Santorum: Time To Get Tough With Iran

BY IRA STOLL - Staff Reporter of the Sun

July 21, 2006

WASHINGTON—The third-ranking Republican senator, Republican conference chairman Rick Santorum, is calling for a tougher line against the government of Iran, saying Iranian diplomats are "regularly" asked to leave America after being caught photographing bridges and subway stations in New York City.

He accused the Islamic Republic of having Revolutionary Guard officers at the controls of the missiles being launched at Israel, and said Iranian scientists were present in North Korea for Pyongyang's July 4 missile test.

Mr. Santorum, who is locked in a tough re-election race in Pennsylvania, spoke yesterday at a lunch at the National Press Club.He enumerated Iran's offenses and touted legislation he has introduced to step up American support for Iran's democratic opposition. "Iran is at the center of this war," the senator said. "Iran is the key." He called it "the central piece of the Islamic fascist mosaic," saying Iran is present in Lebanon, Iraq, and Gaza. Mr.Santorum said,"Every university student in Iran must attend courses in how to strap on and detonate a suicide bomb." "Iraq will never have the security it deserves" so long as Islamic fascists are in power in Iran, he said. He said the war against what he called "Islamic fascism" is a world war like the ones against Nazism and communism, in which the only choice is winning or losing. "Islamic fascism is the great test of this generation," he said. He said part of the enemy's strategy is "to break our will to fight." Mr. Santorum said he did not support a military strike against Iran, saying he preferred the approach of backing the Iranian people against their regime. He said he does not believe that American or European negotiations with Iran "will be the least bit fruitful."

The senator called for more American clarity in defining the war, which he said is not on terrorism, but on "Islamic fascism."

"It misleads the American public," he said. "We need to be much more direct about it if we are to be successful."

"We have a messaging problem," he conceded.

He said the goal of the Islamic fascists is to "subject mankind to the slavery of a new caliphate."

"If Islamic fascists win this war, there will be no freedom of religion," he warned. "The biggest issue facing our children's future is a war."