Letters: Israel, Iran, America and the bomb

Re “Israel presses U.S. on Iran,” Sept. 17

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needs to be asked: If Iran had a nuclear bomb, what would it do with it? What could it do?

Nuclear-armed missiles or planes in Israel and the U.S. are ready to turn Iran to ashes if there’s a provocation. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the ayatollahs know this. As crazy as many think them to be, they are not suicidal.

Think like an Iranian for a moment. The country is surrounded by nuclear nations: China, India, Pakistan, Russia and Israel. Iran is nervous. If it had a nuclear a deterrent, Iranians would feel less anxious and regional stability would be enhanced.

Don Bustany

Studio City

Why is there is no urgency for the U.S. to set a “red line” for Tehran over its nuclear program? As Netanyahu notes, John F. Kennedy took decisive action in 1962 with the Soviet Union during the Cuban missile crises. Then, the U.S. was threatened with Soviet missiles on launch pads 90 or so miles from the United States.

Iran is thousands of miles away from the U.S. It has neither the bomb nor the missiles to deliver nuclear warheads thousands of miles to the U.S. India and Pakistan have nuclear bombs with no threatening delivery systems as well.

This is why there is no urgency for the U.S. to set red lines for Iran, India or Pakistan, no matter now belligerent they are.

Rogelio Peña

Montebello

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