Friday, December 07, 2007

Who is threatened by Iran?

In the comments to my post of Mr. Bolton's comments on the NIE someone asks this:

Iran has attacked how many countries in the last 50 years?

Well, let's see. Iran has attacked the Unites States. The hostage situation back in 1979 was brought about when armed persons acting with the approval of Iran's Islamic revolutionary government invaded the US Embassy in Tehran (which was US soil under international law) and took US citizens, who were protected by their diplomatic status under international law, prisoner.

This was an act of war against the US.

Iran's Islamic revolutionary government entered a formal declaration of war against the United States of America. They have never rescinded that declaration of war.

This is another act of war against the US.

Iran has supported with money, training, sanctuary and the supply of weapons and explosives terrorist organizations like the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades which have attacked Israel. Both civilian and military attacks have been carried out by Iranian surrogates in the state of Israel.

This is an act of war against Israel.

Hezbollah terrorists supported and directed by Iran have invaded the sovereign territory of Lebanon and used it as a base from which to attack Israel. This has drawn entirely justified counterattacks by the IDF on Lebanese territory.

This is an act of war against both Israel and Lebanon.

Iran has supplied money, arms, training, sanctuary and sophisticated anti-personnel and anti-vehicle land mines to terrorist forces fighting in both Iraq and Afghanistan. These actions of Iran have resulted in the murder of both civilians and military forces of the United States, Iraq and Afghanistan.

These are acts of war against the United States, Iraq and Afghanistan.

So, just off the top of my head, Iran has attacked the United States, Israel, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq all not just within the last 50 years but within the last two years.