Like Jack Sparrow Staring Down The Kraken

Let the record show that JASmius has found at least one Muslim whose views he can wholeheartedly endorse:

The United Arab Emirates ambassador to the United States said Tuesday that the benefits of bombing Iran’s nuclear program outweigh the short-term costs such an attack would impose.

In unusually blunt remarks, Ambassador Yousef al-Otaiba publicly endorsed the use of the military option for countering Iran’s nuclear program, if sanctions fail to stop the country’s quest for nuclear weapons.

“I think it’s a cost-benefit analysis,” Mr. al-Otaiba said. “I think despite the large amount of trade we do with Iran, which is close to $12 billion … there will be consequences, there will be a backlash and there will be problems with people protesting and rioting and very unhappy that there is an outside force attacking a Muslim country; that is going to happen no matter what.”

“If you are asking me, ‘Am I willing to live with that versus living with a nuclear Iran?,’ my answer is still the same: ‘We cannot live with a nuclearIran.’ I am willing to absorb what takes place at the expense of the security of the U.A.E.“...

The ambassador also said that “talk of containment and deterrence really concerns me and makes me very nervous.”

He said Iran has not been deterred from supporting terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah now, when it doesn’t have a nuclear arsenal. So why, he asked rhetorically, would Iran be more cautious in its support for terrorism if it did.

“Why should I be led to believe that deterrence and containment will work?” he asked.

So say we all, your excellency.  Or should I say, "Allahu Akbar".

Nah, let's not get carried away.  But this is an astounding thing for a Muslim diplomat to say in the "Great Satan's" capital about the huge, well-armed, unhinged "neighbor" right on his tiny country's doorstep.  Why antagonize the mullahs when you can count on this U.S. administration to, at best, not lift a finger in the UAE's defense, or more likely take Iran's side against this "provocative rhetoric" that "threatens Middle East peace"?  One would think, per "international diplomatic realism," that Gulf emirates and the Saudis would be sucking up to Tehran for all they're worth (literally) in the hopes of reaching some kind of accommodation with the new nuclear power.

Well, I've always said that the closer you are to a mortal national threat, the cleaner it keeps your strategic sinuses.  Proximity removes the luxury of indulging in suicidal fantasies and wishful thinking.  The Israelis have been practitioners of such for most of their restored history in the Holy Land because they've had to be, or they wouldn't have survived their declaration of nationhood sixty-two years ago.  Now a Muslim Arab state, sharing the same existential threat that their otherwise Jewish enemies do, openly urges the exact same strategy for which the IDF is feverishly preparing.  How strange the bedfellows for whom insanity plays matchmaker.

Needless to say, Ambassador al-Otaiba is absolutely right.  It gives me a tingly feeling for JASmius Echo Syndrome to have viralled that far geographically and culturally.  And we've been treated to the spectacle of a Muslim ambassador telling Red Barry to get his tongue out of Adolph The Younger's nether orifice and do the only thing that can stop the mullahgarchy from going nuclear (assuming they haven't already, as I've long suspected).

Could THAT be why the Bushies didn't take care of business on Iran's nuclear ambitions while they had the chance?  Because their intel confirmed that the mullahs ALREADY have The Bomb and military action to "disarm" them would be answered with major megatonnage unleashed in Tel Aviv or Washington D.C.?  Was this particular arms race lost long ago?  Are we already under nuclear blackmail?  As al-Otaiba eloquently stated, the consequences of a successful pre-emptive strike would be preferable to the nightmare of a nuclear mullahgarchy.  That spectre already existing is the only rational explanation for why his advice has not been taken.

By us, that is.  The Israelis will do what they have to do, and they'll do it with support nobody could ever have imagined - many Osiraks go with them.