REPLIES TO THE CURRENT QUESTION

Our question last week was:

What should President Obama's strategy toward Iran be?  Should it differ from President Bush's, and why?

Here are your answers.  The name of a writer is included only if he or she actually placed a name at the end of the message.  Otherwise, we assume the writer wished anonymity and "name withheld" is inserted.

Incredibly, we received only one reply to our question.  Where are all the strategic thinkers in our readership?  Here is the reply:

This is one of the areas where President Bush didn't appear to have a coherent plan or strategy that was visible to those of us on the outside looking in.  If he had a strategy, it must have been to try to wait out the Israelis and let them solve the nuclear problem.  Unfortunately, we then proceeded to send mixed signals to the Israelis by refusing overflight clearance of Iraq, etc.  

That having been said, it is one area where a comprehensive strategy by President Obama can plow new ground, so to speak.  Step one will be to muzzle his right hand man which has proven to be impossible in the past.  Every time Joe Biden opens his mouth words pour helter-skelter out of both sides with little rhyme or reason.  Step two would be to quit sucking up to the entire Islamic world, not just Iran.  Until President Obama figures out that the world is a bigger place than moot court practice at Harvard Law and that his words have consequences for all of us, nothing good will happen.

Since neither of the Steps above have a snowball's chance of happening the third step in a three part strategy is probably a waste of ink.  An excellent strategy would be to announce publicly and loudly that 24 hours hence, we plan to bomb the entire Irani nuclear infrastructure into rubble.  This would, in theory, allow those working in these places to evacuate.  24 hours later, we would then carry out the threat.  This would allow for implementation of the fourth step in the strategy which would be to sit down and negotiate long term relations with who ever is in charge after the internal civil war that step three would engender.  

In all of my responses to the various questions in this forum over time, I have tried to avoid hardline thinking.  Sometimes, though, anything less is just idle talk.  The ayatollahs have proven time and time again that fanaticism trumps reason in their world.  The only times that they have responded favorably have been when overwhelming force against them has been the alternative.  It is clear that none of them plan to martyr themselves, just their followers.  That seems like a perfect situation for some hardline thinking.

Don Newell