Two ranking U.S. Senators have declared that as manifest guardian of democracy and freedom in the world, America cannot sit back and allow tyrannical groups and individuals in Iran to go on oppressing the people. How, exactly, the senators intend to carry this surgical feat they didn’t say, (by assassination?), but whatever it is they have in mind raises some disturbing questions.
One: What divine power has ordained us to impose our moral values on other nations and cultures? Is our own past and present that squeaky clean?
Two: Why signal out Iran? Aren’t there other repressive groups and individuals in the world— in Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, Sudan, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, to name some? Why not target one of them instead? True, dissenters in Iran are denied freedom of speech and assembly, but is that worse than the custom of our Afghan ally and other Muslim theocracies of stoning women for alleged sexual transgressions, denying them an equal education, and forcing them to wear tent-like burkas?
ThreeAs to the fear that Iran will become a nuclear threat, wasn’t the Pandora’s box of mass destruction opened 65 years ago with the nukking of Nagasaki and Hiroshima? Today at least ten nations that we know of boast a nuclear arsenal, whether developed on their own or purchased in the open market. Should Iran cease working on or fail to produce a nuclear bomb, you can be sure that there will be some rogue organization ready to provide them with one, at a price, together with a state of the art delivery system.
FourWhy divert our energies worrying about the oppressed in Iran when so many our people here at home are hurting? The main and immediate threat to America as we speak is not Iran tyrants, or Al Qaeda, or the Taliban in Afghanistan, but our mounting national debt, high unemployment, execrable education system, organized crime, street crime, home-grown terrorists, government corruption, Wall street scams, low economic productivity (gambling casinos, law firms, TV punditry and such contribute nothing of value to the GDP) and, most disturbing, the increasing loss of faith in our institutions. These are the problems that we need to address, not what’s going on in Iran. Or are the distinguished Senators reading from a script written for them by some powerful group intent on provoking a war with Iran for material or political gain?
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