What Should We Do About Iran?
I still confess to having been surprised by the Iranian revolution in 1979. I was never much for the Shah of Iran, the former megalo-ruler, but I always liked Iranians. Among Middle Easterners of my acquaintance, they were the nicest, hands down. I knew several of them at Hope College, my alma mater in Holland, Michigan. This was 1971-75, when oil wealth was starting to have a real impact on the Middle East, and students from those countries were showing up at U.S. colleges with large wads of cash. At Hope, we had Iranians and we had Qataris. The latter were much harder to get to know. They got a lot of money from their government for living expenses, and could afford really nice new cars. Like a Mercedes 450-SL (I think that's right) sports car. Which a few months later had a crumpled fender caused by the owner's notoriously bad driving. The Iranians were much friendlier, generally didn't flash their cash, and tried harder to have American friends.
So the idea that Iranians could take U.S. hostages and run around screaming "Death to America! Death to the Great Satan!" came as a big surprise in 1979. I reasoned that, like Germany during the Nazi era, Iran had been taken over by a group of extremists that was not representative of the country at large. I still believe that. I used to chat about this with my opthalmologist at Hershey Medical Center, who grew up in and got much of his medical training in Iran.
Now the mullahs in Iran are trying to develop nuclear weapons, which is disturbing and dangerous. Yesterday, after I first posted this, the Iranian president boasted publicly that Iran's nuclear scientists have reached a new milestone in uranium enrichment. The question is how far along they are--most estimates say they are 10 years away from being able to build an A-bomb, a notoriously difficult weapon to craft. Bomb-grade uranium is even harder to create through the enrichment process than is fuel-grade uranium for electric power plants like Three Mile Island.
Bush was forced to deny this week that he had plans to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities, or worse, send in troops (which ones? It would definitely mean a revival of the draft). An Iranian bomb is a serious problem, but after the Iraq debacle Bush has forfeited all credibility on deciding which countries are real threats. He is the boy who cried wolf. I find it absolutely hideous that Bush might be contemplating an Iranian action to revive his plummeting poll numbers, but can't rule that out. Yet all my skepticism doesn't eliminate the underlying problem. What do we do about Iran? All that time and blood and treasure wasted on Iraq, when the real problem was right next door.