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InResponse: Letter to the Editor

And there she goes again on her own
Oops, to paraphrase President Reagan, there she goes again. Zoë has stepped her foot in it again, trying to make political statements without checking the facts. Personally I found it very funny to read her column and contrast it with the Iranian student’s description of his native country in the student profile.

Zoë says, “According to the National Intelligence Estimate of 2007 …” Did you read the report, Zoë, or just report what the liberal news claimed it said? The report is available online at www.dni.gov as a PDF file. None of your statements are supported by the NIE report. She also stated, “The Iraq Study Group Report found that it is far more likely that donations from Saudi Arabia are financing more weapons than Iran is.” A search of all instances of Saudi Arabia in “The Iraq Study Group Report,” an 84-page PDF online, showed no such information. Perhaps it was part of the statements one or more members made but not found valid for the final report. In fact the report indicates that Saudi Arabia is remaining neutral in the situation. This does not eliminate the possibility entirely; many rich Saudis are known to pay protection money to al-Qaida.

Zoë quotes the report as saying, “Iran is not likely to have any role in escalating violence in Iraq.” This is a bad summary of the paragraph.

The paragraph states that Iraq’s neighbors, Iran being one, are “not likely” to have a role. This is followed immediately with the statement: “Nonetheless, Iranian lethal support for select groups of Iraqi Shia militants clearly intensifies the conflict in Iraq.” The next bulleted item says, “For key Sunni regimes, intense communal warfare, Shia gains in Iraq, and Iran’s assertive role have heightened fears of regional instability and unrest and contributed to a growing polarization between Iran and Syria on the one hand and other Middle East governments on the other.”

About the shaped charges she says, “the bomb that could easily be produced in Iraq with a lathe and some knowledge of munitions.” Would these same people have put Iranian serial numbers on their homemade munitions?

Zoë says, “Iran is a country that has been peaceful since the 1990s.” After having their population nearly decimated by the Iran-Iraq war, that’s not surprising. Iran has instead decided to fight by proxy by financing terrorist organizations, including founding Hezbollah in Lebanon and, as stated above, the Shia militants in Iraq. As a result of this, they are currently having financial difficulty and are not able to pay the Russians for their technical assistance, and haven’t paid their own employees for some time. Zoë continues, “(Iran) could not have a nuclear-weapons program any earlier than 2015 under the most ideal circumstances.” Just to be on the safe side, Iran is already enriching uranium. This also disregards Iran’s relation with North Korea. The missiles Korea fired had Iranian missiles as boosters, and the Iranians were there to check the progress.
– Paul Confer • pconfer@mscd.edu