Richard Perle: U.S. will attack Iran if it obtains nukes

For what it’s worth:

President George Bush will order an attack on Iran if it becomes clear to him that Iran is set to acquire nuclear weapons capabilities while he is still in office, Richard Perle told the Herzliya Conference on Sunday. Perle is close to the Bush administration, particularly to Vice President Richard Cheney. The leading neoconservative and fellow at the American Enterprise Institute addressed the session on Iran’s nuclear program. He said that the present policy of attempting to impose sanctions on Iran will not cause it to abandon its nuclear aspirations, and unless stopped the country will become a nuclear power.

Here’s a contrary opinion: rather than President Bush ordering an attack on Iran when it’s about to go nuclear, President Bush will not order an attack on Iran when it’s about to go nuclear. Instead, the US will roll with it and a Shiite Bomb will become a reality.

The difference between our opinion and Perle’s opinion is that his opinion is grounded in things like “access” and “knowing people who matter”. Ours is grounded in things like “a cold look at how the US has repeatedly backed down to militant Islam in the last half decade and the last half century”. Even then, we’d usually chalk our opinion up as conceit and defer to someone in Perle’s position – but his statements sound just a bit too much like wishful thinking. And the US really has backed down to radical Islamists repeatedly.

Previously: Democratic Leader “Pleased” Israel Has No Plans To Defend Itself From Iran, OneJerusalem.org Conference Call with Senator Rick Santorum, President Bush: “The advance of freedom is the cause of our time”

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