"NAULAHKA"

I don’t pretend to have the extraordinary IQ level that Trump apparently boasts.  And perhaps my logic professors at Hamilton College had it all wrong.  But consider the following: 

  1. We and six other states, the permanent members of the Security Council, Germany and the EU have a nuclear agreement with Iran that, if it survives, and if Iran continues to adhere to it, will ensure that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon for at least another decade.  A lot can happen in a decade and fortune telling is not necessarily the strong suit of Presidents or Diplomats.  
  2. Terminating the agreement now by the US violating the agreement’s terms on sanctions or other provisions, would free Iran to reactivate its program and, based on previous estimates, develop a nuclear weapon within three or four months.  
  3. However, Iran would not have to walk away from the agreement even if the US does, provided the five other states and the EU signatories continue to observe the deal and sweeten the pot on the economic side to keep Iran in check. 
  4. This might be a preferred solution for the Iranian leaders who would thereby divide the Western anti-Iran alliance, open economic lines to the world, and give the xxxx to President Trump. 
  5. Of course, if Iran decided to go forward with developing a nuclear weapon, aided by North Korea, Trump would be faced with a choice - a nuclear armed Iran or a military adventure.  
  6. Saddam Hussein chose the latter course in confronting Iran and it did not wind up so well for him.  He overestimated his own strength and vastly underestimate the loyalty of the Iranian people to their leaders.  We underestimate Iranian national pride at our own risk. Trump might want to remember the “Naulahka”
  • “Now it is not good for the Christian's health to hustle the Aryan
  •      brown,
  • For the Christian riles, and the Aryan smiles and he weareth the
  •      Christian down;
  • And the end of the fight is a tombstone white with the name of
  •       the late deceased,
  • And the epitaph drear:  "A Fool lies here who tried to hustle the
  •        East.”

Rudyard Kipling

 

Politics, Security Council, Terrorism, US Foreign Policy, US Embassy, Nuclear WarNed Walker