President Bush made a serious mistake in not militarily confronting Iran when Khamenei started gunning for Americans and Shiites in Iraq. Bombing runs on a few Revolutionary Guard facilities would have sent a clear signal that any loss of American life would bring lethal retaliation. Such actions would have helped convey the message that Khamenei’s pursuit of nuclear weapons will not diminish America’s resolve to confront Tehran militarily if its hubris gets out of hand. To avoid a repeat of Khobar Towers, where the Iranians orchestrated a deadly terrorist attack against American personnel in Saudi Arabia in 1996, we should have shown that we would retaliate for any loss of American life.
He has a point. I was eager for us to strike back at the time.
But cut President Bush some slack. The Left denied Iran's complicity in the war so strongly that the president would have been impeached had he openly struck Iran in retaliation for Iran's killing of hundreds of our troops and thousands of Iraqi civilians.
President Obama has an opportunity to make up for our past failure to bloody Iran's nose as Iran seeks to complicate our war in Afghanistan. Will we really let Iran get away with supplying surface-to-air missiles to the Taliban?
