Web Letters: US Must Stop Mixed Signals on Iran

Unless Israel launches a pre-emptive attack on Iran, there will be no conventional missile strikes from Iran. Iran cannot use nuclear weapons against Israel without taking out the Palestinians, the holy city of Jerusalem and part, if not all, of neighboring Islamic countries.

Unlike the Israeli strike against Iraq's nuclear facility, Iran's nuclear facilities are active and loaded with nuclear material. A "successful" attack on such facilities would produce a number of Chernobyls and radioactive fallout, depending on wind direction, that would eventually cover the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent. They still haven't tamed Chernobyl!

Besides supporting the Palestinians, Iran is annoyed with Israel because they trained the Shah's secret police. The Shah came to power through a CIA coup against a freely elected leader who posed a threat to British and American oil interests.

Despite their dislike for Israel, Iran has Jewish citizens living in safety in that country. Iranian diplomats also saved some Jews from the holocaust during WWII.

No one is totally innocent or guilty in any country.

Pervis James Casey

Riverside, CA

I cannot understand why any person would defend Iran. Iran was responsible for directing, arming and training Hezbollah, who murdered 251 marines during the Reagan adminstration via a car bomb in Lebanon; Iran has blown up Kobar Towers in Saudia Arabia, murdering eighteen US soldiers; the 8,000 rockets Hezbollah targeted at Israeli cities in 2006 were given to them by Iran; Iran has blown up the Israeli Embassy in Argentina and the Jewish Cultural Center in Argentina; Iran funds, arms and trains Hamas, which has conducted suicide bombings against Israeli men, women and children, murdering hundreds on buses, in restaurants and supermarkets; and Iran calls for Israel to be wiped off the map. Is this the country Obama has no problem with enriching uranium?

One can speak about the other nuclear powers all they want, to absurdly claim that if they can have a bomb, so should Iran, but when is the last time America, France, Russia, England, China and Israel sent suicide bombers into public places to murder civilians, blew up embassies, sent thousands of rockets towards another countries cities or called for another country to be wiped off the face of the earth? The Iranian government is a dictatorship with a crazy messianic view of Islam, and they should be the very last country ever allowed to obtain a weapon of mass destruction.

I am Jewish and want to see a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and I think it's disgraceful that Avigdor Leiberman is the Israeli foreign minister. But that aside, Israelis on the right, the left and in the center all are deeply afraid of Iran's rush to obtain a nuclear weapon and the rest of the world should share that worry as well and do whatever it takes to stop Iran. Economic sanctions should be severe and force should be used only as a last resort; but a nation that rose from the ashes of the Holocaust cannot allow Iran to have a weapon of mass destruction.

Mark Jeffery Koch

Cherry Hill, NJ

This politicking is, I suppose, necessary to impress the various lobbies who weigh in on this deal, but if President Obama really wants to change the equation, all he has to do is to threaten to cut off USAID support for Israel or even to slow up the transfers of cash on which the Israeli government depends (not to mention military spending which accounts for a large number of Israeli jobs), and we would hear a different tune from Israel.

Anthony Stocks

Rochester , MN

I"m watching an administration being seduced by Washington and Wall Street and it is ugly.

James L. Pinette

Caribou, ME

The Israelis may be bellicose. but they're not stupid. They know America doesn't have the stomach for any additional military adventure, but they always want America to do their dirty work and die for them. Their favorite way of getting their cake and eating it also is to implement a false flag, something even Bush entertained in Iraq with a falsely painted UN plane. I wouldn't put it past the the new Israeli government to try that and thereby lure America into its war with Iran. It tried that with the USS Liberty in 1967 which backfired, but with thirty-four American casualties.

stanley hersh

New York, NY