I was just wondering – given that so much of the liberal objection to Iraq is wrapped up in the fact that there were no WMD found, and given that Iran is by all accounts actively pursuing the big daddy of WMD, nuclear weapons…
Does this mean we should invade Iran?
It might get our troops out of Iraq anyway, no?
Another angle: given that al qaeda is fighting us in Iraq now, regardless of how we all got there, shouldn’t we stay? Or would it be better if we withdrew and then went back in if AQ doesn’t also leave?
Please share widely!
I’m not sure this is actually the case. A lot of people who were against the war were against it before it started, so clearly the existence of a WMD program isn’t the issue for them. As for those who came late to the anti-war party, I’d divide them into a couple of categories:
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1. The ones you probably recognize as “wrapped up in the fact that there were no WMD found,” who I think are really more upset that it appears the intelligence that suggested the existence of WMD may have been, shall we say, embellished. For them the issue isn’t really that we just haven’t found the stuff, but that the administration might have intentionally made things up as a pretext for the war. Bush’s use of the Yellowcake story in his State of the Union, despite apparently knowing the story wasn’t true, and the subsequent outing of Valerie Plame in response to her husband calling the foul, is a major fuel for this position (my memory of that story’s a little hazy, clarifications welcome).
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2. The ones who wholeheartedly supported the invasion but don’t think our presence is now productive enough to justify the costs. With thousands of Americans dead, billions of dollars burned every week, and few signs of increasing stability, I guess this view is pretty self-explanatory.
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3. Politicians who didn’t know what they thought before and are being directly influenced by flagging public support of the war. Yes, these are the “flip-floppers,” but their ranks are hardly limited to Democrats these days.
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I’d also add it’s not really accurate to say these are necessarily liberal objections to Iraq. I should think that lying to the American people, a lack of progress, and sagging public support would be appealing arguments for people all across the political spectrum. In fact, those who opposed the war from the outset are not wholly liberal either, as their ranks include those who simply don’t think we should be getting involved in foreign entanglements preemptively. Furthermore, there are many liberals who supported the war at the outset in the spirit of spreading democracy (and Bush’s own argument to that effect was, in fact, a liberal argument).
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Personally, at the beginning I was less than pleased by the idea of opening up a second front after Afghanistan when it had seemed that for once the Iraqis were actually cooperating with weapons inspectors. Still, it was hard for me to be completely against the idea of getting rid of an evil dictator like Saddam. At this point though I am quite upset about the lies and the lack of a coherent plan for making progress. I hardly think that’s a loony leftist argument. đŸ™‚
…show a ton a preconcieved notions about liberals and terrorism that is clearly feed by rightwing messaging.
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Our new member must be alerted to the fact that this is a “reality-based” site and not easily pegged by mindless talking points.
We’ve had a lot of trolls signing up lately, but I’m not convinced demolisher is one of them. Perhaps he does have preconceived notions about liberals, just as we have preconceived notions about conservatives. If we can work to knock down those stereotypes, I think we’ll all be a little better off.
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Give it a chance. If it doesn’t work, we can always go back to the pre-primary flame wars.
…just filled with a lot of preconvieved notions that will make developing a consenus difficult. But I’ll try.
You are welcome to demolish my preconceived notions, as I will try to demolish yours. I was a bit sloppy in stereotyping liberals (though consistent with popular opinion I’ll bet ya) and Rafi did a nice job in rebutting.
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However, the stereotype was a nit, really – just a little flavor in the post that Rafi already took apart. The real questions of the post stand unanswered.
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If I were in your shoes, and I considered this a serious post I’d probably dismiss the stereotype offhandedly and then get right to the questions.
Thanks for the thoughtful comments. I would generally agree with a good bit of what you have there, except for:
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1. I believe that you have some major errors of fact in #1. It astonishes me that with everything that is available on the subject (primarily circling around Wilson, i guess) that I’ve yet to run into a democrat or liberal who knows the “other side” of the story. I don’t really want to get into a Joe Wilson debate, but suffice it to say that regardless of whether or not “the administration tried to discredit him”, he is, in fact, largely discredited. There is copious convincing writing and evidence available to this effect; I can find you some if you like. There is no evidence, on the other hand, that Bush lied about anything at all. At best, the leftist case that war intel was hyped up is, shall we say, hyped up.
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Beyond that, I’d note that you spent a great deal of effort on the single reference to the stereotypical antiwar “Bush Lied – no WMD” liberal. (effectively, I’d say)
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But you skipped some important questions, indeed THE questions of the post:
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– should we invade Iran to stop them from getting nukes?
– how can we leave Iraq when some of the people we are fighting there are in fact al qaeda?
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I too would like to see our troops home from Iraq; each American death there is a tragedy. I’ve watched some of the sniper and IED videos on youtube, and it is absolutely gut wrenchingly awful to think that our troops are in this situation.
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But the post 9/11 world is a tough place, and we are in a big fight. (I contend).
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If liberals want to be taken seriously on national security, then they need to be able to answer precisely the types of questions that I’m asking here.
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Iran is a serious, serious problem and there is no easy answer, no obvious answer. Seems to me like a good opportunity to generate some ideas and show some leadership.
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Thanks again for your reply and I welcome anyone to address the core questions of the post, which were neither right wing talking points nor facetious.
No we should not invade Iran and instead work 10 times harder than we have so far to push for a negotiated solution.
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And the reason we should go to war is the same reason why we were so wrong to go into Iraq. We never weighed the real risks of going into Iraq, ie sectarism that will split the country.
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There I answered you main question. How about answering one of mine? What will Iran do in response and are we prepared for that response if we go to war?
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Will they bomb oil tankers and pipelines, blocking a significant amount of oil to Europe and the US?
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Will they enlist their Shiite allies in Iraq (along with their agents in Iraq) and attack US forces there. (Or maybe they’ll invade Iraq with an overwhelming force that routes the realitively small US troop deployment.)
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Will they deploy Iranian agents and allies and engage in terrorists acts against the US here and abroad?
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The simplicity of your question indicates that you haven’t given the implications of your question much thought. It is very similar to the level of discussion we had going to war with Iraq.
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OK, so maybe Bush and folks like you were clueless about how difficult Iraq would be to control in the post invasion. Now you ask a simplistic question like, “should we go to war with Iran to stop them from getting nukes” like you haven’t learned a thing about the mistakes made in Iraq–like it never happened.
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And before you dismiss my “liberal talking point” about international efforts–it certainly worked for Bush 41 in 1991 and it worked for 40 years in the Cold War.
OK, here we go:
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Working 10 times harder to negotiate a solution is all well and good – but what does that mean? Send more diplomats? Be nicer? Send money and textbooks? What if Iran is determined to get nukes and will simply never negotiate a solution? (As may be the case) Is there a plan B?
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As for a sectarian split – as far as I’m concerned that is a seperate question. (Are there even similar sectarian divides in Iran?) Its one thing to take out WMD capability, and its quite another to nation build. I give Bush credit for not bailing out of Iraq right after we knocked over their military, and installing a dictator. (Compassionate conservative is more than just a label, unfortunately!)
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Bottom line is we can take out their nuke capacity if we really have to, independent of other considerations.
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What will Iran do if we bomb their nuke plants? Well, its hard to say. I assume they would try and hit us as hard as possible, probably try to hit Isreal as well. We very well might have to bail out of Iraq either to have boots on the ground in Iran, or just to be less of a target for the ensuing wrath. (It is worth noting that Iran would give us a contiguous swath of 3 occupied countries, and we could invade from both sides today if we wanted to.) However, if we do withdraw, let civil war happen or whatever – and there are lots of downsides to that – we do become a pretty hard target to hit. We are really good at wiping out militaries; thats why people have to resort to blowing themselves up to strike at us. So, Iran would probably lose most or all of their military, then redouble their efforts at terrorism. If we invade/occupy, bad idea I think but it is possible that knocking off a state sponsor of terror might significantly reduce terror capability in Iraq. I wouldn’t bet a ton on it, but its worth considering I think.
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The price of oil would certainly go up, alot. That would hurt our economy alot.
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Gulf war 1, high oil prices, high casualties, world opinion, diplomacy: All interesting considerations but all in my opinion somewhat trumped by the particular risk of Iran getting nukes. In a post 9/11 world, when dealing with an overt sponsor of international terror who hates us, I think we should think carefully about letting them get nukes. Theres no undoing it once it happens. And just think of the proliferation around the middle east once that happens…
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It seems like an impossible situation; no one seems ready to solve it; I don’t exactly have an answer either but if it were up to me I’d probably bomb all their nuclear facilities, without warning. A new doctrine: we’re really really not going to allow nuclear proliferation.
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Tough call huh?
Basically your saying quick and easy (bombing) will take care of this. Simple as that.
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Given that the US policy on Iran was essentailly developed by a speech writer (David Frum who coined the “axis of evel” phrase) and all the saber rattling on both sides (Iran’s Pres is a whacko), it seems the war crowd on both sides are driving the bus.
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Exterme positions begat exterme positions and your crowd (you, Cheney, Bush and Rummy) are driving us of a cliff. There are plenty of mederate factions in Iran we could have cultivated in the early post 9/11 days that would have opposed a Sunni Ben Laden. But instead Bush had a speech writer set policy.
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There ahve been so many lost oppurtunities, yet you want to ignore all that and march to armagenden (sp).
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Honestly Bush as screwed up so badly that maybe dipolmatic solutions are to late. But if I could go back in the way back machine, we should have mor to work with the mederate factions in Iran–instead of going to war with Iraq–and worked out a solution. Instead, even the moderates in Iran distrust the US and our motives.
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BTW, care to cite any objective links to when Iran will be getting this nuke that malkes you so trigger happy?
Is how successful these warmongers are. They actually have convinced wide swaths of the American public that Iranian President AhmadiNejad (read his blog here), well, matters. He gives a great speech and sure can grow a beard, but his powers are often ceremonial.
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AhmadiNejad (and I’m using his own spelling of his name, so any spelling police here can back off) has as much power as the Ayatollahs let him have. He’s not entirely a figurehead like European loyalty, but he holds very little real power. The American government complaining about Iran’s president makes about as much sense as the Palestinians complaining about Israel’s.
Looks objective to me; Isreal says mid 2007, US says 2011 or later:
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http://www.rferl.org…
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IMO probably better to be on the safe side…
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I dont think the problem is simple or easy at all, but I still think we should bomb their nuke plants.
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All of your blame-America complaints sort of play into the liberal stereotype, sorry to say. It occurs to me that your position might be: there is no problem. Reminds me a bit of the social security debate actually, I think its a horrible position to take but I guess it is an opinion you might have. If you think there is no problem, then I guess you might see people who say there is a problem as being disingenuous or manipulative… then again you know what they say about what you accuse others of reveals about yourself…
I was looking forward to having a genuine conservative in our midst for some serious debates. Instead we got a Fox News intern. “blame-America” , “manipulating”, “disingenuous” ? I tried to give you many chances to construct arguments instead of slander, but all I get is the same drivel. You seem like a freerepublic poster who ended up on the wrong website.
A closer look would reveal that I’ve used disingenuous and manipulative as adjectives to describe myself, in the eyes of you guys apparently.
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It just seems odd that I’m not allowed to hold this opinion, I must be lying, spreading lies, fear mongering, etc. How can you live in reality when you deny the very existence of an opposing viewpoint?
The disingenuous and manipulative is second-hand, and I apologize. The blame America thing is still egregious.
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And of course you’re allowed to hold your opinion — this is America (still). I don’t deny an opposing viewpoint’s existence, not with Fox News slavering over the possibility of another war. However, it is beneath of all of us to play off that you’re shocked — shocked! — that you come into a liberal blog and start pushing Republican lines. You’re going to get a vociferous response. If I go to Yankees stadium and say “should the Yankees give up now, or wait until they lose in the playoffs?” I don’t have a right to be surprised at the hostility.
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And yes, war on Iran is a Republican project…if you’re doing hypotheticals, why not war on Saudi Arabia? And while we’re at it, let’s teach those uppity Malians a lesson.
I’m not really all that shockedshocked but 1. it is ironic that if I step marginally out of line I get stomped all over and in the meantime people are calling me rummy’s best pal, republican talking point reading liar, but hey, I can handle it. 2. I couldn’t be on republican talking points, as I personally am far more hawkish on Iran and far more libertarian on domestic issues (like taxation and entitlements) than any elected official or thought leader on the right that I am aware of…
I blame Bush and his crew–is that America in your mind?
You’re right, I overstepped. Nice catch. đŸ™‚
You spend much of your reply explaining why Bush’s policy was wrong, and not much explaining the answer to the question: “Now what?”
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If only Bush hadn’t been rude and had engaged the UN etc., etc., etc.
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Well, now it is 2006, and your party is trying to explain why it should control the Congress, and will shortly commence explaining why it should control the white house today, and has a credibility problem on the simgle most important issue facing the electorate.
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We know Iran sponsors terrorists, and has even during their brief “moderate” period during the 90s. We know they are working on obtaining nukes. It seems a reasonable assumption that, once they get these weapons, they will eventually be exploded as deep into Israel as they can get it, and in American cities if they can get one across the border.
A very good economist I know, used to always tell his students to ‘think on the margin’ and he meant that despite all the bad stuff, all the money wrongly spent and the decisions wrongly made, what do you do next to reach the best outcome.
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I couldn’t agree more that the Democrats are so busy running against the past decisions of George Bush, they are inarticulate about the next best step.
Very well put.
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For 2006 and beyond, we have, on the one hand, Republicans who have embraced the “sunk cost fallacy:” Well, we have invested so much, we should keep going. That, even though the next dollar spent could be better spent elsewhere.
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The Democrats in their turn have, “Well, we wish the initial investment had never been made.”
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Not hope inspiring.
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I don’t think that many on the left perceive this as an imporantant issue for the elections. Perhaps that is because they have a number of other issues that they prefer, and on which Dems poll better. Republicans are out of favor, but that does not mean that Democrats are a realistic alternative.
That they are (a) working on obtaining nukes, and (b) will explode them in Israel and the US.
there are, in fact, some sectarian problems in Iran.
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It’s not religions–over 90% of Iranians are shi’ite–it’s ethnic. But Persians–ethnic ‘Iranians’–make up a bare majority of the country. A good quarter of the population–in the northwest, Tabriz and the surrounding areas–is Azeri, and there is a decent amount of irredentist feeling in independent Azerbaijan. Azeris are a Turkish people–Iranians are Indo-Europeans–and there are tensions there.
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To the west of the Azeris, about 10% of the population of Iran are Kurds. We all know about them by now, I trust :-).
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The other non-Persian 15% is primarily made up of Arabs, mostly in southwester Iran near the Iraqi border and on the south coast; some Turkmen up in the northeast; a small group of Turkish people known as the Qash’qai in the south near Shiraz, and a population of Balochis in the southeast.
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The Azeris are the big problem.
Well it turns out you’re right that I don’t really know the (reality-based) other side of the Wilson story. However, a quick trip to Google turned up an old article in which the White House admits that the State of the Union reference to yellowcake was based on on forged documents (http://www.cbsnews.c…). So it seems everyone agrees that this particular piece of evidence was flat-out wrong, regardless of other claims Wilson might have made. Again, I don’t remember other parts of the story terribly well, but I do remember thinking “uh oh, this is serious” when President Bush mentioned yellowcake, so I think it’s understandable for people to start wondering what else was incorrect, and when the administration knew about it.
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Yes, I skipped the bigger questions, mostly because my posts tend to become lengthy very quickly, but also because I don’t pretend to have all the answers. I find it interesting though that you think liberals will have to answer the two main questions you posit (or others like them) if they want to be taken seriously. Politically, you might be correct, but the interesting thing to me is that international relations is often about answering as few of those overarching questions as possible.
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Let’s take the first question for example. Are you really that eager for us to establish a policy on whether we invade rogue nations to prevent them from developing nukes? If we say ‘yes,’ then logically we should not only be gearing up for a trip to Iran, but should be crossing the DMZ as we speak. As you undoubtedly realize, invading North Korea would be tantamount to declaring World War III, as we’d instantly find ourselves in China’s crosshairs. If we say ‘no,’ we’ll still find ourselves in a huge mess, because suddenly Iran, North Korea, and others will shed whatever shred of caution they used to exercise in doing things we don’t approve of. That would mean we’d better start praying the missile defense shields work as advertised and deploying them over Tel Aviv and Seoul. From a diplomatic standpoint, the correct answer is precisely the non-answer that’s been our policy since the beginning. Use both carrots and sticks, and get the best intel possible so we can figure out when actually taking definitive action might make more sense.
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The second question is more difficult, but I think it also hinges on intel. Who exactly are these al Qaeda members in Iraq? Are they local Iraqis who joined up because they want the Americans to leave? Are they Iranians who have been fans of Osama for a while and saw this as their chance to get involved? Basically, I think we need to assess what would become of these insurgents should we pull out, specifically whether they would continue to fight and especially whether they would go elsewhere to target Americans. Furthermore, I don’t see the question of pulling out of Iraq as an all-or-nothing proposition. I would have no problem with keeping some special forces in the region for a while to continue training the Iraqi military and conducting strikes against terrorist cells. A responsible pullout doesn’t mean leaving others to clean up the mess; it means increasing Iraq’s control over its own destiny and bringing our troops home safely.
Wow, both excellent posts and I have oodles of rebuttals for you, but I’ve already had a few drinks so I’m going to wait till tomorrow.
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Thanks for your responses!
You mean this is how you write when you’re sober? Well that theory just went out the window… đŸ˜‰
OK real quick on Wilson:
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Yea, the whole world knows those docs were forged now and as I recall the whitehouse actually went to far as to apologize and officially retract that uranium reference in the state or the union. None of that means the whitehouse intentionally lied in the state of the union, it doesn’t even make any sense that they would! Anyway, as I understand it, several of Wilson’s oft-repeated claims have been thoroughly debunked, by no less than the bipartisan senate intelligence committee report… here is a nicely linked starting point if you want the whole story:
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http://austinbay.net…
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Go reality!
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It always seemed to me that if some guy whose wife sent him to Niger came back and started wagging his mouth about how Cheney sent him and he told Cheney this and that and they knew the state of the union was a lie – a reasonable if not bewildered reply might be: what do you mean? his wife sent him! Enough about that..
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I find it interesting though that you think liberals will have to answer the two main questions you posit (or others like them) if they want to be taken seriously. Politically, you might be correct
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… oh believe me I’m not politically correct! đŸ™‚ Yea, I do really think that not just liberals, but any candidate for leadership has to answer these two questions. What to do about Iraq and Iran are probably the two most serious questions facing our nation right now. I don’t really understand how not answering is at all desirable…
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Let’s take the first question for example. Are you really that eager for us to establish a policy on whether we invade rogue nations to prevent them from developing nukes? If we say ‘yes,’ then logically we should not only be gearing up for a trip to Iran, but should be crossing the DMZ as we speak.
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actually, YES! I am eager for such a policy because I think we need a hard and absolute stop to proliferation before its too late. This does not pose any problem whatsoever for North Korea, since they already have nukes. Not to say NK isnt a huge problem in itself, but its just not relevant to nonproliferation – which prevents the spread, doesn’t roll back. FYI, I absolutely agree on why we can’t invade NK.
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As for who are AQ in Iraq – all of the above. There is data available to support all of it. Zarqawi, you may recall, was a big wig that we thankfully knocked off – he was an international terrorist born in Jordan who lost his leg in Afghanistan.
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As to the type of pullout – hopefully we will acheive just what you suggest, eventually. Air power and special forces would be a nice small force to leave, yet still effective against terrorists or any serious attempt at an opposing army. But if we do that too soon, then the Iraq military could collapse and who knows – civil war? a new breeding ground for terrorists? Nasty stuff might happen. Maybe there’s nothing we can do about it, but it seems wise not to abandon Iraq to the possibilities until military leaders on both sides think Iraq can handle it.
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I say this evaluating Iraq alone and not in the context of Iran, which makes things way more complicated.
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And spoken to him, and I would love to see whatever discrediting information you can pull from anywhere but the rightest-wing of blogs that Joe went to Niger and found anything but nothing, that uranium isn’t accounted for to the ounce in the region, and/or that there’s any reason to think that a motive for him to lie even exists.
if Iran is actively pursuing nuclear weapons. They are working on enriched uranium, which is a precursor to nuclear weapons but also to nuclear energy. The nuclear non-proliferation treaty guarantees all signatories the right to pursue the peaceful use of nuclear energy, which is what the Iranians are officially seeking.
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Of course, the Iranians have sponsored terrorist groups. They have also been designated by Bush as part of the “Axis of Evil.” Considering that of the other two nations so designated, the one without nuclear weapons was invaded while the one that did have nuclear weapons was not, it is arguably not irrational from the Iranian point of view to try to develop nuclear weapons. However, there is no proof that they are doing so…only the surmise of the US and its western allies.
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Meanwhile, of course, we all know that Israel has a substantial nuclear arsenal, though it officially doesn’t exist at all. It seems to me that even if Iran is looking to develop a nuke, Israel already has a deterrent. Don’t see why mutually assured destruction (or even just assured destruction) wouldn’t work to prevent nuclear aggression on the part of Iran as well as it has with Russia, China, etc.
Interesting angle; we have lots of proof that they are doing lots of things that will give them the ingredients for nuclear bombs, but no proof that they will actually put them together in a bomb. Sometimes they say they have a right to a bomb and will make one, sometimes they say the opposite. Who is to know?
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MAD between Isreal and Iran is fine; I agree. My concern is not for Isreal however, its for the US. Its for Boston and NY.
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Once Iran goes nuclear, it will be nearly impossible to undo. Once they make a stockpile of bombs, who is to say whether one, two, ten, 100 might end up in the hands of Hezbollah? Or Al Qaeda?
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The prospect of losing, say, the entire city of Boston to a nuclear terrorist attack in my opinion justifies not only preemptive action but also action without proof. You can’t always [ever?] get proof; sometimes you have to go on what you believe.
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Bush is unfortunately hamstrung in this regard; having called it wrong in Iraq, being bogged down there now in an unpopular war, it does not seem likely that he will be able to act decisively.
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So what should we do?
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Do we really want to allow for the possibility of looking back over the ashes of Boston and thinking “we shouldn’t have let them get nukes…”?
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Think 5, 10, 20, 50 years down the road. Nuclear proliferation needs a hard stop, or somebody is gonna get nuked.
If we want to mantain the Republican monopoly on power.
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Only smiting our enemies, regardless of any knowledge or evidence of imminent threats can save our nation from the peril of Democrats winning Congressional elections.
I mean, we did such a good job on Iraq, which is much smaller, had a smaller military, and easier terrain.
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Risk is a board game, not a foreign policy.
It appears that your argument is that we cannot defeat Iran militarily?
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If the goal is to take nukes out of their hands, I think we can do it. As for Iraq style nation-building, thats another question entirely.
Yes, my argument — and the argument of most military experts, as opposed to political hacks — is that we cannot militarily defeat Iran. If your goal is to destroy the centralized control of the country (like we did in Iraq) and distribute the beginnings of nuclear capability among several warlords, we could do that while reinstating the draft and paying astronomical oil prices.
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And despite your eagerness to spread bad news, Iran doesn’t have atomic or nuclear weapons. It is a few years away from developing that capability. It’s North Korea that has the nukes. North Korea, you know, the country we’re ignoring and leaving in the trustworthy hands of China?
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If you’re so gung-ho on a third simultaneous “war” — not that we’ve followed the constitutional path for war in the last 60-odd years — sign up.
YOU know, like the negotiations you push for the Middle East?
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US, North and South Korea, China and Japan have all been negotiating – together. It gets ignored because it doesn’t fit the liberal stereotype of the Administration, but it has made some real gains, and probably averted a real crisis a couple of months ago.
So why are we negotiating with the “evil” country with the nuclear weapons, while the less threatening “evil” country is being threatened for invasion?
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Just how many simultaneous wars do you think this country can handle? Three? Four? more than that?
Instead of acting as a jihadist?
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Do you see North Korea shipping soldiers and cash to Mongolia to threaten China? Or to Malaysia?
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Iran is acting as part of a global jihad rather than as a nation. Read the President’s blog – which I have featured on my own blog. He would be the first person to agree with that statement.
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Negotiate with nations – even insane ones. Stay away from jihadists – even the seemingly rational, young-Fidel-esque ones.
So! The USA cannot defeat Iran militarily you say! And most military experts agree? Well, you’re going to want to source that one I think. Personally I’ve never heard anyone say that we can’t defeat Iran militarily until just now. Maybe if you caveat it by saying something like… cannot defeat and the build democracy or maybe … dont have enough troops on hand to occupy iran and iraq at the same time…. but I guess you backed off it after that anyway.
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Fledgeling nuclear capability, by the way, is not the sort of thing that can scatter among warlords. We’re talkng giant centrifuges and heavy water reactors, and advanced staffs of scientists etc etc. Actual nukes, now those might be able to scatter.
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We can’t invade North Korea for the same reason we’ve always been unable to do so: China. Also, now they have nukes. Its really bad when a country gets nukes.
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I’m gung ho for a 3rd war? Oh please, try and be constructive. I’ve placed a serious problem squarely in your sights and all you want to do is spout logically frail anti-warisms like “… sign up!” as if no one is allowed to support a war unless they are also going to fight in it..
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Do you agree that Iran getting nukes is undesirable? If so, is there anything we can and should do? Here is your chance to defy the liberal stereotype of head-in-the-sand no ideas 60’s antiwar can’t be serious about national security. Go for it.
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…I’ll ask you another, related, question.
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What kind of military investment would we have to make to go to with Iran? Sure I think we can defeat Iran. But the cost and scarifices will be high. Are we as a country ready to “pay any price, bear any burden”…? Absolutely, IF the danger is real. But so far you’re just spouting the same fear mongering BS that got us stuck in a no win situation in Iraq.
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So far you’re not impressing me Mr. Demolisher.
I replied more extensively to your questions above, I gave it more time because your post warranted a better reply.
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Fear mongering? Well, gee – the prospect of a nuclear 9/11, yea thats a fearful thing but its not entirely unrealistic is it? To me and others who think as I do, its worth trampling other nations based on incomplete intel to avoid the endgame of wild nuclear proliferation. Calling it wrong in Iraq makes this position very very much harder to press forward; it does not make the position invalid.
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The country is certainly not willing to go all out against Iran right now, and I dont think Bush is capable of convincing it. However, he can still attack if he sees fit.
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The cost and sacrifices will be high regardless, but there are some paths we can take to minimize those. I think we would have to abandon nation building and democracy spreading, for sure.
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The idealistic path says we fix the root causes of terror by spreading freedom and democracy. The machiavellian path says who cares about those societies so long as they don’t have nukes. I won’t characterize the paths or lack of paths espoused by your side… đŸ™‚
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… to directly answer your costs question:
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minimum: the cost whatever ordnance we drop, plus the run up in gas prices, minus the costs of Iraq if we abandon it
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maximum: astronomical, return of the draft, recession, maybe worse
Remember when she scared the sh*t out of us with the mushroom cloud over NY as a reason to invade Iraq. Now you write: “prospect of a nuclear 9/11, yea thats a fearful thing but its not entirely unrealistic is it?”
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Every thing I read says it is unrealistic, yet all you want to do is spread fear so we can carry out you agenda for WWIII. Even if Iran had the bomb today (and they don’t), tell me how they will deliver this bomb to the US? They have no long range bombers or missles.
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Really, your just filled with untruths and scare tactics.
Control yourself, Frank. I’m telling you what I believe, not spreading lies.
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Its not Iran’s long range bombers I’m worried about, its a boat 10 years down the road comandeered by AQ or similar, loaded with a nuke and parked in Boston Harbor. Where did the nuke come from? Iran? Some other new member of the nuclear club? Who knows!
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My agenda is precisely to prevent wwiii, and I’m ok grappling with hard questions and hard choices in the regard. If you are OK with Iran getting nukes or at least not going to forcibly stop it, ok fine, thats your position. I assume that will be your position for all subsequent countries as well. Do you really think that some day in the future, a terrorist could never end up with a nuke on a boat in one of our harbors?
You just keep putting words in my mouth.
Read the phrase immediately following;
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Really I’m just trying to divine your actual position. Since you’re dancing around it I have to kind of guess
is to go back in the “way back machine” to September 12th and work to enlist the moderate factions in Iran–you will concede they were very strong back then–and strenghten their role in the Shiite government to hope us fight the Sunni Bun Laden.
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But a speech writer for Bush decided the forieng policy agenda. Course with Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, amybe that was a good thing.
Frank, there is no way back machine. Monday morning quarterbacking is all well and good, but what we’ve got now is what we’ve got now. You can recriminate the Bush administration till the cows come home but at the end of the day, if you want your party in control, then you have to deal with the world as it is right now.
I’m sure as hell not going to follow the advice of people who have demonstrated that have absolutely no clue when it comes to geopolitical situations. It’s the Bushies that aren’t dealing with the world as it is right now. Dipolmacy (sp) naviagated us through the cold war and it can stop this on coming train–but folks like you and Bush won’t deal with that reality. Let’s stop reading sideways.
Yet.
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Do you really think they can’t ACQUIRE these things?
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Especially as long a France is still selling them?
I read thru the debate. I’d concede, Demolisher, that your question is mostly sidestepped.
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I’ll respond (I’m a centrist), but I’d like your views first (maybe I missed them):
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1. What’s your answer to your question of whether, if indeed there are several more months of negotiation failure, we should invade Iran as it continues to pursue weapons capability?
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2. If we hit Iran, should we also hit N. Korea? Not exactly the same risk of Al Qaeda pass-along, but a different risk – rogue lunatic.
Now, I am not a military expert but I believe we can take out Iran’s nuclear capability without actually invading. This would be my preference. If the generals thought that an invasion was viable (and we could do it in concert with our other obligations) then I might support that too. If an invasion would be horrible but we still needed to do it just to get rid of the nukes, I’d support that too. The only thing is, we couldnt do a follow up occupation. I’d probably be willing to ditch Iraq, make a mess of Iran and generally cause all sorts of havoc in order to avoid a nuclear Iran.
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As for NK, I don’t think its very feasible to invade, since they already have nukes. I think you group the two together due to the axis of evil, but in my mind they are different: one has nukes, the other is pursuing nukes. Its much more realistic to stop proliferation than to cause disarmament.
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That said, if NK seems like an imminent threat, I’d support action there too. We’d have to be ready for a nuclear exchange though. I suspect that if we hit NK with a first strike, we could avoid a world war (via China) but that one isn’t a 100% bet, so we gotta tread carefully there, know what I mean?
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As much as I hated Clinton’s foreign policy, a balkans style air war (against any) seems like a decent option in light of Iraq.
Thanks for your reply.
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1. FYI – NK claims it has nuclear weapons, but that is unclear. Most experts thinks it has the enriched uranium, though.
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2. I tend to fear the NK confrontation, like you. However, I fear their willingness to pass weapons to terrorists as much as Iran’s. While less natural sympathy to jihadist opponents, there is also no moderating force in NK like there is in Iran.
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3. So it looks like we’re going to live with both Pakistan and NK having nukes.
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4. I tend to be skeptical that even “if we try 10 times harder” as one commenter said, that Iran will give up its nuclear program. In fact, trying harder can be (though not necessarily) counterproductive.
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Among some hardliners, it will only strengthen their conviction that USA will not act, and if they are willing to offer perks pre-nuke-Iran, they’ll only be 50 times more respectful of post-nuke-Iran.
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5. So I think the talks will fail. I do think it MAY be possible to emerge from the talks, however, with some sort of James Baker coalition.
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6. Sorry to say, from what I’ve read, few think airstrikes alone can do it. Can’t repeat Osirak strike 1982. Several facilities. Many buried. Need ground forces. Certainly do-able. Not easy.
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7. I am not convinced we’ll be “net” safer if we do invade Iran and denuke them. We may.
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I don’t know how much to weight the notion of a Tipping Point, where a majority of Muslims believe USA is their enemy, a) creating many more jihadists, and b) flipping regimes in Egypt, Pakistan, Jordan, etc.
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After all, the peaceniks claimed that even if we expelled Iraq from Kuwait, we’d get this effect. Didn’t happen. Again with Iraq II. But at some point….
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I.e., more terrorist enemies….true, no longer able to get weapons from Iran, but still Pakistan and NK and other biological/chemical….
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8. Ha! That leaves me same as yesterday – completely unsure. That is, once I clear out the mumbo jumbo of the likes of some of our friends on BMG – who can’t see past their hatred of Bush – I still don’t end up with a convincing case to hit Iran.
You write…”I am not a military expert but I believe we can take out Iran’s nuclear capability without actually invading. This would be my preference.”
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Well to paraphrase your hero Rumsfeld, sometimes you have to go to war with the preferences you have and not the preferences you want.
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When we invaded Iraq, I’m sure it was not your perference to be stuck there fours later in the middle of a civil war. But that’s where we are. Why can’t you think a couple of steps ahead? Why can’t you think of ideas that don’t automatically involve war?
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Let’s assume your right about all this and we bomb Iran and all of a sudden the nuke threat is gone (and many experts contend we don’t even know where the places are and the ones we do, they are to damn deep.) What happens next–after the world depression that results in Iran’s response by blowing up oil pipelines and sinking tankers in shipping lanes.
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Maybe fundementalists in Pakistan are so enraged by US actions that they overthrow the government and they ahve there hands in REAL, VERIFIED NUKES. What are you going to do then? Or maybe the Shiites in Iran and Iraq decide to have a holy war against the Sunni’s who have been helping the west (in their eyes) and the Middle East is engulfed in a civil war and stopping all oil supplies.
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The lesson on the Middle East and the lesson of history is war begats war. I’m no pacifist–you will assume I am, but I supported the 1991 Gulf War–wars have there place. But war is nothing but an extension of politics (Von Clausvitz -sp) and what are our POLITICAL obkectives here. And don’t give me crap about stopping the nuking of NY. There are lots of ways to stop that–and the price the neocons pay for all their scare tactics with Iraq is that they won’t work again.
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The war card has been played and it was played badly. Before it’s played again, alot of negotiating and “hard work” has to be done before the American people can have faith in their leaders that they have to go to war again. Until that happens, knee-jerk suggestions to bomb Iran will have no traction.
What’s bad for Iran is great for them. Along with Egypt and Indonesia, they’re playing a slow-motion game to dominate Dar-al-Islam (and a fast-motion one to dominate Afghanistan). Heck, a big reason Iran wants nukes has nothing to do with the US — they want to me-too Pakistan to catch up in the race to speak for the Muslim world.
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But the day we launch an official attack on Iran — there are already American special ops teams going in and out of the country — Iraq and Afghanistan would turn into hell. If you think Shi’ite Iraq is hard enough with the Iranian government turning in the other direction while they move arms, imagine what it would be like with open support. Not only would more crud start coming in from Iran, they can activate Hizbollah groups under their control in Syria to cause even more problems in al Anbar.
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And in Afghanistan, we pause to consider the most powerful person in the country — Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. (Anyone who thinks it’s Harmid Karzai shame on you — he’s a good guy, but stands out for his ability to speak English and look good on tv). Hekmatyar is a franchisee of Iran, and controls much of Western Afghanistan. At the moment things are quiet because A:American/”Afghan” troops don’t go into his territory, and B:The status quo is providing a record heroin profit. With his non-cooperation, Afghanistan outside Kabul would become a no-go zone. (I realize it’s odd to think that Iran-backed Hekmatyar would end up working closely with Pakistan-backed Taliban even though their sponsors are at odds. It’s a complicated place, no doubt. Like many Afghan leaders, one of Hekmatyar’s talents is a great sense of which way the wind blows.)
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So for the price of one war on Iran, things get much crappier in War #1 (AFG) and War #2 (Irq).
They have plenty, plenty, plenty of artillery, all in the most hardened postions possible. So even if they don’t have nukes, there cannot be an invasion of NK because NK would render all of SK, and maybe some of Japan, a smoking pile of rubble before we could stop them.
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Thus, there will be no invasion of NK. It is a special case. Invoking it in the context of Iran misses the point that the risk in Iran could be greater (due to Jihadism) and that the special circumstances described above do not exist.
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Of course, other special circumstances apply: like the potential for $500 bbl oil and the economic consequences that come with it.
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Wait, aren’t liberals always cheering hight oil prices?
…that NK is special case and won’t be invaded.
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Also open to idea that Iran risk of passing weapons to terrorists is greater than NK risk, though I don’t think that’s a slam dunk, as I said before….NK has no jihad motivation but seems to have crazy leader with zero moderating force.
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In any case, we do face 10 year risk from NK and Pakistan in terms of pass along to terrorists. If Musharraf falls, hard to say what could be next. And it’s not clear we need the “government” to give weapon to terrorist; could be sympathetic general who participates in theft of one. We face risk from corrupt Russians, too.
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My point was that nuclear Iran adds to our profileration woes. When posited as “Should we have nuclear risk from Iran?” the question is too narrow.
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Better: “Given the proliferation risks we already face of third party terrorist acquisition from NK, Russia, Pakistan….how much add’l risk comes from Iran?”
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In other words, our 10 year risk now of an American city destroyed, though incredibly hard to quantify, must have SOME assigned value, right? x%
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And with Iran as nuke, does that increase to 1.5x? 2x? 3x? 10x?
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The multiplier matters. So does x, obviously.
You only asked half the question. It’s like the old “should we cut taxes” question without the “and what services will we reduce?” chaser.
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I ask you this question: Are you willing to pay more taxes or to institute the draft to invade Iran?
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We are racking up a lot in debt to be in Iraq. I suspect that if people had to pay a “war tax” they would think twice about supporting invading another country. Television has made the war like a television show — unreal.
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No one seems to care that we are killing hundreds of thousands of people simply because we might be “stopping terror from coming here” (even though Bush has said that Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11).
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Maybe if thew public had to pay for it with either lives or dollars, the decision-making as to whether this is worthwhile would be more sincere.
Hey, totally fair question and its a really hard one for me too.
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In my opinion a progressive tax rate schemes is entirely unfair (I’ll be glad to go with another thread on that one) so any talk of raising taxes to me starts with a complete move to a flat tax. At that point, if we had to have taxes explicitly for a war, I’d support that but only if those same portions of taxes could not be rolled into other spending once military spending decreases.
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Also, I’d support spending cuts and cuts galore – I’d phaseout all entitlements, most social programs, and most pork (easier said than done I’m sure!). I think the way to do this is some kind of constitutional ammendment that limits the purpose of government along more or less libertarian lines.
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A flat tax would also help limit spending, since everyone would then have to pay for all the fanciful spending that leading democrats want to just tax the “rich” for.
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How’s that!
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As for occupying Iran (and Iraq) I’d be willing to bail out of both and install ruthless dictators if that were the only way to limit our casualties and if democracy isnt going to take root in any case. (I haven’t given up, but I’m just sayin as a fallback…)
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All of you should read “No Win”, a longer opinion piece published in yesterday’s Ideas section of the Golbe:
http://www.boston.co…
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In that piece, the author (a BU professor) argues about the Middle East that “The inhabitants of that region now have options other than submission or collaboration. Both the United States and Israel must grapple with the implications of this fact.”
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His piece concludes with a well thought-out 5-point strategy for achieving U.S. objectives in the Midle East and in the War on Terror without invading Iran or other strong military action.
Although its overall a decent opinion piece, that article has some pretty major holes in it. Left wing bias is overall muted but occaisionally roars out with such beauties as “furiously trying to relearn the lessons of Vietnam”, the loaded “end of western military dominance of the middle east”, and various declarations of defeat in the text and for that matter in the title: “No win”.
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Nevertheless, its worthy of being addressed on its own, probably in a seperate thread but I figured I’d object to one thing in particular:
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This notion that terror-tactic insurgencies represent a revolutionary new fighting tactic which trumps western militaries is a bit flawed in my opinion. The problem has nothing to do with invading and knocking over any country we choose to (i.e. military success) the problem occurs when we try to stick around and nation-build, using our army as a police force and more.
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I’m not saying that we can just scram out of there and there will be no problem at all, but rather that the Islamist tactics are truly only effective against our efforts to nation-build, not at all effective against our ability to go knock down a military and government at will. Those are two different things.
.. has the United States ever simply gone to “knock down a military and government at will.” Aren’t we always engaged in “efforts to nation-build” afterwards?
Right, ’cause that worked so well the last time we tried it over there.
So your argument is that you’d only support a tax for the war if we changed out taxation system to a non-progressive one? And then only if things like social programs were phased out?
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Talk about conflating two issues!
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I’d say that the wealthy people in this country have a lot more to lose from terrorism than the poor people. You’d pay for a war by taking from the poor?
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Your scheme would result in even deeper class divisions. Since a person’s lot in life is most depednent on the lot in life of his parents, we would quickly have a small class of uber-wealthy in this country, and a vast majority of unwashed rabble. This has proven not to work across history, because the large mass realizes that they have strength in numbers.
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Is that your vision of the USA, one where the game of life is like “winners” in basketball?
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On that note, do you support changing the rules of sports leagues so that the team that wins the championship one year gets to claim players from the losing teams, as well as the #1 picks in the draft? Do you think that would give the other teams more incentive to win? Do you think those sports would be fun to watch?
The question was would I support increased taxes or decreased spending to pay for an invasion of Iran; I tried to answer that concisely but needed to discuss my view of the tax system by way of explaining why I would resist a tax increase.
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I obviously support spending cuts in other areas, so I think I passed your test of “how do we pay for this”.
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I’d be more than happy to discuss taxation and social economics in another thread. Shall I start one?
So you would support a plan where wealthier Americans don’t have to “pay” for the war via increased taxation, you’d instead “pay for it” by cutting social programs, most of which go to the lower classes.
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I suppose that is at least consistent with a view that the human toll of this war should only be paid by the lower class — the ones who have few options in life except the military, not via a general draft without any exceptions.
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I’m beginning to understand the conservative perspective — and it frightens the hell out of me!
P.S. Can you give your thoughts as to why life should follow such a “winners” formula, but sports leagues should not? What would be wrong with a sports league that gave the championship team the ability to claim players from the losing teams? What would be wrong with awarding the #1 draft pick to the championship team? Wouldn’t that give teams more incentive to win?
though your sports analogy totally lost me on the “should we invade iran?” question….
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there are some “winners” benefits in certain leagues.
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a. winners are more likely to attract the best free agent players, who want to contend for a championship.
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b. winners in premier league soccer get to stay premier, while lowest teams are demoted to another league entirely.
Your premises are very different from mine. And I’m perplexed by the sports league analogy, to be honest. Life is not a sports league, a free country doesn’t have a draft, there isnt a central controlling rulebook for life. (or the economy)
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In this post alone, I object to:
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wealthier Americans ignores the fact to the wealthiest Americans, income is irrelevant – high earning eventually begets wealth, but not John Kerry wealth. Its important to note that income taxes hit earnings, not wealth. To a large extent, income taxes prevent the accumulation of wealth.
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wealthier Americans don’t have to “pay” for the war I’m not one to argue with statistics, but high earning Americans pay for things way way out of proportion to their net earnings already. If everyone pays the same PERCENT, then we all pay for whatever new spending and we all get relief with spending cuts.
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In a free and equal society, everyone should have the same relative tax burden, contribution, incentive, and responsibility.
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“pay for it” by cutting social programs not really – I’
d pay for it with the money already being taxed like crazy out of our incomes, and if that is already spoken for, I’d pay for it with deficit spending. I’d then reduce the deficit by cutting wealth transfers, all kinds of programs and pork.
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So yes, I’m prioritizing a war higher than social programs. In fact, I’m saying that the government can legitimately conduct national defense but cannot legitimately play national nanny with endless new and creative ways to give and take money to and away from free people.
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the human toll of this war should only be paid by the lower class I’ve never heard of that view.
I meant draft in the sense of a sports league btw not a military draft. Thats a different issue, obviously.
Assume the reality, namely, that the status quo re tax system and entitlements isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. (Flat tax is a total non-starter, as you well know.)
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So given the reality, do you support the inevitably necessary tax INCREASE, and/or the draft, to support your war in Iran?
But it really is an easy answer.
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If you saw a million ton asteroid heading toward earth and the only way to stop it was to build a really expensive thing-a-ma-jig to stop it then you’d tax the bejeeus out of everyone and you cut social spending.
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The only variables here are a) how big is the threat b) how immediate is the threat c) how likely is the chance of success through invasion/intervention d) how expensive is invasion. Right?
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If the answers are
a) Very big
b) Very soon
c) Likely
d) Real expensive
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Then of course. Raise taxes and cut domestic spending.
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Happened in the Civil war, 1913, and WWII. Didn’t happen in ‘butter and guns’ Vietnam and it almost wrecked the economy.
Now if we can only get the Republicans in Washington to see it that way, we’ll be all set! đŸ˜‰
Flat tax is no more a non starter than universal health care, yet that is I believe a dear and central plank for the left. Cutting spending and increasing taxes are both difficult; hence the deficit and debt. Both occasionally happen.
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I’d be fine with chucking the new medicare benefit, would you?
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đŸ™‚
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As for a draft, thats a tough call. I’d not rush to support a draft – I’d leave Iraq first. Reforming the entire middle east is a laudable goal, but we can knock off our enemies without nation building. If they resurge, we can always knock them off again.
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but why are you such a US hating communist that you stop at just iran? there are so many other places that we must invade, now:
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– North Korea
– France
– Venezuela
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those are just the obvious ones. a true patriot would also list:
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– Mexico
– China
– The better part of Western Europe and the leftist part of Canada
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i mean, aren’t you serious about the War on Terror? let’s go, America vs!
(Great post – it has generated lively discussion.)
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Aside for the many other reasons to NOT invade Iran is the BIG one: Our military cannot currently conduct a war in Iraq and invade Iran. Iran is a whole different kettle of fish – a much bigger country, with a much larger military, hardened targets spread out across the country, etc.
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Before anybody goes on record supporting an invasion of Iran, they should read Sy Hersh’s July 10th New Yorker piece………
See, we’re fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan now. If we invade Iran, then all the countries we’re fighting will be connected, so instead of fighting on two fronts, we’ll be fighting on one big one.
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Then we can attack Pakistan and China so that we can get to North Korea.
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I mean, that’s how it works in Risk. Why wouldn’t it be the same in real life?
More or less, and he was a military genius.
to Iraq? Has ther been a huge rearmament program since, in which they have acquired modern weaponry?
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This sounds like BS to me; the threat in Iran (at least before they have nukes) would be the same as that in Iraq –asymetrical insurgency, factored in with an ability to hit everyone right in the pocketbook in the worst way.
I believe in 1988 they went to status quo ante. Iran didn’t win, but they didn’t lose either — partially because the Republicans were shoveling weapons to Saddam Hussein at a furious rate. The border was reset at the previous line, and control of the Persian Gulf and Straits of Hormuz was unchanged.
But, why would Iran pose any kind of conventional threat? That is, not counting the potential that nukes exist, counter insurgency in the event of occupation, or economic warfare in the form of causing us all to walk to work…
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I should credit my original line, which is cribbed from a Barney Frank one-liner shortly after Gulf War I. In a debate about the “peace dividend” (remember that?) he was on a panel with some military types arguing for increased military spending, despite the end of the cold war. One of these guys spent a l-o-n-g time gassily discussing the threat posed by Iraq and Iran. Frank responded by noting that the US military just required about three weeks to destroy most of Iraq’s military, and then he said:
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“Then there’s Iran. Let me tell you something about Iran; they lost a war to Iraq.”
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Military guy never recovered. Game, set, and match to B. Frank.
and I’m certainly not advocating war there.
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Don’t mean to get boild down in a point, and Barney Frank is a great guy, but that great one-liner doesn’t make much factual sense. If we must declare a victor, it would have to be Iraq simply because they started the war and got nothing out of it except lots of death. Iran was on the defensive, and did a good job acquitting themselves — even though the coutnry was still disorganized following the Islamic Revolution.
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Given their ability to cause trouble in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, not to mention a widely dispersed military complex, Iran would make Iraq look like Grenada — and that doesn’t even mention the sh-tstorm that would hit us across the Arab world if the US ever bombed anything in Qom.
Should read Iran was the victor, since they were attacked with no losses.
If winning a war against Iran looks similar to how we just “won” in Iraq, I wouldn’t be dragging out Barney’s old quote……………..
I think the argument is that present policy is squandering the victory acheived in April 2003. That is correct, because the administration’s goal was to secure a “peaceful and democratic Iraq” by means of occupation, and then forgot to plan for the occupation.
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April 2003 demonstrated what we know. Tell the military to destroy X, Y, and Z, and it will be done with dispatch. Tell the military to nation build, and it will fail.
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My impression of the proposal under discussion would be that the military would locate and destroy nuclear-related facilities, and then depart. Elimination of the nuclear threat in accordance with the Powell Doctrine.
after destroying their nuclear facilities without engaging in a little “regime change” rhumba?
Regime change is easy as long as you don’t care what the next one looks like.
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Regime change in Iraq was accomplished in April 2003. Everything since has been an attempt to determine what the new regime will be.
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If the new regime doesn’t have the capacity to build nukes, hooray. Everyone home for the parade down Braodway. End of conflict.
If Israel seeks our aid to protect itself from Iran, I say go ahead and do all we can to save our little ally.
Most posts ever perhaps?
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Anyway I support a phased withdrawl from Iraq, to Kurdistan and out of Anbar. With more money and troops we can have Iraqis fight the insurgents in Anbar, also we can negotiate and try and include the insurgents in the government and have them all get together to fight the actual terorrists in Iraq. If this intensified Iraqification with negotiation and a phased withdrawl to over the horizon positions succeed I think the country will be successfully pacified so the US can begin to withdraw most of its troops. A longterm occupation of perhaps 20-30,000 will be needed, along with a special forces prescense to make lightning fast strikes. Also I support building airbases to contain Iran.
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Once that is complete and we have a low number of troops (Korea-Germany level of troops) we can then begin pressuring Iran, I think military strikes should be the last resort and unlike Iraq limited to WMD facilities, and NOT an occupation/regime change strategy. And Iran should NOT be attacked if large amounts of American troops are in range.
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Had we not invaded Iraq with ground troops I feel that we could have used inspectors to bomb its suspected facilities and then bombed the ones in Iran. Sadly that oppurtunity has been squandered.