There are a number of web sites, apparently sponsored by the government of Iran seeking individuals interested in becoming suicide bombers. In fact, Iran's President Mahmud ahmadinejad recently bragged about already having some 40,000 such government employees deployed around the world to take action the minute Iran's enemies attempted to stop their nuclear weapons program through the use of force.
By "enemies" ahmadinejad, of course meant Israel and the United States both of which are concerned about the Iranian nuclear weapons program currently nearing completion. So Iran has warned the U.S and Israel that if they should attempt to interfere with that program, the price would presumably be the massive deployment of human bombs against selected civilian targets.
I don't believe there are a lot of governments in the world today advertising job openings that would result in immediate and permanent termination the moment the employee completed his or her job. It's a curious occupation with a retirement plan that could only attract frothing-at-the-mouth religious nut bars and it's a boast that we living in the civilized world would be well advised to take seriously.
The proposition that ahmadinejad put to the world is that Iran is going to proceed with its nuclear weapons program and any attempt to stop it would result in the immediate deployment of Iran's human bombs at american and Israeli targets. He has also stated that once in possession of nuclear weapons, he would not hesitate to use them to achieve his ends, namely the destruction of Israel and the U.S.
What to do? Should we take the psychopath seriously and put an immediate end to Iran as an "Islamic republic" and face the consequences of the 40,000 human bombs? Or should we take a more nuanced approach in hopes that once Iran actually has these weapons in hand, ahmadinejad and his fellow inmates will come to their senses, realizing that as a member of the nuclear club Iran now has a duty to act responsibly. The problem with being nuanced is that one can nuance one's self to oblivion believing in the innate goodness of everyone and ascribing the same paradigm through which we see the world to those who would prefer us not to be in it in the first place.
To ask the question: "Can we take action tomorrow?" also poses the question will tomorrow be too late?
On the one hand we can act now and take a chance that there really are 40,000 homicide bombers just waiting to detonate themselves in our shopping malls, theaters and restaurants. On the other hand, we can try a "soft power" approach and attempt to reason the Iranians out of completing their program, while all the while they continue working on it and hope that once they do have functional nuclear weapons they won't use them.
This appears to be the classic definition of being caught between a rock and a hard place, but if I were making the choice, I'd prefer to take my chances with the 40,000 Iranian "civil servants" seeking an early retirement by retiring large numbers of american and Israeli civilians. Negotiating with the likes of Iran's theocracy over acquiring nuclear weapons is akin to negotiating with a rabid dog. Neither will understand nor listen to reason. That's why it is of tantamount importance that we retire their nuclear program by any means necessary, even if it involves pre-emptive tactical nuclear intervention.
If you think fundamentalist Christians are scary, wait ‘til you see what fundamentalist Muslims are capable of, particularly if they happen to be at the head of a government with a whole lot of wealth and a cache of nuclear weapons.
On the whole, retiring 40,000 Iranian civil servants is preferable to allowing them the luxury of being able to retire all of Israel or a large part of the U.S. with two or three well-placed bombs.
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