Within the past year President Barack Obama gave speeches about a world without nuclear weapons. Iran, some people are arguing, seems intent on going in the other direction, based on their experiments with uranium and other moves on their part. Russia and Germany are encouraging the Iranians to change course. The United States is pushing for UN sanctions against them.
Here’s a problem: Sanctions don’t really work. The United States stopped trading with Cuba over 50 years ago, but that didn’t seem to bother Fidel Castro too much. Sanctions didn’t really seem to inconvenience Saddam Hussein either. Trade sanctions hurt the people in the country; not the ruthless dictators who oppress them.
So what do we do if Iran continues down the path of gaining nuclear weapons? Perhaps a question of more immediate interest is what will Israel do? I don’t see the Israelis sitting idly by while the Holocaust-denying leader of Iran gets his hands on a nuclear weapon.
A religious leader in Iran has claimed that the Iranians would never use a nuclear weapon because it is against their religion. Does Barack Obama believe him?
Does Israel?