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Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, who had been a close friend of mine, revealed to me what she thought was one of the most difficult days of her professional life. That was when she was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and President Ronald Reagan had just learned of the secret operation that Israel had conducted to bomb Iraq’s nuclear reactor in Osirak on June 7, 1981. In those days, the U.S. was trying to work with Iraq against Iran. She was instructed by President Ronald Reagan to give a speech, condemning Israel’s actions “in no uncertain terms.” She followed his instructions and likened the attack to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
The Security Council then voted unanimously to censure Israel.
Many years later, she told me, that when the United States entered the Gulf War 1991, and again, in the War against Saddam in 2003, she had wished she could eat her words.
The United States has what I like to call “two liquid assets,” bordering us with the Atlantic Ocean on our east and the Pacific in our west, and two benign neighbors on our northern and southern borders. Up until now, that has helped to keep the continental United States relatively safe, with the sole exception of September 11, 2001.
We have periods of foreign policy adventurism and entanglement, fluctuating with periods of retrenchment and isolationism. After our long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States is in no mood for further entanglements. And no one can blame them.
However, Israel is in no such position. A quote, generally attributed to Prime Minister Golda Meir, is “We cannot afford to make a single mistake.” Nor can they afford the luxury of “waiting it out” while Iran has accelerated its nuclear program to near breakout.
As of last week, breakout time was a matter of perhaps 2 to 3 months.
Then, a series of mysterious, clandestine attacks began to occur.
No one knows for sure who is behind this spate of attacks in nuclear facilities throughout Iran, but we know that the Mullahs are not happy about it.
Read the full article here.
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