Getting Serious

Iran has dismissed the IAEA ruling that they should cease uranium enrichment. The current president, not the psycho who was just elected, said that the ruling was "cruel" and the foreign ministry spokesman said "It comes from American pressure... It lacks any legal or logical basis and is unacceptable." Haven't we heard all this before from another crazy dictatorship in the region? And didn't it lead to France and the UN saying we shouldn't act on the resolution past? Can anyone deny that Iran's current defiant stance is not at least in some way related to the failure of the UN to act on its words with regards to Iraq? Our actions and inactions have far reaching consequences.

Furthermore, apparently we have proof that Iranian weapons are being smuggled into Iraq. Whether this is with the aid of the government of Iran or due to a lack of security at its arsenals it is very concerning and unacceptable. I know that Iran is supposed to be 10 years away from producing a viable nuclear weapon. However, it doesn't take that much development to pack a mortar round or artillery shell full of enriched uranium and put it in an IED (I learned from Michael Yon that those are mostly made of motor rounds and artillery shells). It won't cause a nuclear explosion, but it will be a very effective "dirty bomb" spreading deadly radiation for miles. That counts as a WMD, I'm pretty sure. This is not a casual threat, but a very real danger for our people in Iraq and the Iraqis themselves. Furthermore, it wouldn't take much more effort to smuggle this uranium into the US and set off a dirty bomb here. In a population center like NYC this would be catastrophic. The damage to the economy would be far worse than 9/11 because we couldn't resume normal operations in that city for quite some time, even if there was relatively little destruction. When we talk about Iran enriching uranium there are other threats besides a nuclear explosion that take far less time to develop. And they're already arming our enemies and training suicide bombers. We have to remember things like that when we consider how to deal with Iran in the coming days and months.