A Pakistani fighter pilot takes it to America’s Neo-Cons over Iranian stalemate….

Anwaar Hussain, a former Pakistan Air Force F-16 fighter pilot with a Masters degree in Defense and Strategic Studies, took it to America’s Neo-Cons.

In A Letter to Neocons, appearing in Pakistan’s Pak Tribune, Hussain pulls no punches concerning the U.S.-Iran stalemate:

Dear Neocons, It is show time over Iran. You are in a bind of your own making and, boy, am I glad to see that!

Hussain lays the blame directly at the boots of belligerent George Dubya:

Your spokesman, the President of United States, having earlier included Iran as an integral part of the `axis of evil` in a rush of blood, simply does not leave you with a ‘do-nothing’ option. You now have
either to put up or shut up, once and for all.

Hussain concludes there aren’t many options:

Option-1. Unilateral sanctions? Nope, says he. “Your country imposed over 80 unilateral economic sanctions on foreign nations from 1995 to 2001, and those sanctions cost U.S. companies up to $19 billion in 1995 alone.”

Option-2. Multilateral sanctions? Nope again, says he. “With China and Russia, Iran's two major trading partners, sitting on the U.N. Security Council, these are unlikely to materialize.”

Option-3. Get Israel to attack Iran's nuclear facilities? Nah, he concludes. “Based on its known military capabilities, the Israeli Air Force can possibly conduct surgical strikes at the 1000km plus range, but it is incapable of a sustained air campaign against a full range of targets at such a distance.” Anyway, that would only galvanize Arab resentment.

Option-4. Direct military confrontation? Not smart either, says he. “Iran is no Iraq. It is large, populous, rugged, and its nuclear facilities are spread throughout the country, some deep underground. A full-scale invasion would be a too-hot-to-handle venture for you.”

Option-5. Bargain with the Iranians? What? he shouts. Have Dubya say, please? That would be tough to pull off, he concludes. First, “here you have really become captives of your own bombast….Any overt bargain with Iran will surely be read as a retreat from your much-touted project of democratization and regional transformation… Beijing, Moscow and Tehran share a dislike of the Pax Americana and have a long record of direct and indirect cooperation on nuclear and missile programs.”

He concludes: “In short, you are in a bind of your own making and we can see you squirming. Yes, your mouthpiece, George Bush, had some harsh words for Iran in his State of the Union address the other night, but gone was the bellicose swagger…. Five years of misrule, a rapidly awakening citizenry and a bloody nose in Iraq does that, I guess.”

We should ask ourselves, are we safer today than we were before the Neo-Cons took power?