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The Daily Utah Chronicle

The University of Utah's Independent Student Voice

The Daily Utah Chronicle

The University of Utah's Independent Student Voice

The Daily Utah Chronicle

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Want your voice to be heard? Submit a letter to the editor, send us an op-ed pitch or check out our open positions for the chance to be published by the Daily Utah Chronicle.
@TheChrony

It’s time to put our foot down with Iran

By Jessica Fawson

“Israel must be wiped out from the map of the earth,” was the cry of the president of Iran, Majmoud Ahmadinehad, as reported by the Islamic Republic News Agency on Oct. 27, 2005. He then went on to say, “And God willing, with the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world without the United States and Zionism.” Aside from these remarks, he has also stated a disbelief in the Holocaust and praised terrorists who kill American soldiers every day.

Does anyone else see a reason to be concerned with this madman?

I see no good reason to allow him to develop nuclear weapons. Does the world really want to tempt him to see if he would actually destroy a neighboring country? I would prefer the safer option: Iran without nuclear weapons.

President Ahmadinejad is one of those characters on the international stage that enjoys the spotlight. The first time he appeared on network television was in the late ’70s, when he was the ringleader of a revolutionary group of students in Iran who held Americans captive in the U.S. Embassy for 444 days. This man was a terrorist before terrorism became popular.

He is no friend to the United States or his own people. He oppresses his own people, cracking down on freedom of speech and opinions that dissent from his own. When he got into power, he banned freedom, pure and simple.

This current issue is actually very simple: Iran is like the bully on the playground when we were younger. Did you allow the bully who was beating you up or threatening you and others to get a stick to whack you with? Of course not, because you recognized he was a bully. This man is worse than a bully: He’s a terrorist, which means he isn’t rational-rational people don’t kill themselves while killing others. He hasn’t even thought far enough through his threat to realize that any nuclear attack set off by him would be answered and have devastating effects on his own people.

Every avenue should be used to discourage this man from gaining nuclear weapons, as it would disturb the stability of the world’s security. While it is true that Russia and Pakistan are Iran’s distant neighbors, the closer neighbors are Syria and Saudi Arabia, and these nations do not have nuclear weapons as a consequence of a destabilization effort and redistribution of power in the area.

Iran has hidden its true capacity, or even its entire nuclear program, from the United Nations from the beginning. It only cooperated when it absolutely had to, and yet even today it refused the international agreement to end its nuclear program. The fact of the matter is we don’t know how far along Iran’s nuclear program is. It could be months or years away. It could be weeks. Right now Iran is still at the negotiating table, but we don’t know if that is out of respect for the process or so it can buy the country enough time to perfect its weapons.

There are two questions which should determine our course of action: 1.Will the world be a better and safer place with Iranian nuclear weapons? And, 2. Are we willing to allow someone who has threatened to completely destroy not only Israel, but also the United States to develop the weapons to actually do it?

We must stop Iran from gaining those weapons because President Majmoud Ahmadinehad will use them on us. There is no other option; we must protect ourselves.

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