"Sneaky Bastard" Iran: Too Late to Stop Nukes, May Have Ties to JFK Bombers

I thought the quote of the day winner would be an easy choice today, but now there is real competition. I highlighted Newt Gingrich’s blunt assessment of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff’s “bow to reality” approach to illegal alien amnesty in an earlier post today. In case you missed that quote, here is a portion of it: “but we hire leaders to change reality to fit our values, not to change our values to fit their failures.”

As eloquent and well constructed as Newt’s quote was, it may have been upstaged by a far less eloquent but certainly impassioned remark, an assessment of Iran provided by former FBI counterterrorism head Kenneth Piernick to the New York Sun. To provide a brief summary of the context for Piernick’s statement, the FBI, in its investigation of the recently disrupted plot to destroy New York’s JFK Airport, the FBI is reportedly attempting to determine why one of the plotters was attempting to flee from Guyana to Iran through anti-American Venezuela before being captured. According to the suspect’s wife, he stopped in Guyana to obtain an Iranian visa, but the FBI is seeking further information about the suspect’s Iranian ties. The New York Sun reported that the suspect currently has two sons “studying” in Iran.

When asked for his opinion about whether the JFK attack plotters may have had ties to the Iranian mullahs and President Ahmadinejad, Piernick made it clear that he would not be surprised if such a connection were identified:

"The fact of the matter is that the Iranians are a bunch of sneaky bastards. They are going to take care of anyone who hurts us. I am not at all surprised that they might have been trying to provide him cover to get out of the region," he said in a telephone interview.

Given Iran’s continued march toward nuclear weapons and Ahmadinejad’s taunting of America, maybe the choice for best quote of the day is not so difficult after all.

While Iran may have been “sneaky” by quietly assisting the JFK attack planners, Ahmadinejad roared like a lion at America and other nations who have vowed to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapon capabilities. Ahmadinejad warned the world today that it “is too late” to stop Iran’s nuclear program, and that further international sanctions against the regime will only make the future more difficult for the west. As reported by Fox News via AP, he added that more sanctions would be as unwise for the west as “stepping on a lion’s tail”:

”We advise them not to play with the lion's tail," Ahmadinejad said, prompting applause from a room of reporters, Iranian officials and foreign dignitaries at a Tehran news conference.

"It is too late to stop the progress of Iran," Ahmadinejad said. "Iran has passed the point where they wanted Iran to stop."

It would appear that neither the subtle (UN sanctions) nor the sneaky (covert ops) approaches have worked for the U.S. in slowing down or destroying Iran’s suicidal nuclear quest. The Bush administration has demonstrated that it is good at “bowing to reality” on one important national security issue, immigration, and wants to throw up its arms in surrender through amnesty. The world must hope that this administration has more backbone on this national security issue by preventing through all available means the reality of a nuclear Iran. Bowing to that reality by granting Iran nuclear amnesty would result in the end of reality for Israel, America, and freedom.

Ahmadinejad Photo by AP

Technorati: Ahmadinejad Kenneth Piernick FBI Counterterrorism JFK Airport Terrorist Plot Bush Administration Mullahs Iranian Nuclear Program