Iran Can't Become the new Cambodia

The Bush administration is backing into a confrontation with Iran by charging that Iranian terrorists are arming, funding, and encouraging Iraqis in their efforts to kill American soldiers. But, by characterizing the confrontation with Iran as having been triggered by Iranian actions in Iraq, the Bush people risk making their important and vital attempt to confront Iran and stop its nuclear development an escalation of the war in Iraq, just as Nixon's invasion of Cambodia was seen as an escalation of the war in Vietnam. 

But Iran is a far more important problem than Iraq is today. With Saddam deposed, there is no longer a threat of nuclear weapons coming from Baghdad. The worst they will do is IEDs. But Iranian nuclear ambitions pose the very real threat of nuclear war and the annihilation of Israel. The administration needs to delineate this threat from that posed by Iranian involvement in Iraq so that the unpopularity of the war in Iraq does not preclude needed military and economic measures to stop Iran from getting the bomb.

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