Lieberman & The Military Target Iran While Democrats Dither

The Democrats, led by Harry Reid, let us all know once again why they cannot be trusted with our national security or the conduct of a war. On Sunday, Joe Lieberman, called for military strikes against Iran in response to the acts of war being daily committed by Iran against the US:

. . . "I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq," Lieberman told Bob Schieffer. "And to me, that would include a strike into... over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers."

. . . If the U.S. does not act against Iran, "they'll take that as a sign of weakness on our part and we will pay for it in Iraq and throughout the region and ultimately right here at home," Lieberman said.

. . . "We can tell them we want them to stop that, but if there's any hope of the Iranians living according to the international rule of law and stopping, for instance, their nuclear weapons development, we can't just talk to them," Lieberman said. "If they don't play by the rules, we've got to use our force, and to me that would include taking military action to stop them from doing what they're doing."

Read the entire story here. Joe Lieberman is spot on in his assessment (see here and here), But Harry Reid responded, once again embracing peace at all costs before the '08 election. He would give Iran a free pass to continue engaging in acts that kill our soldiers and destabilize Iraq, calling for diplomacy and a regional conference because "[t]he invasion of [Iran] is only going to destabilize that part of the world more." Perhaps Mr. Reid has forgotten that the precipitous withdrawal from Iraq that he proposes for partisan political gain will be the single greatest destabilizing act in the Middle East imaginable.

UPDATE: Bill Rogio writes that the Army now has proof beyond any reasonable doubt of Iran's complicity in the Karbala raid that ended in the death of five U.S. soldiers. Satelite photos show the Iran built a mock up of the target area in a city where they have been training Iraqi militants.

Meanwhile, the left are beginning to realize that, one, their Presidential candidates are going to be attacked on a daily basis for their incredible weakness on issues relating to national security and terrorism, and two, that these candidates have very little in the way of substantive response to the charges. The WSJ has the story of the left's conundrum here.

And on a final note, the Jerusalem Post is reporting that the U.S. military has drawn up its plans for a strike on Iran in response to their continuing quest for nuclear weapons:

Predicting that Iran will obtain a nuclear weapon within three years and claiming to have a strike plan in place, senior American military officers have told The Jerusalem Post they support President George W. Bush's stance to do everything necessary to stop the Islamic Republic's race for nuclear power.

. . . A high-ranking American military officer told the Post that senior officers in the US armed forces had thrown their support behind Bush and believed that additional steps needed to be taken to stop Iran.

Predictions within the US military are that Bush will do what is needed to stop Teheran before he leaves office in 2009, including possibly launching a military strike against its nuclear facilities.

. . . According to a high-ranking American military officer, the US Navy and Air Force would play the primary roles in any military action taken against Iran. One idea under consideration is a naval blockade designed to cut off Iran's oil exports.

The officer said that if the US government or the UN Security Council decided on this course of action, the US Navy would most probably not block the Strait of Hormuz - a step that would definitely draw an Iranian military response - but would patrol farther out and turn away tankers on their way to load oil.

. . . The US officer said that perhaps even more dangerous to Israel and the Western world than Iranian nukes was the possibility that a terrorists cell associated with al-Qaida or global jihad would acquire a highly radioactive "dirty bomb" or a vial of deadly chemical or biological agents. The officer said al-Qaida was gaining a strong foothold in the Middle East and that Israel was being surrounded by global jihad elements in Lebanon, Jordan and Sinai.

"Iran is a state-sponsored type of terrorism that can be dealt with," he said, adding that it was far more difficult to strike at the source of an isolated terrorist cell. . . .

Read the entire article here. Let us hope this article is accurate. It is difficult to imagine anything more dangerous to the world then a nuclear armed Iran.