Reply #20: On Tactics, RE: "Confronting Iran" by Senator Feinstein

[Tom Rinaldo]

For tactical reasons I welcome this statement by Senator Feinstein, although I have issues with a core opinion that she states in it: "Iran cannot be allowed to proceed with its nuclear programs and continue to flout the international community". Whether or not Iran is "flouting the international community" is at the least open to debate. Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, India is not. Iran admittedly is building a Nuclear Power Program, Pakistan admittedly builds nuclear weapons. Still our relations with India and Pakistan are warm, our relations with Iran are decidedly not.

For various geo-political and security reasons it might be highly desirable, and even wise, for Iran to halt uranium enrichment activities, but that is a different standard to base diplomacy on. Iran by no means has a monopoly on a lack of wisdom in pursuing national objectives. How the United States under President Bush has chosen to pursue our stated national objective of halting Iran's nuclear program shows a dangerous lack of wisdom, and Senator Feinstein at least is calling President Bush out on that basis.

Right now I believe it is in the World's interests that Americans attempt to play out the electoral clock on the Bush Administration. We need a preventive defense, one that keeps the Bush Administration off of the offensive on Iran. We need a Democratic Congress in 2007, one that can provide a real check on Bush's Presidential Powers. We need the 2006 elections to be a referendum on Republican rule, and Republican priorities. We need the American people to reject Bush's costly and dangerous foreign fiascoes, both the one he mired us in inside Iraq, and the one he threatens to launch us into with Iran.

Senator Feinstein is spot on about the dangers of Bush's preemption doctrine. Senator Feinstein's statement now helps buy time for the American people and the world. She at least states the dangers inherent in Bush's current position toward Iran. She deemphasizes the threat of direct force against Iran, kicking it somewhere down the road, to be possibly looked at after efforts at diplomacy and a possible imposition of international sanctions against Iran. We can all live, literally, with Feinstein's position for the moment.

Here again is the link to Senator Feinstein's full Op-Ed piece:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-feinstein15apr15,0,7075952.story?coll=la-home-commentary