Letter: GOP puts politics ahead of world safety

Saturday, Nov. 24, 2007 | 7:28 a.m.

As we get closer to the 2008 presidential election, it is clear to me that the Republicans are increasing the tempo of the drum beat that may lead us to a war in Iran. Fox News and other conservative media sources are talking more and more about the Iranian nuclear threat.

Sean Hannity and Oliver North are leading Fox News media talking dog proponents for a preemptive attack on Iranian nuclear sites. Their discourse continually leads one to believe that they are trying to prepare the public for military action against Iran.

If Republicans can convince the American public that the threat is imminent, they may have a better chance of retaining the White House and recapturing lost seats in Congress. Republican presidential candidates such as Rudy Giuliani seem all too willing to follow in Bush's foreign policy debacle. The dilemma for the public is that Democrats have done little to rectify the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan and are far too timid and ineffective to do much about North Korea, China or Iran.

The political backbiting in Congress and lack of competence in the White House may very well lead us into World War III. If we make the mistake of attacking Iran without strong world consensus, it will unleash a hell on earth like we have never dreamed possible.

The world at large already hates us because of the Bush fiasco in Iraq, but a war against Iran will be total folly and lead the Muslim world into unity that Osama bin Laden only dreams of now.

Virgil A. Sestini, Las Vegas