The Case for Action Against Iran

Norman Podhoretz makes the case at the Wall Street Journal Opinion Journal for bombing Iran.

It's a lengthy read, but worth it. Check out these paragraphs to whet your appetite, then go read the whole article:

Much of the world has greeted Ahmadinejad's promise to wipe Israel off the map with something close to insouciance. In fact, it could almost be said of the Europeans that they have been more upset by Ahmadinejad's denial that a Holocaust took place 60 years ago than by his determination to set off one of his own as soon as he acquires the means to do so. In some of European countries, Holocaust denial is a crime, and the European Union only recently endorsed that position. Yet for all their retrospective remorse over the wholesale slaughter of Jews back then, the Europeans seem no readier to lift a finger to prevent a second Holocaust than they were the first time around.

Not so George W. Bush, a man who knows evil when he sees it and who has demonstrated an unfailingly courageous willingness to endure vilification and contumely in setting his face against it. It now remains to be seen whether this president, battered more mercilessly and with less justification than any other in living memory, and weakened politically by the enemies of his policy in the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular, will find it possible to take the only action that can stop Iran from following through on its evil intentions both toward us and toward Israel. As an American and as a Jew, I pray with all my heart that he will.

President Bush knew back in 2001 that we needed to deal with Iran. However, it would have been foolhardy to try and do so with our western flank exposed to a belligerent Saddam Hussein in Iraq. In fact, I strongly suspect Bush saw Iraq as a step in the direction of dealing with the greatest threat in the Middle East: Iran.

Bush, in his down-home Texas way, probably misunderestimated the capacity of Democrats and other liberals to put their appeasement tendencies and political ambitions ahead of our country's security.

The Left in America and throughout the world has so undermined President Bush that I doubt he has it in him to deal with one of the greatest current threats to world peace and security (Iran).

For the sake of us all, I hope he proves me wrong.