McCain, Not Obama, Better Choice to Prevent War In Iran; Mark Kirk Fights to Add Israel to Missile Defense Blanket (UPDATED)

ROLL CALL ARTICLE: Here's a no-subscription link to that great article from Roll Call that we discussed yesterday.


One of Barack Obama's primary political platform planks is the notion that we don't talk enough to terrorist nations. Lots of other U.S. presidents talked to all sorts of nasty leaders and countries over the years, and there's nothing to be afraid of. It will increase our standing in the world and make our friends forget about George Bush, and the terrorists will lay down their arms and embrace lattes and soccer games on weekends, just like us folks in Hyde Park do.

Here's another scenario: Countries like Iran will see an Obama presidency as weak on asserting its interests globally and will test its mettle, especially against Israel. Iran will see little to lose in continuing to march towards nuclear weapons capability, which will lead Israel to react to preserve itself, much like its recent bombing of the reactor in Syria. Iran will count on being able to withstand an Israeli air attack on its nuclear facilities, which are deep underground, and will then have a great excuse to go to war with Israel. The U.S., of course, will be drawn in, and no amount of the Barack-star's silver-tongued rhetoric will get us out of that mess.

John McCain is the best shot we have at avoiding that scenario, but it will be a challenge to make that point in the coming months. In today's Wall Street Journal, Daniel Henninger observes:

John McCain needs to find an Achilles heel in this opponent. It's there – not the Wright mess but Obama's dustup with Hillary Sunday on Iran, when he tagged her for "saber rattling" and "tough talk."

Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, collector of centrifuges, makes Jeremiah Wright look like Little Bo Peep. Yet this Tuesday Barack Obama said he assumes the American people will see it is "not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but our enemies, like Roosevelt did, Kennedy did, and Truman did." In the here and now, a more apt name comes to mind: Jimmy Carter.

A grand Enemies Tour awaits President Obama – Iran's Ahmadinejad, Syria's Assad, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, North Korea's Kim Jong Il, an al Qaeda "diplomat" from Osama bin Laden, Sudan's Hassan al-Bashir, Zimbabwe's Mugabe, Burma's junta.

Someone who understands this all better than most is... you guessed it... Congressman Mark Kirk.

As the 60th anniversary of the creation of Israel approaches, Kirk has renewed his efforts to convince President Bush to give Israel the advanced X-band radar system that would enable Israel to knock down Iranian missiles early in flight. Kirk is working on this bi-partisan effort with Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and has the backing of 63 colleagues, according to an article today in Roll Call (subscription needed to view). According to the article, Kirk stated that X-band radar would "allow Israel and the United States to see the earth through a common window" and more than quintuple Israel's warning time against an Iranian missile attack from one minute with its current system to six minutes and allow an intercept with Arrow missiles outside Israeli territory.

Even Senator Clinton seems to understand the need to take a hard line with Iran, or at least she understands it better than Obama. The Roll Call article stated:

Clinton said last month that the United States could "totally obliterate" Iran if it attacked Israel with nuclear weapons. She also proposed extending America's nuclear "umbrella" to Arab states in the region to keep them from "going nuclear."

Kirk, while not opposing deterrence, said that including Israel fully in the U.S. missile-defense system would be a better alternative, particularly because "deterrence only works against a rational regime" that would not risk destruction of its own population. Iran's leaders, on the other hand, adore martyrdom.

As usual, Kirk's deep understanding of foreign policy and intelligence shines through. Obama, however, who aspires to be the commander-in-chief, has a naive view of the world that comes with his Hyde Park liberal background, and will put us in a very dangerous place if he should win in November. McCain and Kirk hopefully will not let this happen.

SEAL WATCH: If anyone still bothers to go over to the 'other blog', it's interesting how Ellen never posts on anything positive challenger Dan Seals does, and simply seeks to criticize whatever Mark Kirk does. Could it be because... Dan Seals does nothing to talk about? Oh, I do have to point out that at least one Seals supporter wrote into the Daily Herald to trumpet Dan's ability to organize a park cleanup on Earth Day. That's swell, lady. Mark Kirk is out there, trying to protect the world from terrorism, our kids from Internet predators, and Lake Michigan from pollution, and Dan cleans up a park on his off Saturday. Well, you don't need to guess who I'm voting for...