January 05, 2005
Tuesday

Have you ever played  "Alternate History"?  It is a game of "what if" that egghead History majors play in college.  You also see it in science fiction stories where the basic premise is; assume some specific historical event or decision never happened, or happened differently, what would the world be like now?  For instance a premise might be;

What if .. Spain had been able to convince the other European Catholic nations to help them blockade England in 1588.  Queen Elizabeth probably would have abdicated and England certainly would not have become the world's preeminent sea power. We would all be speaking Spanish.

What If... The Germans had discovered that the Allies had cracked the Engima code during WWII?  The Germans would have likely won the U-Boat battle of the Atlantic extending the war so would we have used the A-Bomb on Germany instead of Japan?  Could Germany have won the war?
 
Applying this kind of logic in reverse, what will likely be the consequences of not stopping Iran from developing nuclear tipped long-range missiles?  The Iranians will certainly begin building and selling missiles for other Islamic states as well as stockpiling their own arsenal.  Before too long they will have the ability to independently target multiple re-entry warheads (MIRVS).  The first one of those nations that possess these weapons and falls to an Al-Queda dominated government will launch them at our cities.  After all, they are willing to commit suicide, they do it all the time so they will not be intimated by our threat of retribution.  They are more than happy to slaughter mass numbers of innocent Americans as in 9/11/01.  One multi-warhead missile like this would obliterate New York, Boston, Cleveland and Washington D.C..  A second missile would incinerate LA, Denver, Phoenix and Salt lake City.  This would make today's Tsunami losses look like a walk in the park.
 
The USSR and ourselves were constrained from nuclear attacks during the Cold War by a fear of Mutually Assured Destruction.  They were rational as were we.  The Mullahs and Islamists of Iran, Syria, etc. are not rational and really want the world to go back to the Dark Ages.  If they get the bomb and the means to deliver it, the odds of them attacking us are very, very high.
 
President Bush must let the Iranians, perhaps the North Koreans as well, know that we will not under any circumstances permit them to develop nuclear weapons.  We must be prepared to use our own armed forces and even our own nuclear weapons if necessary, world opinion be damned,  to make sure that they stop their nuclear programs now.  Otherwise, a century or so from now, egghead students, if there are any then, will ask ... "What if the USA had stopped the creation of the "Islamic Atomic Bomb", would the USA still exist?"
 
Mark Neckameyer
Irvine, CA - USA

 

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