I mean, did John McCain really just try to pass off as a joke his crack about killing Iranians?
Are they responding to news of Iranian missile tests? Has no one been listening, or reading the news lately?
Hasn’t Israel been making noise about attacking Iran? The George W. Bush administration giving hints that it may well attack Iran?
An Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites looks “unavoidable” given the apparent failure of sanctions to deny Tehran technology with bomb-making potential, a deputy to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said recently.
What is Iran supposed to do? Stand pat?
It’s leaders would be negligent if, in the face of such threats, they do nothing to show that such an attack on their nation would not be cost-free.
The Times story, by Alan Cowell and William J. Broad, began this way:
Iranian Revolutionary Guards practicing war-game maneuvers test-fired nine missiles on Wednesday, including at least one the government in Tehran describes as having the range to reach Israel.
The tests drew sharp American criticism and came a day after the Iranians had threatened to retaliate against Israel and the United States if attacked.
State-run media said the missiles were long- and medium-range weapons, and included the Shahab-3, which Tehran maintains is able to hit targets up to 1,250 miles away from its firing position. Parts of western Iran are within 650 miles of Tel Aviv.
The tests, shown on Iranian television, coincide with increasingly tense exchanges with the West over Tehran’s nuclear program, which Iran says is for civilian purposes but which many Western governments suspect is aimed at building nuclear weapons. Iran’s military display came just a day after the United States and the Czech Republic signed an accord to allow the Pentagon to deploy part of its contentious antiballistic missile shield, which Washington maintains is designed to protect in part against Iranian missiles.
If we’re going to go around threatening war, we should not be surprised that the target of our threats show some spine, instead of cowering. We would ask no less of our country. Why do we expect different from Iranians?
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