Let’s be serious for a moment: Barack Obama will not bomb Iran. This is not because he is a liberal, or because he is a peacenik, or because he doesn’t have the guts to try and “save his presidency” in this time-honored manner, as Daniel Pipes has urged and Sarah Palin said she would like him to do.
The president will not bomb Iran’s nuclear installations for precisely the same reasons that George W. Bush did not bomb Iran’s nuclear installations: Because we don’t know exactly where they all are, because we don’t know whether such a raid could stop the Iranian nuclear program for more than a few months, and because Iran’s threatened response — against Israelis and U.S. troops, via Iranian allies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and Lebanon — isn’t one we want to cope with at this moment. Nor do we want the higher oil prices that would instantly follow. No American president doing a sober calculation would start a war of choice now, while U.S. troops are actively engaged on two other fronts, and no American president could expect public support for more than a nanosecond.
But even if Obama does not bomb Iran, that doesn’t mean that no one else will. […] The defining moment of his presidency may well come at 2 a.m. some day when he picks up the phone and is told that the Israeli prime minister is on the line: Israel has just carried out a raid on Iranian nuclear sites. What then? […] Although they keep all options on the table, they have so far concluded that bombing raids aren’t worth the consequences.
At some point, that calculation could change. Because Americans often assume that everyone else perceives the world the way we do, it is worth repeating the obvious here: Many Israelis regard the Iranian nuclear program as a matter of life and death.
No matter what happens the USA will get the blame even if we do not bomb them and someone else does. Even if we don’t support the bombing the USA will still get the blame.
Holy shit. A MAJORITY of DU users opposed to carrying forward with a BAD IDEA?
Did they replace everyone with paid trolls this morning?!?
#34 Strange isn’t it Max? Maybe there’s hope after all… 🙂
Nixon went to China.
Americans. Always with the bombs….
I was completely convinced that Bush II would attack Iran before leaving office. Obama is looking to be startlingly similar to the GOP, so I guess he might do it.
It would be a very bad thing, as #5 so ably pointed out. I would modify and extend some of those points though.
Iran is not primarily dangerous because of its potential nukes or oil, but because of the influence it has on regional energy transport. Since the region supplies both Europe and Asia I don’t think the US wants to mount a challenge here.
The reform movement in Iran is important, but the country is more stable than Twitter would indicate. Most of the demonstrators are mad that the mullahs are intruding on their personal expression. There seems to be general support of Iran’s foreign policy objectives. The idea that Iran should be a major regional player is reasonable because they are a very old continuous civilization. What that means is that the citizens were willing to step up over the span of thousands of years.
Lastly, Iran wants to deal. They are very smart and aware of their place in the great scheme.
#36: Unfortunately, he came back.
If they decide to do this use missiles. Don’t have anyone near their borders. If possible send it in from an unexpected direction and if possible try to make sure no clearly identifiable fragments are found. Let them loudly proclaim who did it but don’t bother to claim it.
If accused simply say, “I can understand how they would think that though it might be prudent to remember we aren’t the only people that make missiles and a lot of people aren’t necessarily all that happy with the kind of threats the government of Iran has been making.”
Just let Israel do it and we’ll wag our finger at them.
“You know……” when faced with nothing but bad choices, you should choose the “least bad” of bad choices -OR- Dither around and let others make their choices thereby limiting your own bad choices.
To that end: yea, Iran is so much stronger than Iraq==thats why they fought to mutual standstills over a 10 year period.
Russia, bad as they were, were sane. Atheists even. Korea is plain nuts and fearful of everyone and under the thumb of China who is also sane, atheists even. IRAN is fucking nuts, promising a first strike against Israel, and is a fundy Muslim state happy to commit/fund/arm jihad if they don’t go all holy on us themselves. They are “the oddest man” in the group and deserve special attention.
“And let’s not forget that attacking countries that are not an immediate threat is the hallmark of rogue states.” /// Ummm–Chamberlain, the appeaser of Hitler’s rise to power who could have been easily stopped before he was an immediate threat, Chamberlin, is that YOU?
But bombing does destroy resources and innocent people. What could be an alternative?????
I vote for dedicated hit squads decapitating the governments that we don’t like. What other less bad option is there given the Iran will have the Nuke if “someone” doesn’t act?
Iran and Iraq fought to standstills bc the US supplied Iraq with chemical weapons which inhumanely defeated Iran’s human wave tactics.
China is mostly buddhist, taoist, and confucianist.
So a muslim state without nuclear weapons is bad, but a jewish state with nuclear weapons is good? You would be a good Nazi if you actually believe that most muslims want a jihad on the west.
Iran hasn’t preemptively attacked another country in almost 1000 years.
How are we appeasing Iran if they are letting UN inspectors into their nuclear facilities, and there is no evidence that they are building nuclear weapons?
The US, with a vast nuclear arsenal, has invaded Iran’s biggest neighbors, has a fleet in the Persian Gulf, and has a zionist regime in israel that is continually expanding it’s territory for “settlers.”
If Egypt started bulldozing Israeli homes to make room for “settlers”, that would be wrong wouldn’t it?
Don’t buy into the propaganda, Iran poses no threat to Israel or the US, and Israel and the US pose a much greater threat to Iran.
How would you feel if Iran invaded Canada and Mexico, had a fleet off the pacific coast, and armed Cuba with nuclear weapons. If anyone is being appeased, it is the US.
oops—followed by a shit load of direct aid to the society thereafter. Gotta demonstrate the good will by paying money afterall. All good people and religions too recognize the sincerity of money.
Oh for the love of god… no more bombing.
Wouldn’t it be a lot cheaper for America to get people to stop hating us so much?
I think our government secretly wants countries like Iran, to make their own nuclear weapons. It’s the poison pill, of many an economy. And probably what help bring down the Russians. They couldn’t keep up with the Reagan military spending spree. It saddled the US with trillions more in debt. But it worked.
All countries should be given the opportunity to build a nuclear arsenal. And freely allowing them to, will cause them NOT to hid their weapons facilities. And if everyone knew where everyone else’s facilities were, instead of them being a state secret. Guess what. They’d have to spend much more protecting those places from each other’s sabotage. That they’d probably run out of money, before they built many bombs.
So I say yeah! Let any country, dumb enough to want to make nukes, try it. And see how long it is before its population tells its government or regime, to screw itself. And get back to feeding and educating everyone. And not worry about having the biggest nuclear toy on the block.
I’ve got the perfect defense against nuclear bombs. Whenever so country boasts they have them, or might have them. We say “So what?”. “Who care?” “What are ya gonna do with them?” “We don’t care” “You don’t scare us.”
Nukes are just much stronger bombs than conventional ones. But they still do basically the same thing. Mostly they’re a fear weapon. And even if one or two get set off. It’s mainly fear, that more will follow. If we don’t fear them, then nations will probably think twice about investing in them. Especially, if we don’t promise them any more foreign aid for having joined the nuclear club. Because if they can afford to make themselves nukes. Why the hell are we sending them money for food and medicine?! That goes for Israel too. And it’s not like Iran’s got anything, nobody else does.
Just say, “Build your nukes, we don’t care. Meanwhile we’re gonna cut you off. Because obviously you don’t want to be friendly.” The only thing we really need to police better, are all these straw buyers for sanctioned goods and munitions. The gov. generally knows who these creeps are. But doesn’t seem to do much about them. And it’s far easier to “take out” illegal arms dealers, than entire countries’ arsenals.
Who is “we”? The only “we” I am part of is the “we” that has money extorted from them to pay for war.
Why single out Iran? Lot’s of countries that aren’t friendly with the US have nukes. Are you gonna go for all of them? It’s like the rest of this war on terror crap. You want to get the terrorist training camps there are a lot of them in Africa, why concentrate on the middle east? Obviously terrorism is a justification for dominating an area of ‘strategic interest’. Capitalistic imperialism.
I can’t believe this, we’re all Fanatics here and the “no” is winning! Come on you wusses, vote yes and lets get this over with. You don’t want a 3rd US war going on do you? Vote yes, end it NOW and everyone, living of course, will be happy.
$47
The “we” is a term used by chicken turds like DU staff and other media that mouth-off more than any services they can and/or have done for the nation.
Famous quotes such as”…ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country…” is complete and utter BS when surrounded at internet sites like DU. 🙂 All talk, no action hahhahaha lmao
#52 I would define “we” pretty broadly, even including people who profess ideas I deeply disagree with. My impression was that Americans were identified as being people who self-identify with America. Possibly your exclusionary attitude has something to do with the change in the international perception of America(ns). If your definition of Americans is “those who shoot at brown people” you’d find a lot of agreement in that view. I suspect you wouldn’t like many of the people who agree with you though.
#50 I don’t think the US is the head of a capitalist imperialism, if anything it is the servant. There is a powerful school of thought that governments are giving way to transnational organizations, business or otherwise. The eroding of state power, or at least prerogatives, is unarguably taking place.
There are now places governed by religion. Most places governed by nation-states. And lastly there are enclaves controlled by, as Tom Friedman would say: the “electronic herd.” In those last places dark-networks of money co-mingle. Odd how both the tax avoiding money of multi-nationals and the terrorist destined diaspora contributions often travel in the same paths.
It’s really hard to shoehorn all of that into the traditional domestic political rhetoric. Ignoring it means you are missing the basic story of this age.
“There’s something happening here
What it is ain’t exactly clear
There’s a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it’s time we stop, children, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down.”
ALL Iran’s nuclear facilities, and auxiliary components, should be destroyed immediately, by whatever country can do so the quickest.