Sean-Paul asked me to post this, it was originally written in as a response to the idea of bombing the hell out of Iran's nuclear program (massive conventional air sorties, in other words) and pulling back to defend Israel from the backlash.
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Oh wow.
Go ahead. If you're willing to lose most of your troops in Iraq. That's an act of war. You do that, you are declaring war on Iran, and they will respond that way. That is a DECLARATION OF WAR. And your economy will crater and your allies will abandon you, you will be all by yourselves. Oil will soar to $150/barrle and the world economy will crash. And people won't blame the Iranians, they will blame you.
Now: let's deal with the specifics:
1) Iran doesn't sponsor terror against the US, at least not recently. You do this, that'll change. You do this, you will come to see 9/11 as the good ol' days when you only lost a couple thousand people. Because Iran is much better at terrorism than al-Q'aeda is. Much, much better.
2) Israel is the nation which spies most on the US. They are not your friends, whatever you may think. Of course, given the power of the Israeli lobby, and the specter of being called an anti-semite, no one is willing to say this. Let them deal with their own damn problems, it's their bed, let them lie in it.
3) List the negative consquences of Iran getting nukes. (Probably in ten years). Then list the consequences of DECLARING WAR on Iran. Compare and contrast.
4) Bush brought this on America by invading Iraq. The lesson of Iraq is this: if you have nukes you won't get invaded. If you do, the US will (compare and contrast: North Korea/Iraq). Iran is acting entirley rationally. And moreover the US reelected Bush. You endorsed him. From a foreigners point of view, you are a rogue nation. I think Canada should have nukes, because I know you invaded Iraq based on lies. Americans knew Bush was torturing people and they reelected him. I don't want Iran to have nukes, but if I were the mullahs I'd be doing
the exact same thing.
5) I have to tell you that from a foreigner's point of view, and this is true even in your closest allies (the majority of Britains, for example) you are a rogue nation. You invade people based on lies. You have no credibility on Iran. You are the boy who cried Wolf. You don't obey the Geneva conventions. You have secret prisons. You torture people, including the citizens of your allies. You have abolished habeas corpus for certain classes of people. You could produce pictures of nukes and missiles and half the world wouldn't believe you. Even if we do believe you, we don't care enough to endorse going to war with Iran.. There are only two nations in the world who constantly talk about how they're willing to nuke people without even being attacked: The North Koreans - and the UNITED STATES.
You gave up the ability to stop countries like Iran from getting nukes when you invaded a country like Iraq which had no nukes and no real possibility of getting them. That was your wad, and you blew it. You chose to be weak. At this point, for you to stop Iran would involve you in a war you cannot win. You cannot win it. You cannot occupy Iran. You would lose your troops in Iraq OR you would have to kill tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of Iraqis to save them. You'd better think real carefully about what you're willing to do. If you withdraw your troops from Iraq first, then you give the Mullahs warning (because it ain't an overnight operation) and everything else still stands - you will still destroy your economy, the Revolutionary Guards will still activate their operatives in the US. Look at a map, and see how much oil goes through what areas right next to Iran.
Get rid of George Bush. Try him for war crimes. Stop building nukes. Stop talking aobut using nukes pre-emptively. Come back to the UN, and we'll talk about doing something about Iran. Since there is still quite a bit of time before they get nukes, there is still time. But your first job is to clean up your own house. No one trusts you to clean up anyone else's anymore.