To the Editor:
With regard to “Neither Real Nor Free” (editorial, June 15), why is there an ounce of surprise or consternation when autocrats in Iran (or North Korea, China, Venezuela, ad nauseam) act in their own self-interest? These are megalomaniacs who believe that they have the right to rule and bully others. Appeals to reason, not to say justice and human dignity, are lost on them.
This doesn’t necessarily argue for a military response, but no need for hand-wringing either.
Thomas M. Doran
Plymouth, Mich., June 15, 2009
To the Editor:
You write that “some in this country and in Israel” will cite Iran’s fraudulent election as proof that “military action is the only choice” to stop Iran’s nuclear program.
What many realists actually believe is that President Obama’s efforts to charm the thuggish rulers of what he calls the “Islamic Republic of Iran” are feckless and futile.
Time is wasting, and the president is wasting time. Professions of respect for the dictators will get us nowhere. Perhaps sanctions against companies that help Iran import 40 percent of its gasoline—as Senators Evan Bayh, Jon Kyl and Joseph I. Lieberman have proposed—will.
Howard F. Jaeckel
New York, June 15, 2009
