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September 04, 2007

Ledeen On "Iranian Time Bomb"

Hannity & Colmes

HANNITY: With tensions running back to 1979 the United States weighs the consequences of a war with Iran. Our next guest points to religious zealots like the Iranian mullahs and rogue leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who threatens the existence of Israel as reasons to possibly think about an invasion.

Joining us now with a terrific new book is the author of "The Iranian Time Bomb," one of my favorite authors, by the way, Michael Ledeen is back with us.

Mike, I have been making this case for the longest time. You said that better than I could ever dream of saying it in this book. Here Iran is providing the weaponry to kill our troops and they are providing all the funding for Hezbollah and other groups. They are running all these wars by proxy and nobody is paying attention to them. Why?

MICHAEL LEDEEN, "THE IRANIAN TIME BOMB": It is the great mystery of the last 30 years. Iran declared war on us in 1979 and has been waging war against us ever since. Been killing Americans one end of the world to another and we have yet to respond seriously to Iran in any place except Afghanistan and Iraq where it is basically defending our people and our friends against them.

HANNITY: We had Ahmadinejad saying this weekend they have these 3,000 centrifuges, they're moving ahead with their nuclear program. The threats against Israel continue.

LEDEEN: Right. So if we do not design a serious policy then everybody knows that we are going to arrive at a time and it could be almost any day now where we are going to have two terrible choices to make. Do we accept the acceptance of a nuclear Iran with all that that implies or do we attack them militarily which is also a terrible choice?

HANNITY: You talk at length about -- One of the things that really impressed me is just how badly women are treated. How men are viewed as twice the worth of women. I'm surprised there not more outrage among the feminist community in America here. Here is my fear, knowing and understanding, not only their rhetoric, but their oppressive tendencies, I view them as the rise of Nazism in our time here. What would happen? Would they feel no compunctions about nuclear weapons should they get them?

LEDEEN: Well, the history of the 20th century is that when dictators make outrageous statements, most of the time they mean to do that. I mean everybody laughed at "Mein Kampf" and he went ahead and did it and we had all of these dictators who killed tens of millions of people. At the time they said was their intention and everybody laughed and said well, that is just rhetoric. That is just for domestic consumption.

Any prudent leader in this world has to assume that they mean it.

COLMES: Michael in 2006 in the "National Review" you wrote that you opposed involvement in Iraq before it took place but back in 2002 after Brent Scowcroft argued against war in Iraq you wrote this and I want to put it on the screen.

You said "One can only hope that we turn the region," the entire region "into a cauldron and faster please. If ever there were a region that richly deserved being cauldronized, it is the Middle East today." You contradicted yourself. You want to turn the place into a cauldron?

LEDEEN: Well, if you read it in context, Alan, you'll see that the cauldron I was talking about was political and not military. What I was arguing for and what I have argued for all along is that we started in the wrong place, it should have been Iran and not Iraq and the methods used should have been political and not military and that the primary method for dealing with Iran, and I've been saying that all along, too, should be support domestic democratic revolution .

COLMES: When I hear word cauldron I don't think political and that sounds pretty fiery to me. And also the IAEA in fact reports that Iran's claim of 3,000 centrifuges is at odds at what they are saying and they are not anywhere near the kind of nuclear capability that you claim they are and so we have conflicting reports here and you've got Rafsanjani just elected to the assembly of experts. So there is a more moderate movement politically in Iran. All of this going on.

LEDEEN: Well, yeah, Rafsanjani is a real moderate, he has only wanted for murder in one foreign country whereas Ahmadinejad is wanted for murder for two countries.

COLMES: He is a moderate compared to Ahmadinejad.

LEDEEN: If that's your definition of a moderate we're in big trouble.

COLMES: Someone we can work with is my definition of a moderate. Someone with whom we had a better relationship than Ahmadinejad.

We thank you very much for being with us tonight.

LEDEEN: We worked with Stalin, too, and you wouldn't call him a moderate, would you?

COLMES: And we had Gorbachev and Reagan working together.

I thank you very much for being with us.

Coming up, why some networks are refusing to run "Victory in Iraq" ads coming up next. Stay with us on HANNITY & COLMES.

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