George Putnam
Friday, Feb. 2, 2007

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It is this reporter's opinion that the announcements by Iran's bad man, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, prove that Iran has made yet more advancements in the nation's push for nuclear weapons.

These announcements by the rogue nation have led to calls to the Bush administration for a preventive U.S. airstrike.

Those who make the cry are those who gave us war in Iraq.

Thank goodness we have calmer heads such as that of Zbigniew Brzezinski who offer a compelling reason against a preventive airattack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

Brzezinski was the national security advisor from 1971 to 1981 and his advice is important and relevant. He says in the absence of an imminent threat (and the Iranians are at least several years away from having a nuclear arsenal), the attack would be a unilateral act of war.

Moreover, without a formal congressional declaration of war, an attack would be unconstitutional and could lead to the impeachment of the president. If undertaken without the sanction of the United Nations Security Council, either alone by the United States or in complicity with Israel, would label the perpetrators international outlaws.

Then, Iranian reaction would significantly compound our difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan and would surely perpetuate new violence by Hezbollah in Lebanon and elsewhere.

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It would also bog down the United States in the Arab world for a decade or more. Iran is a country of 70 million people. And a conflict there would make our misadventure in Iraq look trivial.

Also, oil prices would skyrocket once the Iranians cut their production or disrupt the flow of oil from the nearby Saudi oil fields. World economy would be severely affected and we would be blamed.

Finally, the United States would become an even more likely target of terrorism.

An attack on Iran would be an act of political folly, setting in motion intense upheaval in world affairs with the United States increasingly the object of widespread hostility.

This reporter was almost alone in the media warning against a Bush attack on Iraq. No need to recall the horrors of that fiasco. But are we going to be stupid enough — insane enough to follow the same parallel course with an attack on Iran?

Have we not learned from lessons taught by our experiences in Vietnam, the lives lost, the billions of dollars lost, and dislocation of humanity?

Yet the drum beaters for military action are determined to further complicate our problems. In the words of the great philosopher, George Santayana, "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat its mistakes."

Not again!

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