What does America need like it needs a lead pipe to the kneecap (that is, not at all)? “Yet another war to fight in the Middle East” would be one good answer.
But, of course, that’s what the Israeli Prime Minister, Yair Lapid, pushed for during a recent joint press briefing with President Biden.
Biden, surprisingly, made a reasonably good statement during the speech, saying that while the US would oppose Iran’s attempts to acquire nuclear weapons and do its best to stop the left from acquiring them, saying:
Today, you and I also discussed America’s commitment to ensuring Iran never obtains a nuclear weapon.
This is a vital security interest to both Israel and the United States and, I would add, for the rest of the world as well.
I continue to believe that diplomacy is the best way to achieve this outcome.
Will diplomacy actually work? Probably not, unless backed by “maximum strength” type sanctions of the sort that Trump was using to grind down the Iranian state before Biden acceded to office. But, whether diplomacy works or not, it’s better than sending yet more Americans to die for nothing in the Middle East and spending trillions of dollars on doing so.
Israeli PM Lapid, however, was not so diplomacy minded. He insisted that diplomacy would not work and that war might be necessary to not only stop Iran from acquiring a nuke, but to protect the rights of the “LGBTQ community”, saying:
Those of us who were fortunate enough to be born free people sometimes do not understand the intensity of the hatred behind the attack on democracy.
What we — did we do to them? What makes them crash planes into skyscrapers in New York and fire rockets at kindergartens in the city of Sderot? The answer is fear.
What scares them the most is that their citizens, their people can see us, can see our quality of life — the dynamism and creativity of our economy, the rights of women and the LGBTQ community, freedom of religion, freedom of speech.
Our way of life is what threatens them. It’s what makes the Iranian regime develop is — its nuclear program, Hezbollah aim its missiles at us, and terrorist organizations worldwide send suicide bombers. They want to destroy the only Jewish state in the world. That — we will never let that happen.
Words will not stop them, Mr. President. Diplomacy will not stop them. The only thing that will stop Iran is knowing that the — if they continue to develop their nuclear program, the free world will use force. The only way to stop them is to put a credible military threat on the table.
You have said many times, Mr. President, that big countries do not bluff. I completely agree. It should not be a bluff but the real thing. The Iranian regime must know that if they continue to deceive the world, they will pay a heavy price.
So the Israeli state wants Biden to “use force” to stop Iran, something that could lead to war with the massive Persian state, a war that would likely prove far more difficult than the invasion of Iraq given the nation’s geography.
America doesn’t need another war. It needs peace, time to recover from Bush’s disastrously expensive nation-building wars. On this count, Biden is right.
By: TheAmericanTribune.com, editor of TheAmericanTribune.com. Follow me on Facebook and Subscribe to My Email List