There is still a chance for diplomacy

There is still a chance for diplomacy with Iran [“A nuclear Iran would put us over a barrel,” Opinion, Feb. 6]. Last week, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta told The Washington Post that there is more than a 50-50 chance Israel will attack Iranian nuclear sites next spring.

In response, an Iranian revolutionary guard commander indicated that within the first few weeks of such an attack an estimated 300,000 Americans would be killed. Although his response is more of a bluff, it should make us think harder before the time of no return reaches.

Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has made the uranium-enrichment process a matter of national honor during the last decade, and now he cannot face a humiliation to back off. Iran is feeling the crippling sanctions more than ever. A few weeks ago, the Iranian revolutionary guard threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, where almost 40 percent of the world’s oil passes daily.

The U.S. should provide enough carrots to the regime while allowing it to keep face while suspending uranium enrichment at high levels.

— Amir Ajami, Lynnwood

There can be no peace without justice

I was not surprised to read the usual number of slippery-slope arguments and far-flung conclusions in Wendy Rosen’s recent op-ed regarding Iran’s nuclear and military intentions.

What did however surprise and sadden me is that as director of Seattle’s American Jewish Committee, she considers the violent murder of scientists part of an “encouraging” stealth campaign.

This type of public encouragement to violence is completely at odds with common decency and internationally recognized paths of diplomacy. There can be no peace without justice.

— Alexander Scott, Seattle

Is this worth a war?

According to the Dahaf Institute of Israel, The New York Times and a Program for International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) poll, in November 2011, only 43 percent of Israelis polled favor military strikes on Iran’s alleged nuclear-weapons program. Perhaps the 57 percent who oppose a new war know that Iran is a paper tiger with regards to nuclear weapons.

In January, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, commented in the National Journal that attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities now would be “premature,” and urged nonmilitary means to convince Iran to cooperate.

An unconfirmed report indicates that Gen. Dempsey, when he recently visited Israel, sternly warned Israeli Mossad chief Tamir Pardo not to launch any unilateral airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The war hawks in London, Tel Aviv and Washington, D.C., are risking perhaps a new world war with an enraged Russia and China over the corpse of Iran, or Syria. Why?

For the same old imperial geopolitical reasons that have plunged the world into endless warfare. Only the removal of Barack Obama as president and whipping the Congress to change policies will resolve this crisis.

— James D. Wyrick, Bothell

Look at Israel first

It’s Israel that has Americans over a barrel, not Iran. It’s Israel that has nuclear weapons, not Iran.

We might actually be seen by the rest of the world as reasonable instead of oil-thirsty aggressors if we force Israel to give up its nuclear weapons before we start wars with Israel’s neighbors to prevent them from acquiring nuclear technology.

— Brian Conkle, Seattle