Foreign correspondent Claudia Rosett visited campus today, giving a talk at Rockefeller Hall on the dangers of Iran’s nuclear program.
Ms. Rosett spoke before only a few audience members, but made a compelling case for the use of force against Iranian nuclear targets. The main point, she said, was that the U.S. has let Iran operate unfettered for far too long and must take action against their aggressive behavior before they acquire nuclear capabilities.
Rosett previously worked as a foreign correspondent at the Wall Street Journal for over 25 years. Now, she serves as the journalist-in-residence at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
Also noteworthy is that Rosett’s talk was one of the first events sponsored by the nascent Program on Freedom and Free Socieites. The program, backed by the Manhattan Institute is administered by history and classics Prof. Barry Strauss ’74.
Just to clarify: did Rosett argue for strategic attacks against Iranian nuclear targets or for a full-fledged military operation to unseat the current Iranian regime?
Here’s the relevance of the distinction: Professor von Hippel, whose talk I wrote about in a previous post, said that Ahmadinejad openly said to weapons inspectors that if Iran were hiding nuclear facilities somewhere in the country, weapons’ inspectors would obviously not be able to find them. So, destroying strategic nuclear targets may only be a temporary solution. A ground invasion has obvious (tremendous, I would say) complications as well.
strategic attacks against the nuclear targets only. In terms of intelligence, I don’t think Prof. Von Hippel or any of us really know the exact specifications of the nuclear installations. Attacking the nuclear installations would obviously give the West time against the development of a bomb… should they have one.