Uranium bomb.

Editor,

The NYT is still relentlessly beating the drums for war against Iran. The worst case the fear mongers in this article can come up with -- and it is a worst case, not a foregone conclusion -- is enough material for a uranium bomb in one year and a uranium bomb in 2 to 5 years.

I can understand the paranoia in the American military establishment, their having invaded and essentially demolished Iraq on false pretenses, killing or displacing more than a million civilians in the process, and their having invaded Afghanistan, killing and torturing who-knows-how-many there. So yeah, there are a lot of people out there who would like to blow up the USA.

But let's be realistic. Assume Iran is able to manufacture a uranium bomb, with yield in the kilotons. Would they be crazy enough to attack someone with it when the USA can retaliate with thousands of thermonuclear weapons with yields in the megatons? Iran would be incinerated in 15 minutes if Iran exploded a uranium bomb over, say, Israel, whose interests by the way the NYT values more highly than ours, the citizens of the USA.

The way to defuse this situation is to ratchet down our hostile posture towards the Muslim world. Empire is a bad idea. People fight back. It is much smarter to find ways to cooperate with other nations than to try to dominate them by force or, the other favorite imperial American strategy: ripping them off with one-sided, fraudulent financial obligations.

I can appreciate that the rich want to enslave everyone and own everything, but this is not possible. Give up this foolish ambition and countless doors for peace and mutual cooperation open.

re: "Gates Says U.S. Lacks Strategy to Curb Iran’s Nuclear Drive" (4/18/2010)