Newt Gingrich has an Op-Ed in today’s Washington Post where he takes on the argument, advanced just yesterday by Richard Holebrooke, that containing Islamic radicals, rather than defeating them should be our first priority.
[A]n Iran armed with nuclear weapons is a mortal threat to American, Israeli and European cities. If a nonnuclear Iran is prepared to finance, arm and train Hezbollah, sustain a war against Israel from southern Lebanon and, in Holbrooke’s own words, “support actions against U.S. forces in Iraq,” then what would a nuclear Iran be likely to do? Remember, Iranian officials were present at North Korea’s missile launches on our Fourth of July, and it is noteworthy that Venezuela’s anti-American dictator, Hugo Ch?vez, has visited Iran five times.
(…)
Defeating the terrorists and thwarting efforts by Iran and North Korea to gain nuclear and biological weapons must be the first goal of American policy. To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, if violence is necessary to defeat the terrorists, the Iranians and the North Koreans, then it is regrettably necessary. If they can be disarmed with less violence, then that is desirable. But a nonviolent solution that allows the terrorists to become better trained, better organized, more numerous and better armed is a defeat. A nonviolent solution that leads to North Korean and Iranian nuclear weapons threatening us across the planet is a defeat.
(…)
Defeating the terrorists and thwarting efforts by Iran and North Korea to gain nuclear and biological weapons must be the first goal of American policy. To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, if violence is necessary to defeat the terrorists, the Iranians and the North Koreans, then it is regrettably necessary. If they can be disarmed with less violence, then that is desirable. But a nonviolent solution that allows the terrorists to become better trained, better organized, more numerous and better armed is a defeat. A nonviolent solution that leads to North Korean and Iranian nuclear weapons threatening us across the planet is a defeat.
As Gingrich points out, the argument advanced by Holbrooke and others could be the basis for a real debate on national security and what America’s strategy in the War on Terror should be. Unfortunately, the Bush Administration doesn’t appear up to the challenge right now, which is why I hope Newt keeps talking like this.
August 11th, 2006 at 12:09 pm
Well I don’t always see eye to eye with Newt, but he is spot on here.