Attack plans are drawn up targeting sites in Iran and southern Lebanon in case it becomes necessary to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions, retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely tells Newsmax.TV. But it’s about time for Arab nations to step into the fray so the onus doesn’t always fall on the United States and Israel, Vallely said.
“The plans have been developed for all the targets in Iran as well as in southern Lebanon because the Israelis cannot strike Iran today without striking the Iranian-backed Hezbollah in southern Lebanon that has thousand s of rockets and missiles aimed at Israel,” Vallely said in the exclusive Newsmax.TV interview.
“Someone has got to take the step because Iran is on a rampage,” Vallely said, adding that appeasement and negotiations with rogue nations such as Iran and North Korea don’t’ work.
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The 75 targets in Iran include missiles, port facilities, the Iranian navy, and the Revolutionary Guard, with the goal of weakening the regime so opposition forces can take charge of the government, said Vallely, a Vietnam veteran who retired from the Army in 1993 as deputy commanding general in the Pacific Command and now is senior military analyst for Fox News.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia have recognized that something has to be done about Iran, Vallely said, and Arab nations should step forward so the burden does not always fall on the United States and Israel.
“We’ve done nothing really [about Iran] since they took our hostages in the late ’70s,” he said. “Thanks to the strength of President Reagan, they returned to us.”
But since then, he said, “we sit back, Iran continues to strengthen, to become the dominant power in the Middle East, providing IEDs into the forces in Iraq that are killing and wounding our soldiers — same thing in Afghanistan — and we sit by and do nothing.
“Weakness breeds contempt,” said Vallely, who wrote “Endgame: the Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror” with retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney in 2004.
On another volatile issue, Vallely scoffed at the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty the Senate is considering.
“In reality, the Russians don’t have to do anything,” he said. “We’re the only ones that would be limited and cut back . . . We have to realize that Russia really is not our friend. The more we are lessening our power in the United States the more power the likes of Russian and China begin to rise.”
In discussing provisions in the treaty that would limit the deployment of a U.S. missile shield in Europe, Vallely said it is “important for Europe to really start looking out for itself and to figure out how they are going to defend from incoming missiles from the likes of a rogue nation like Iran. The other nations of Europe have to stand tall.”
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