Sunday, February 14, 2010

Conservatives give "advice"; BOMB IRAN! (Dick Cheney the voice of reason?)

Several conservative commentators and ex-lawmakers are trying to give President Obama some political advice. Their true motivations lie elsewhere: they don't actually want him to take the advice because they like the guy, but rather because it will serve their interests.

The advice they are giving him? If he wants to be a "shoe-in" for president come 2012, he better invade Iran.

The idea seems absurd to the average thinking person. With two wars already being fought, a military that's already strained, and a global community fed up with our "policing" the world, a strike against Iran wouldn't be the best idea for the Obama administration to take up at this point.

Iranian leaders are trying to reach (or have perhaps already reached) nuclear energy capabilities, saying that they intend to use the technology for peaceful purposes. Conservatives are right to fear that Iran may use those technologies for more than that, but they're wrong to make the jump to a preemptive war.

John Bolton is one of those conservatives. In a recent interview on FOX News, Bolton expresed there were only two options: "One is Iran getting its nuclear weapons, the other is Israel or somebody uses military forces to stop it."

This kind of thinking, however, was dismissed by current Defense Secretary (who was first nominated by former President George W. Bush) Robert gates, who said that war is "the last thing we need."

Pat Buchanan also had to weigh in on the issue. In a recent article he penned, "Will Obama Play the War Card?" Buchanan pondered how Obama would best keep the White House, and Congress in 2010, for that matter.

"Should war come, that would be the end of GOP dreams of adding three-dozen seats in the House and half a dozen in the Senate," he wrote.

Sarah Palin also added in her two cents, though her foreign policy expertise is minimal, at best.

"[Obama would be reelected if] he decided to declare war on Iran, which I would like him to do," she said recently. She didn't forget to add that, without war on the Persian state, Obama would stand no chance at being reelected at all.

But one conservative ex-politician stood out against the crowd, and stated boldly that he didn't think such advice was practical.

"I don’t think a president can make a judgment like that on the basis of politics. The stakes are too high, the consequences too significant to be treating those as simple political calculations"

The man who spoke those words, thwarting all conservative logic on the matter? Dick Cheney.

It seems odd that the man at the forefront of criticism against Obama's foreign policies would actually have made a rational thought like this. What words he spoke speaks volumes towards those conservatives who would otherwise like to see Obama take action against the Islamic republic.

Still, perhaps we should take it with a grain of salt. The man is, after all, Dick Cheney.

A war against Iran would be a costly mistake at this time, especially given the strain our military already feels. An international effort to stop Iran is more likely to help in relieving that strain as well as keeping our good standing just recently renewed with the international community.

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