The Issue: The mullahs’ growing defiance of America and their lack of respect for US power.
***
Amir Taheri’s article about Iran’s blatant disrespect for America should make our current leaders very uncomfortable (“Why Iran Doesn’t Fear Bam,” PostOpinion, Nov. 10).
As we ill-advisedly remove ourselves from Iraq and relinquish our stabilizing presence in the Middle East, we embolden the Iranian leadership under “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei and give Iran the wrong idea about America’s beliefs, capabilities and resolve.
Taheri makes the point that Iran is not afraid of President Obama. It appears the whole international community has lost its original respect for him. In fact, the only people who are afraid of Obama nowadays are American taxpayers, whose hard-earned money is financing a bloated government and the mistakes of a naive ideologue.
There shouldn’t be the prospect of a nuclear-capable Middle East superpower, and there shouldn’t be a perception that the United States is in a global retreat or in terminal decline.
Marcio Moreira
Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
***
Khamenei does not fear Obama for good reason — he has taken his measure and finds him wanting.
Iran will have nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them at some time, probably sooner than is comfortable to contemplate.
Our efforts to stymie this quest have been akin to engaging in a game of three-card monte. Iran knows how to say all the right things while playing rope-a-dope with Western negotiators for years.
Khamenei has a game plan, and it is far more coherent than our attempts to forestall it.
If Obama falls any further behind in his leadership on this issue, we will have no trouble understanding Iranian happiness.
Paul Bloustein
Cincinnati
***
Who cares if Hitler marches into the Sudetenland? That won’t involve us! Who cares if Imperial Japan attacks China? That can’t involve us either.
So who cares if Iran goes nuclear and wipes out Israel? Wake up, America. The world is a very small place.
To paraphrase Ben Franklin, the world’s democracies can either hang together or we will all surely hang separately.
John Dumary Jr.
Duanesburg
