Romney's Iran - Different Fact Galaxy

This op-ed by Mitt Romney is simply so bad, it is impossible to know where to begin.  But I'll try.

First - he offers no evidence of any of his conclusions.  Iran has a “nuclear-bomb program”?  There is absolutely no evidence of that and both the CIA and IAEA have stated as much.
Second - what evidence exists that the Islamic Republic is “racing to build a nuclear bomb.”?  None.
 He wants to permanently station aircraft carrier groups in the the Eastern Med and Gulf?  To do what? And one is already stationed in the Gulf with periodic visits by another or two into the Med.
He wants the US to increase naval shipbuilding to 15 ships a year so that it is unchallenged?  It already is unchallenged, in case he hadn't noticed. There is no navy on the planet that the US navy could not push aside with ease.
Romney is making matters worse by ignoring facts and pandering to those who want to strike out at Iran regardless of the adverse consequences to the US, its allies in the region and the spike in oil prices every time he opens his mouth with calls for yet another war in the Middle East and Iran responds to those threats with its own.

Iran Again

The chattering classes in Washington and Europe have been quiet of late regarding Iran, particularly in light of the withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraq - save for the 50,000 or so that remain.  But in light of the new sanctions imposed, what is being planned in response to the continued intransigence of the Iranian government? Frankly, anyone outside the White House, Pentagon and CIA who says they know, doesn't. 

The US foreign policy of force first, talking later, has produced a profound imbalance in the Middle East. Bush dismantled Iraq - the only power capable of presenting a problem to Tehran. The hand wringing over potential Iranian nuclear capability and the threat to Israel remains in full view and is dutifully reported by a compliant media, particularly in the US.  That is not the problem.

The media conveniently forgets that Iran has a significant, well trained military force capable of stirring the pot in the region. The country that is most concerned is not Israel. It is Saudi Arabia. And it is about oil.  Iran's trump card is not nuclear, it is messing about in the Persian Gulf.  So, aside from the fact that even a nuclear armed Iran would not pose a threat to the US, disrupting oil supplies would. 

Let's assume that Iran could produce a nuclear weapon next Saturday.  If an attack were launched to destroy all its nuclear facilities, and succeeded (far from a certainty) - so what?  The loss would be annoying for Iran, but still would leave it capable of disrupting oil flows, destabilizing Iraq completely and interfering with activities of NATO in Afghanistan.  This is not a nice scenario and which is why I dismiss all the talk about bombing Iran and taking out its nuclear facilities. 

Sanctions are ineffective and bombing would collapse the economies of the world as oil vanished  from the Persian Gulf.  Time to find a different way to get the attention of Tehran in a way that makes it reconsider its policies.

Bombing Iran

Why does anyone listen to the foreign policy ramblings of John Bolton? This is a guy who, prior to becoming the mouthpiece for the neocon underground and the worst US ambassador to the UN ever was once seen running around the halls Ukraine Hotel in Moscow shouting at his assistant about some missing papers - allegedly in his briefs. His continuing desire to bomb Iran - and the media's fascination with the former half-term governor of Alaska who incorrectly (as usual) attributes his statements to poor old Pat Buchanan - is counterproductive and tiresome.

Let's reiterate a couple of not so unimportant points. The enrichment of uranium to a percentage that can be used for reactor and medical purposes is permitted by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Period. Iran has not been as open to inspectors as the International Atomic Energy Agency would like, but there still remains no credible evidence that Iran is anywhere near creating weapon's grade nuclear material.

Furthermore, President Ahmadinejad's order last week that created such hand wringing in the West directing the engineers at Natanz to begin attempting to enrich uranium to 19.75% for fuel at its only reactor which also produces medical isotopes that are fully consumed is not a directive to create atomic weapons. And - by the way - the government also provided notice to the International Atomic Energy Agency, also as required by the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Incidentally, why is the US so terrified of a country whose economy is in shambles and has a military budget smaller than Finland's? The US faced down the Soviet Union - but neocons and their ilk behave like craven cowards when faced with fourth rate military powers which can be obliterated in a nano-second or incompetent terrorists.

Sanctions of one sort of another will follow merely because everyone has lost trust in the Iranian regime. Fair enough. But let's stop listening to the pronouncements of advocates of failed military policies and especially giving any attention to the remarks of Sarah Palin who might be the least intelligent former government official on the planet and who is considered - aside from that Very Important Pundit David Broder in the Washington Post - by the vast majority of Americans unqualified to be POTUS.