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dick cheney |
Asked about Iran, and its support for terrorism, Cheney said
the current government has been a major source of state-sponsored
terrorism and is "actively working trying to acquire ballistic
missile technology, as well as nuclear weapons themselves...
But our argument with Iran is not with the Iranian people,"
he said. "What we find is, I think, that the potential
exists that underneath that regime that — whose policies
we find so objectionable, there is a growing body of opinion
on the part of the Iranian people that favors and supports democracy,
that wants to build a good relationship with the United States,
that believes in opening to the West." US
Dept of State August 2002 |
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Snr. Joseph Biden (DEM) |
"I say this for one simple reason - I believe that an
improved relationship with Iran is in the naked self-interest
of the United States of America... Iran sits in the geo-political
heart of a region that has long been important to our security
concerns... On its Eastern frontier sits a newly-liberated Afghanistan
where the military mission is far from over. Farther East is
a nuclear-armed Pakistan that just a short while ago stood on
the precipice of a potentially devastating conflict with its
arch-rival India... To the West is a recalcitrant Iraq, with
a dangerous leader who Iranians grew to know all too well during
the long and bloody Iran-Iraq war. To the North are the undemocratic,
potentially energy-rich states of Central Asia and the conflict-ridden
Caucasus... To the South are several American allies that sit
atop the largest known oil reserves on the face of the earth...
So it is not an understatement to say that the direction Iran
takes in the coming years will have a significant impact upon
American strategic interests in this region." Senator
Joseph R. Biden, Jr, March 13, 2002 |
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Snt. Joseph Biden (DEM) |
Joseph switches gears: "Some of Iran's leaders
don't appear to understand how drastically the world has changed
after September 11.... Their continuing support for groups such
as Islamic Jihad puts them on the wrong side of the new fault-line
separating civilization and those who seek chaos. As you all
know, Iran is continuing an aggressive drive to develop weapons
of mass destruction and long-range missile systems. In these
efforts, it receives considerable foreign assistance, especially
from Russia....While support for terrorism appears to be directed
by those in the hard-line branch of the government, the support
for Iran's missile and nuclear weapons programs is more broad-based."
Senator
Joseph R. Biden, Jr, March 13, 2002 |
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Iran - Iraq war |
" The United States and other Western powers tilted towards
Iraq during its 1980-88 war with Iran, seeing it as a bulwark
against Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's Islamic revolution...
The Iraqi official said secular Iraq could still play a balancing
role, but not if its own stability was undermined." Alistair
Lyon, Bangkok Post, 1998 |
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consequences |
" Most experts believe that the mullahs' days are numbered,
and that true democracy will come to Iran. That day will arrive
sooner, the hawks argue, with a democratic Iraq on Iran's border.
But the opposite could happen. If the mullahs are smart, they'll
cooperate just enough with the Americans not to provoke an attack,
but put themselves forth to their own people as defenders of
Iranian independence and Iran's brother Shi'a in southern Iraq
who are living under the American jackboot. Such a strategy
might keep the fundamentalists in power for years longer than
they otherwise might have been." Joshua
Marshall, Washington Monthly, March 31, 2003 |
iranian
threat