Sarah Palin on Iran’s nuke program. Will Obama “toughen up”?

By Bernie Quigley

For The Hill on 6/30/11

Former Saudi intelligence chief and ambassador to Washington Prince Turki al-Faisal warns senior NATO military officials that the existence of nuclear weapons in Iran "would compel Saudi Arabia … to pursue policies which could lead to untold and possibly dramatic consequences.”

"We cannot live in a situation where Iran has nuclear weapons and we don't. It's as simple as that," he said. "If Iran develops a nuclear weapon, that will be unacceptable to us and we will have to follow suit."

There is only one way President Barack Obama can distinguish his tenure from Jimmy Carter’s and win reelection in 2012. Take out Iran’s bomb making capacity.

AFP reports that Iran secretly tested ‘nuclear-capable missiles’: Iran has carried out secret tests of ballistic missiles capable of delivering a nuclear payload in breach of UN resolutions, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Wednesday. . . . Hague's comments came a day after Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards said they had fired 14 missiles in an exercise, one of them a medium-range weapon capable of striking Israel or US targets in the Gulf.

But will Obama, in Sarah Palin’s phrase, “toughen up”? It is the right thing to do but of course it would be murderously immoral to so now for apparent political expediency. But then that has not stopped them before (“Arab Spring,” Libya?).

Nevertheless, it is work that needs to be done and if Obama doesn’t do it President Sarah Palin will. Her political intelligence and instincts are the best. She speaks clearly on this issue and did so when all others were silent. In December, 2010 she wrote in an op-ed piece:

Iran continues to defy the international community in its drive to acquire nuclear weapons. Arab leaders in the region rightly fear a nuclear-armed Iran. We suspected this before, but now we know for sure because of leaked diplomatic cables.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia "frequently exhorted the U.S. to attack Iran to put an end to its nuclear weapons program" . . . . Officials from Jordan said the Iranian nuclear program should be stopped by any means necessary. Officials from the United Arab Emirates and Egypt saw Iran as evil, an "existential threat" and a sponsor of terrorism. If Iran isn't stopped from obtaining nuclear weapons, it could trigger a regional nuclear arms race in which these countries would seek their own nuclear weapons to protect themselves.

Some have said the Israelis should undertake military action on their own if they are convinced the Iranian program is approaching the point of no return. But Iran's nuclear weapons program is not just Israel's problem; it is the world's problem. I agree with the former British prime minister Tony Blair, who said recently that the West must be willing to use force "if necessary" if that is the only alternative.