My thoughts which I have stated frequently is that China and Russia need to back harsher sanctions, stop weakening them to the point of being ineffective and allow very harsh sets of sanctions that will force Iran to comply with their international obligations and give up their nuclear ambitions and that we still have a window of 1-3 years to make this happen.
Russia and China are the weak links of the UN and are largely responsible for the fat that the U.S. and our allies are being forced to impose separate, unilateral sanction against Iran.
An example of that is the "Sense of the Senate Resolution that was passed which stated:
(b) Sense of Senate.--It is the sense of the Senate--
(1) that the manner in which the United States transitions and structures its military presence in Iraq will have critical long-term consequences for the future of the Persian Gulf and the Middle East, in particular with regard to the capability of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to pose a threat to the security of the region, the prospects for democracy for the people of the region, and the health of the global economy;
(2) that it is a vital national interest of the United States to prevent the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran from turning Shi'a militia extremists in Iraq into a Hezbollah-like force that could serve its interests inside Iraq, including by overwhelming, subverting, or co-opting institutions of the legitimate Government of Iraq;
(3) that it should be the policy of the United States to combat, contain, and roll back the violent activities and destabilizing influence inside Iraq of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its foreign facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its indigenous Iraqi proxies;
(4) to support the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of United States national power in Iraq, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military instruments, in support of the policy described in paragraph (3) with respect to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies;
(5) that the United States should designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a foreign terrorist organization under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act and place the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists, as established under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and initiated under Executive Order 13224; and
(6) that the Department of the Treasury should act with all possible expediency to complete the listing of those entities targeted under United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1737 and 1747 adopted unanimously on December 23, 2006 and March 24, 2007, respectively.
Full text of that Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which passed with a vote of 76-22, can be found here.
Since then, the U.S. has imposed those recommendations in the latest announcements about the U.S imposing new sanctions against Iran.
If our allies join in imposing harsher sanctions, bypassing the UN because of China and Russia standing in the way of harsh UN sanctions, we can stop Iran without military action or air strikes against their nuclear facilities.
Which is where this latest Zogby poll comes in and which is why it is very disturbing, to say the least.
52% of likely voters support a military strike against Iran?
A majority of likely voters – 52% – would support a U.S. military strike to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon, and 53% believe it is likely that the U.S. will be involved in a military strike against Iran before the next presidential election, a new Zogby America telephone poll shows.
Anyone else see something wrong with this picture?
I am not downing Zogby, they are reputable and a great polling organization. The media on the other hand has been pounding the "strike Iran" theme and how we are prepared to do so, plans have been drawn up and have treated a military strike on Iran as almost inevitable.
It isn't. We have time to use sanctions to our maximum benefit, especially if China and Russia understand that they they to sit down, shut up and let the UN act in a manner that they are meant to for a change.
Barring that, our allies, excluding China and Russia can use their own independent sanctions to match our new ones against Iran and accomplish the same goal.
Severely harsh sanctions that give Iran no choice but to give up their nuclear ambitions.
We all need to step back, take a deep breath and think about this rationally and stop letting the medias "inevitability" meme rule our better judgment.
I am the first person to admit that it may come to a choice of military action or a nuclear armed Iran, to which I will support military action, at that time, not before.
Let me be clear here. I understand that Iran has been hostile and actively at war with us for 29 years, have been pushing and killing our people for almost 3 decades and that patience is wearing thin, rightly so.... but until every single diplomatic measure has been tried and has failed, we have to keep trying until we no longer have any diplomatic options left.
I don't like it either, but it is what it is.
Updated an Related:
An excellent piece by one of my readers and a frequent commenter at her blog "Great Satan's Girlfriend".... go check it out, it is chalk full of verifying links.
Thanks for the email Courtney!!!
.