's position as "the let-Iran-be-Iran extreme", there is nothing extreme about it. In fact, Dr. Paul's policy is the only one that will avoid war. At the present time the U.S. and the E.U.'s harsh economic sanctions will force Iran either to accept a humbling defeat without a shot being fired (not very likely) or close the Straits of Hormuz, which would surely bring war. The West has two excellent options that avoid both scenarios--an explicit policy of nuclear retaliation should Iran use its nuclear arsenal on either the U.S. or our allies, and/or provide a missile shield to protect our forces and our allies. Secretary of State Clinton voiced the former option as a possibility over a year ago. Both policies are strictly defensive and have been proven effective in the Cold War and now in relation to North Korea. There is every reason to expect them to be just as efficacious with Iran.


Patrick Barron

1 comment:

  1. How to you interpret multiple statements from Iran that the reason to get the bomb is to destroy Israel and bring about the return of the 12th imam?

    I.e. what about taking Iran's statements about its intentions seriously?

    ReplyDelete