One dishonest blowhard deserves another ...---
RFE/RL: What should be done about Iran now?
Richard Perle: Well, I'm saddened by the fact that we don't have a political strategy for Iran. It's an unpopular regime -- and deservedly unpopular, because it's an oppressive regime. Most Iranians would rather be governed differently, and we're doing, as far as I can tell, almost nothing to help those Iranians.
RFE/RL: What should be done? What political strategy should be adopted?
Perle: Well, one thing we should be doing is communicating a great deal more with the Iranians and facilitating the communication among Iranians. You and I are broadcasting right now. We should be doing a lot more of that into Iran. We should be working with those Iranians who want to change things inside Iran in a multiplicity of ways. We did it during the Cold War with Solidarity in Poland. We did it in Spain and Portugal when they had dictatorships. We had political strategies for encouraging the evolution of free institutions. And we should be doing that in Iran, as well.
RFE/RL: But in the United States, Iran seems to be threat No. 1 of the day, and you're saying Washington doesn't have a political strategy for the country?
I believe that if democracy takes root in Iraq, it will be noticed by Iraq's neighbors and, one hopes, emulated by Iraq's neighbors. But the immediate task is a rather narrow one. It's to achieve a level of security in Baghdad and a few other places so a government can function and then evolve.
Perle: I'm afraid we have no political strategy at all. And one result of that is that we will find ourselves, because of a failure to have a political strategy, with only a military option.
RFE/RL: Do you think that's a reasonable option right now with Iran -- the military option -- if things reach a critical mass with their uranium enrichment?
Perle: It's important to define what is meant by a military option in the Iranian context. It is not an invasion of Iran. It is nothing like what has happened in Iraq. But no one can exclude the possibility that precision air strikes against critical infrastructure supporting a nuclear-weapons program could be undertaken as a last resort. And I believe that such strikes, if it came to that, would be effective in significantly impairing the Iranian nuclear program. I'm not advocating it. And as far as I know, no one else is advocating it. But in the real world, if you're the president of the United States, and you're informed that the last moment has arrived at which it is possible to stop Iranian nuclear weapons, but it will require precision strikes against a dozen targets, can you rule that out?
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/06/9ae56786-a66e-4f83-914d-b4999e7da8bb.html