SCHIEFFER: Well, let me just act--ask you about Iran. You brought up Iran. What should we do? Because we continue to hear more and more of just what you're saying. What should the United States do at this point about Iran?
Sen. LIEBERMAN: It's very important, Bob, because I didn't just go to Iraq, I went visited throughout the Arab world and Israel. And what you see throughout the Middle East is Iran in battle basically with us and the moderates, supplying the extremists in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas fighting the Fatah faction, our allies among the Palestinians, and, of course, committing terrorists acts against the Israelis.
I'm not one to say we shouldn't sit down with the Iranians. I'm glad we did that in Baghdad a while ago.
What we did was present them with evidence that we have that I've seen that I believe is incontrovertible that the Iranians are training and equipping the Iraqi extremists to come into Iraq, and they're killing American soldiers and Iraqis. And I think this is a very important moment. If we're going to sit and talk about the Iranians, tell them what we want them to do, which is to stop doing that, because it's killing Americans, we can't leave it at that. I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq. And to me that would include a strike into--over the border into Iran where I--we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers.
SCHIEFFER: Well, let's just stop right there, because I think you've probably made some news here, Senator Lieberman. You're saying that, if the--if the Iranians don't let up, that the United States should take military action against them.
Sen. LIEBERMAN: I am, and I want to make clear I'm not talking about a massive ground invasion of Iran or--but it--we have good evidence. We've told them, we've said so publicly that the Iranians have a base in Iran at which they are training Iraqis who are coming in and killing Americans. By some estimates they have killed as many as 200 American soldiers. Well, we can tell them we want them to stop that, but if there's any hope of the Iranians living according to the international rule of law and stopping for instance their nuclear weapons development, we can't just talk to them. If they don't play by the rules, we've got to use our force and, to me, that would include taking military action to stop them from doing what they're doing now.
SCHIEFFER: Would you go in on the ground, or could you do that from the air?
Sen. LIEBERMAN: I'd leave that to the--to the generals in charge. I think you could probably do a lot of it from the air. But they can't believe that they have immunity for training and equipping people to come in and kill Americans. It's just--we cannot let them get away with it. If we do, they'll take that as a sign of weakness on our part, and we will pay for it in Iraq and throughout the region, and ultimately right here at home.
First we're told that Iraq is the central front on the WOT and now WW Joe tells us that Iran is the biggest threat in the Middle East. Is it possible Joe is more concerned with Israel than he is with the United States, as Russell Kirk suggested was true of some neo-conservatives? It's nice that Joe says he isn't backing a massive ground invasion, since we don't have anywhere near enough troops to do so.
You know you've mad a seriously bad suggestion when a war whore like Michael Ledeen suggests you should be made Secretary of State. Profoundly stupid remark by Instapundit (Glenn Reynolds):
You know, if we had been firm in 1979, they wouldn't think they could get away with these kinds of threats. If we responded firmly now, we'd get less of that in the future. But we probably won't, because our political culture makes a firm response to threats almost impossible. Which is why we get so many.
We invaded two countries, Glenn, and not only do we STILL have problems, they've gotten worse.
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