Unpublished Letter To The Trib

The following letter to the editor was submitted to the Waco Tribune Herald on Feb 6, 2012.  As of this date it has not been printed.

To the Editor—

 A National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), completed in 2007 and endorsed by all sixteen U.S. government intelligence agencies, concluded with “high confidence” that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003.  No new evidence since then has indicated that Iran’s policy has changed, although speculation has been rampant.

 War with Iran is being promoted by Israel’s extremist governing party, with the enthusiastic backing of the influential Israel-right-or-wrong element in this country.  This element includes most of our Congress and our news media.

 The Secretary of Defense has been recently quoted as saying he believes “there is a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June.”

 If Israel is so determined to go to war with Iran, she should do so on her own and with her own money.  When Israel joined with Britain and France to invade Egypt in 1956 in order to take control of the Suez Canal, President Eisenhower announced that he was immediately cutting off monetary aid to Israel, saying that such aid would resume when Israel withdrew from Egypt.  President Obama should make it crystal clear to Israel that the United States is still in control of its own foreign policy and that we will act in 2012 as we did in 1956.

 Unfortunately, given the sad state of affairs in our country today, it is highly unlikely that our President will take such a stand, particularly in an election year.  Thus the likelihood that we will be sucked into yet another disastrous war that will be in the best interests of nobody, including Israel.

           Harrison Ward
           Crawford