Even for a Marine, Gen. James Mattis was speaking bluntly when he addressed the Obama administration policies toward Iran. In a nutshell, the former head of US Central Command — which has responsibility for the Middle East — said the world will pay a big price for the president’s failure to act after the Iranians were caught trying to assassinate the Saudi ambassador at a Washington restaurant.
Speaking at the annual Aspen Security Forum this weekend, the general minced no words: “When we finally caught them in the act of trying to kill Adel [al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the US], we had a beleaguered attorney general, a fine man but beleaguered politically, stand up and give a legal argument that frankly I couldn’t understand . . . And we had what I would call a Zimmerman telegram moment . . . We caught them in the act, and yet we let them walk free.”
The Zimmerman telegram was the secret message Germany sent to Mexico before the outbreak of World War I. It was aimed at trying to bring the Mexicans in on their side. Mattis went on to say that though we have to be careful of confrontation with Iran because of what it is doing with cyber-warfare these days, it’s also important to make clear what we will not tolerate.
“They’re like children balancing lightbulbs full of nitroglycerin,” he said. “You get the picture? One of these days they’re going to drop one, and it’s going to knock out the London stock exchange or Wall Street because we never drew a line and said, ‘You won’t do it.’ ”
Apparently we’re not the only ones who appreciate that while President Obama might like to talk about red lines, he has yet to enforce one.