Dear Editor:
So there is a lot of outrage over Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, making a speech on the campus of Columbia University. I admit I was surprised, even in this time of bitter partisanship, at the intensity of the angry rhetoric of those protesting his visit.
Columbia University itself was targeted as a terrorist training camp by many, and there were even calls to restrict federal funding to it as punishment for allowing the Iranian president to speak. I continue to be surprised at just how crazy things get when we allow groupthink to take over independent judgment.
For example, some of the protesters at the event (200-some in all) were spreading the administration position that Iran was developing nuclear weapons and they knew Iran was going to start a nuclear war against us. Every time I have heard the administration tell us it knows Iran is developing nuclear weapons, I have heard the Iranian president insist that it is a nuclear program compliant under international law for peaceful power-generation purposes.
Iran, being a non-nuclear state, is allowed under international law to develop civilian nuclear technology. It must comply, like every other non-nuclear nation, with International Atomic Energy Agency and allow inspections of its nuclear sites, as well as allow inspections of whatever else the IAEA deems a suspect nuclear site. This program was initiated to allow those countries without the benefit of nuclear power to gain it and it contains significant protections against the development of nuclear weapons. If Iran’s nuclear program had ever denied international inspectors, they would report that. Then wouldn’t we, the American people, be the first to hear about it via a 9 p.m. televised declaration of war by George W. Bush? I would respectfully submit that because George W. hasn’t accused Iran of IAEA violations, the IAEA is working under its mandate, and we are safe from an Iranian nuclear attack.
Therefore, we can afford to tone down the rhetoric on the Iran nuclear issue, and know Bush is probably lying like he always does. This is a good thing, because the U.S. really doesn’t need to get into another war on false pretenses.
-Len Lastinger

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