Iran, Pakistan Biggest Threats: Opinion

Editor's Note: This is the fourth of a six-part series by Matt Horween, CPA, FSO (retired). The previous columns were Political Class Choking America, Bring the Troops Home and Fix America First.

Iran and Pakistan are the two states that pose the biggest threat to the U.S. and the rest of the world. North Korea ranks a close third and should be dealt with by China, South Korea and Japan, not by us.

But we should be ready to shoot down any North Korean missile that appears to be heading our way. We should continue to push in the United Nations for stronger and stronger sanctions against North Korea, and we should push the Chinese as hard as we can to influence North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program.

What we shouldn't do is give North Korea one more penny of free food or anything else with money that we have to borrow from China. We must allow other nations to shoulder the burden of dealing with North Korea.

We can't allow Iran to possess any atomic weapons that could destroy Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, Iraq or other sources of oil that keep our country running now. I bet you thought I would say we have to protect Israel. I think that we are backing Israel into a corner by our foreign policy that seems to accept the fact that Iran will obtain nuclear weapons.

Perhaps the U.S. State Department actually has learned some Machiavellian moves and is intentionally giving Israel no way out but to unilaterally attack Iran with the full knowledge that Iran would threaten our ships in the Persian Gulf and we could then finish off the job using self-defense as an excuse. This is an elegant plan and is most likely not what the Foggy Bottom people are planning. But we could end up like that.