Iranian Crisis - Sunday Update

Iran plans for, perhaps hopes for, war with the United States:

Iran has formed 40,000 suicide bombers into battalions ready to strike at American and British targets if its nuclear sites are attacked, officials in Tehran claim.
The main force, named the Special Unit of Martyr Seekers in the Revolutionary Guards, was first seen last month when members marched in a military parade, dressed in olive-green uniforms with explosive packs around their waists and detonators held high.

The suicide battalions were revealed as Iran issued a shocking military warning to the United States yesterday.
"You can start a war, but it won't be you who finishes it," said Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi, the head of the Revolutionary Guards and among the regime's most powerful figures.
"The Americans know better than anyone that their troops in the region and in Iraq are vulnerable. I would advise them not to commit such a strategic error," he told reporters at a pro-Palestinian conference in Tehran.
At the same gathering on Friday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned that Israel was heading towards "annihilation."
A report leaked in February confirms that President Bush is preparing to strike Iran.

And yet, Bush has come under criticism for even having the Pentagon draw up battle scenerios against a nation that has vowed to dominate the West, and is currently creating the means to do so. From Seymour Hirsh, purvayor of so many of the left's lies, we hear that due to Iran's new strength, our only option is to talk -
“If you attack,” the high-ranking diplomat told me in Vienna, “Ahmadinejad will be the new Saddam Hussein of the Arab world, but with more credibility and more power. You must bite the bullet and sit down with the Iranians.”
The diplomat went on, “There are people in Washington who would be unhappy if we found a solution. They are still banking on isolation and regime change. This is wishful thinking.” He added, “The window of opportunity is now.”

...and that we are sure to face a defeat at the hands of the Iranian military-

a retired four-star general told me that, despite the eight thousand British troops in the region, “the Iranians could take Basra with ten mullahs and one sound truck.” [must be the same general that's chanting "Rummy must go!" - ed.]

...and that, of course, Israel is driving our policy-

I was told by several officials that the White House’s interest in preventing an Israeli attack on a Muslim country, which would provoke a backlash across the region, was a factor in its decision to begin the current operational planning. In a speech in Cleveland on March 20th, President Bush depicted Ahmadinejad’s hostility toward Israel as a “serious threat. It’s a threat to world peace.” He added, “I made it clear, I’ll make it clear again, that we will use military might to protect our ally Israel.”

From today's New York Daily News, former Iranian hostage and Jimmy Carter tells us that Ahmadinejad's greatest fear is not the United States, but the dreaded UN Security Council:

This demands a reinvigorated and unrelenting UN Security Council program of aggressive diplomatic intervention that steadfastly supports the human rights movement in Iran.
This is the key to isolating the regime, weakening its totalitarian hold over the Iranian people and creating a united front of Iranians calling for a more open society.
Far more than military threats from a hated superpower, that would be Ahmadinejad's worst nightmare.
Ahmadinejad ran for the presidency of Iran on a platform of rejuvenating the revolutionary period of the Khomeini era. His nuclear sideshow is a convenient ploy to distract the unemployed poor from their own serious needs

Two canards in one! The UN as savior (even though Russia and China have stated that they feel Security Council decrees will "do more harm than good"!), and the "root-causes" excuse, as in "Iranian poverty and poor human rights records" are the real issues here. Yeah, they are issues all right, that can be addressed once the Mad Mullahs are no longer controlling the Persian state.

William Arkin in today's Washington Post gets it right:

The diplomatic effort directed at Iran would be mightily enhanced if that country understood that the United States is so serious about deterring the Iranian quest for nuclear weapons that it would be willing to go to war to stop that quest from reaching fruition.

Iran needs to know -- and even more important, the American public needs to know -- that no matter how many experts talk about difficult-to-find targets or the catastrophe that could unfold if war comes, military planners are already working hard to minimize the risks of any military operation. This is the very essence of contingency planning.

Amazing that all the mulitculturalists on the left cannot grasp the simple fact that the Iranians are not like us; that the only chance they have of taking the carrot is the threat of the big, fat stick of Uncle Sam, not the impotent whines of the United Nations. Begging and pleading won't get the Iranians off their bomb-hunt; it has never worked in the Middle East before (more "shuttle diplomacy", anyone?).

Let's make sure Iran knows how serious we are, and how firm we are in our resolve to prevent them from creating a nuclear Islamist fascist state. Only then, when faced with an unwavering, unapologetic, and unrelenting American adversary, might the Iranians say, "OK, friends, let us talk...'.

Photo top via Gateway Pundit, who covers this story as well.
In-depth coverage at Front-Page Iran.
And of course, there is this...