Newt Gingrich is everywhere these days. He recently did an extensive interview with Conservative weekly Human Events Online. In this interview he advocates immediate action to effect a regime change in Iran.
"If we don’t have a very serious systematic program to replace the government of Iran, we’re going to live in an unbelievably dangerous world," Gingrich said during an exclusive interview with HUMAN EVENTS. "This is 1935 and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is as close to Adolf Hitler as we’ve seen. We now know who they are; the question is who we are -- are we Baldwin or Churchill?"
Gingrich told HUMAN EVENTS he foresees a similar situation arising in the United States today with regard to Iran.
When asked about President Bush's top priorities in his remaining three years in office, Gingrich said atop that list should be overthrowing -- peacefully but most likely militarily -- the government of Iran.
"Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in September 1941, when we sank a German submarine while we were technically at peace, did a nationwide radio address and said, 'If you are standing next to a rattle snake, you do not have an obligation to wait until it bites you before you decide it’s dangerous.'
"And I will just say flatly, our objective should be the systematic replacement of this regime," Gingrich said. "We should start with all-out help to the forces of independence in the country -- there are trade union groups, there are student groups -- we should in every way we can get them resources. We should indicate without any question that we are going to take the steps necessary to replace the regime and we should then act accordingly. And we should say to the Europeans that there is no diplomatic solution that is imaginable that is going to solve this problem."
I'm not sure where Newt thinks the resources for a military operation would come from considering that today General Casey admitted that the military was stretched thin. Perhaps he would advocate something along the lines of targeted airstrikes. While I agree that this may become necessary at some point, I think that it's much too early to rule out a diplomatic resolution.
