Category: Sacramento Bee

The United States faces a cold reality: even stepped-up U.S. and Western sanctions of recent weeks have not persuaded Iran’s radical regime, which is driving ever closer to nuclear weaponry, to shift course. That’s largely because Washington has never mounted a credible threat of military action to derail Tehran’s efforts. While President Barack Obama and …

Continue reading “Move would show U.S. is serious about preventing a nuclear-armed Iran”

The Arab Spring has brought hope to millions across the Middle East and North Africa, but whether its ultimate outcome is a more democratic region or just a new set of autocrats to replace the old remains a very open question. For the United States, the stakes could hardly be higher. A more democratic region …

Continue reading “The stakes are far too high for America to sit on the sidelines”

Make no mistake: U.N. Security Council sanctions and additional U.S. and European pressures are hurting Iran. Tehran is having a harder time importing food and other key goods, its foreign investment is drying up, financial firms and shipping companies are turning down its business, and its central bank is running short of hard currency. What …

Continue reading “Military force must be considered”

An Army psychiatrist at Fort Hood, Texas, allegedly kills 13 of his service mates. A Pakistani immigrant tries to set off a car bomb in Times Square. An American convert to Islam murders a military recruiter in Arkansas. Each reportedly subscribed to a radical strain of Islam that, they believed, directed them to defend their …

Continue reading “Burying our heads in the sand will encourage new attacks”

U.S. recognition of a Palestinian state is one of those tempting silver bullets that upon close examination would produce the opposite of its promised result. Rather than promoting peace, it would likely ignite conflict both within Palestinian society and between Israel and the Palestinians. Never mind that such recognition would undermine the very process of …

Continue reading “U.S. recognition of Palestine would heighten tensions, spur violence”

Henry Kissinger famously asked whether Iran sees itself as a “nation” with a role in the international system or a “cause” that seeks to overturn the system through a global populist revolution. Iran’s activities not just in its own backyard but also south of our border – specifically, in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua – …

Continue reading “Iran’s expanding alliance with Latin America must be nipped”