Guest: Fox News analyst Newt Gingrich
"Richard Clarke and Steven Simon, both counter-terrorism advisors under President Clinton, wrote an interesting op-ed about Iran. They said that if the USA punishes Iran for violating the world's nuclear arms agreement, Iran will strike back and order suicide bombers to attack us. Nowhere in their article do Clarke and Simon offer a solution to the Iran conundrum, so I'm reading this piece and saying to myself, 'what is the USA supposed to do?' The conventional answer is diplomacy. The Clinton administration was very diplomatic, and on Clarke and Simon's watch Al Qaeda rose in power and ferocity. Every time you hear the word 'diplomacy,' you should know the speaker has nothing else. Clarke and Simon are correct when they forecast that bad things will happen if we attack Iran, but more bad things will happen if that terror state gets nukes. So here's my plan: There should be a summit among industrialized nations, and each nation would submit a plan to deal with Iran. Those plans should be made public so everybody can see which nations want control and which nations want chaos. After the summit, the United Nations Security Council should vote on sanctions. Finally, America and Britain and other willing nations should meet secretly and decide a worst case scenario - what will happen if Iran continues its terror policy. That's what should happen - lots of diplomacy and conversation, but behind the scenes, a very big stick. Terrorism at this level must be confronted."
Fox News Video: FoxNews.comFox News analyst Newt Gingrich elaborated on the problematic question of how to deal with Iran. "There's every indication that the Europeans are not going to have the courage to face down the Iranians," Gingrich told
The Factor, "and the United States is at one of the great historic moments. Iran is openly saying they want to get missiles that can hit Europe and the United States and they want to get nuclear weapons. Are we prepared to run the risk of an Iranian dictatorship that openly says it wants to defeat us and annihilate Israel? Or are we going to decide that government is unacceptable?"
The former Speaker of the House also weighed in on the immigration debate, denouncing legislation being debated in the Senate. "It's a bad bill that must be stopped. It extends the number that would be eligible for amnesty to 36 million people because they dramatically broaden the definition of 'family.' What we need is to first of all control the border. And we have to enforce the law on American employers. Focus enforcement on businesses that are breaking the law, cheating on taxes, and failing to make sure they're hiring legal people."