Letter: Delicate situation handled with sledgehammer

Thursday, April 13, 2006 | 7:14 a.m.

While decades of faulty foreign policy have done little to dispel the centuries of violence in the Middle East, the Bush administration has seriously escalated the situation and put the United States in danger of being the target of that violence.

This time the failure wasn't a diplomatic blunder, but a serious lack of good judgment regarding strategy.

Following 9/11, our military forces should have had a single objective: capturing Osama bin Laden. Instead, the Bush administration's desire for a pre-emptive strike on Iraq has shown Iran that they have reason to fear a similar attack. This is what's driving them to develop nuclear weapons. And if developed, they might make a pre-emptive strike of their own against their enemy, Israel.

Our failure to secure peace in Iraq and its backlash of anti-war protest have vividly demonstrated to Iran that we are, at best, unwilling to enter an additional conflict and, at worst, incapable of finding an aging derelict on dialysis hiding in a cave, let alone launching a successful invasion of Iran.

So why wouldn't Iran be encouraged to develop nuclear weapons at this time? Even the threat of economic sanctions proves little deterrent.

Unfortunately, I have little faith that the Bush administration will be able to extricate us from this situation made even more delicate by its own errors. Especially since the only tool in Bush's toolbox seems to be a sledgehammer.

Quinn C. Hoyer, Las Vegas