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Posts Tagged ‘Nuclear Weapons’
September 17th, 2015 at 6:11 pm
Ramirez Cartoon: How the Dinosaurs Became Extinct
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Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

September 4th, 2013 at 9:37 am
Ramirez Cartoon: Look! Syria! Miley Cyrus?
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Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

March 11th, 2013 at 9:51 am
Ramirez Cartoon: Iran Nuclear Threat
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Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez. 

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

February 23rd, 2012 at 2:06 pm
How Many Times Does Iran Have to Tell Us They’re Serious?
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Over at the Daily Caller, Jamie Weinstein has a piece today regarding the grave seriousness with which the Iranian regime approaches the prospect of wiping Israel off the face of the planet. The column opens by citing the widow of one of the recently-assassinated nuclear scientists working on the Iranian bomb, who says that her husband’s “ultimate goal was the annihilation of Israel.”

The intellectual balm of choice for foreign policy sophisticates has been to tell themselves that this sort of language out of Tehran is purely for domestic consumption, empty rhetoric aimed at consolidating support for the regime. At last night’s Republican debate in Arizona, Newt Gingrich rejected that line of thought, saying “I’m inclined to believe dictators. It’s dangerous not to.” (lest that quote sound a bit strange, it should be noted that Gingrich was saying it’s important to take threats from dictatorial regimes at face value).

Weinstein riffs on that theme at length and does a fine job of fleshing out Gingrich’s point:

They’re just posturing or joking or have been misinterpreted, we’re told. Israel and the West can live with a nuclear Iran, foreign policy intellectuals in New York, London and Berlin proclaim.

But if you’re the tiny, embattled State of Israel, it is hard to see how you can afford to take the chance that the Iranian leadership is merely joshing with their eliminationist rhetoric. Even if the odds are only 5 percent that the Iranian regime is apocalyptic and would act to bring back the hidden Imam through a nuclear holocaust, a five percent chance of a second holocaust is five percent too much for Israel to tolerate. (And let’s forget entirely for a moment the dire strategic problems of dealing with a nuclear-armed Iran even if the Islamic Republic doesn’t immediately use the bomb once it obtains the capability to strike. Try handling Hezbollah when they have a nuclear shield.)

Quite so. The higher the stakes, the lower our tolerance of ambiguity should be. It’s becoming increasingly clear that — regardless of how Iran uses a bomb — the cost will be prohibitively high for the U.S. and our allies. We still have a limited window in which we can set back and ultimately undo the threat with means short of war. Should we fail, the remaining options will be as unpalatable as they are necessary.

January 11th, 2012 at 2:55 pm
Ramirez Cartoon: The Department of Wishful Thinking
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Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

May 17th, 2010 at 5:35 pm
“The Triumph of Hope over Experience”
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That’s how Samuel Johnson defined a second marriage. But it applies with equal force to nearly every pronouncement that the international diplomatic community makes about Iran.

With news that the Islamic Republic has struck a fuel-swapping deal with Turkey, the hallelujahs are coming fast and furious. However, the subtle undercurrent for those who pay attention to such things is that this will only chink away at UN efforts to impose harsh sanctions (not that there’s much hope there — but even failure on such an incremental step redounds to Iran’s favor).

The less subtle upshot, however? Well, I’ll let the Iranians tell you themselves:

“There is no relation between the swap deal and our enrichment activities … We will continue our 20 percent uranium enrichment work,” said Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation.

On a good day, the West’s diplomatic strategy towards Iran is “pray”.  On a bad day, it’s “duck and cover”.

April 22nd, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Ramirez Cartoon: Obama’s Iran Strategy

Below is one of the latest cartoons from Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

April 14th, 2010 at 10:36 am
Ramirez Cartoon: Obama’s Nuclear Security Summit 2010
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Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Michael Ramirez on President Obama’s 2010 Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, DC.

April 13th, 2010 at 10:40 am
Ramirez Cartoon: Nuclear Deterrence?
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Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Michael Ramirez sums up President Obama’s nuclear deterrence policy…

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

April 12th, 2010 at 10:48 am
Ramirez Cartoon: The Diversion
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Below is one of the latest cartoons from Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

April 9th, 2010 at 8:42 am
Ramirez Cartoon: Obama’s Nuclear Policy
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Below is one of the latest cartoons from Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

February 19th, 2010 at 9:34 am
International Atomic Energy Agency Discovers Iran Possibly Isn’t As Nice As Previously Believed
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Following reports in Cosmopolitan, Field & Stream, Marvel Comics and My Weekly Reader, the U.N.’s IAEA yesterday issued a draft report allowing as to maybe, perhaps, possibly Iran is engaged in “past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.”

The existence of such “undisclosed activities” was first reported by Vogue nuclear fashion reporter Christine “Boogie” Boogle in the 2007 proliferation issue.

In response to the IAEA report, President Obama said that he hoped  a new U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) would be ready by 2012 and waiting for that document would be a really good reason to give him a second term.  In the meantime, Obama said that he would continue to press the “community of peace-loving nations” to impose sanctions on Iran, most likely consisting of bans on shipments of goats, Victoria’s Secret underwear, jello and sugared soft drinks.

Seriously, folks, there is just no meaningfully serious way to deal with some of this stuff.

September 28th, 2009 at 11:26 pm
Cohen’s Clarity
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The Wall Street Journal carried a superb op-ed this morning by Johns Hopkins professor Eliot Cohen on the growing dangers of Iran.

Cohen, who runs the university’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, is the author of “Supreme Command,” one of the seminal books on political leadership during wartime. He also served as a special advisor to Condoleeza Rice at the State Department during President Bush’s second term (though, from an outsider’s perspective, it seems as if Secretary Rice didn’t take nearly enough of his advice).

The whole piece is wonderful for its clarity, but the money quote is:

Pressure, be it gentle or severe, will not erase [the Iranian] nuclear program. The choices are now what they ever were: an American or an Israeli strike, which would probably cause a substantial war, or living in a world with Iranian nuclear weapons, which may also result in war, perhaps nuclear, over a longer period of time.”

Read it in its entirety here.

September 26th, 2009 at 8:54 am
Video: Obama’s Nuclear Reality Check

After chairing a United Nations Security Council meeting on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, President Obama gets a nuclear reality check from CFIF’s Renee Giachino.  Watch this week’s Freedom Minute below:

 

September 25th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
The Ridiculous Mr. Gates
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I have been skeptical of Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense ever since he replaced the flawed, but honorable, Donald Rumsfeld in the final years of the Bush Administration.

Gates is one of those “non-ideological”, “pragmatic” types that the press always crows about (at least when they’re Republicans). There were many similar figures in the Bush Administration — Henry Paulson, Colin Powell, and (to a lesser extent) Condoleeza Rice, as well. What they all have in common is that their “sensibility” and “prudence” emanates from the fact that they have very few principles that they’re willing to go to the mat for. They tend towards principled timidity. For example. take a look at Gates’ comments from a CNN interview to be broadcast this weekend:

“…The only way you end up not having a nuclear-capable Iran is for the Iranian government to decide that their security is diminished by having those weapons, as opposed to strengthened. And so I think, as I say, while you don’t take options off the table, I think there’s still room left for diplomacy.”

Did the Secretary of Defense really just tell us that the ONLY way to prevent Iran going nuclear is to convince them that they’re stronger without a nuke that will deter almost everyone in the world from challenging them? I’m building my bomb shelter.