(repeat of part of prior comment):
Yes, Bush is mediocre on communicating. But he's going to invade Iran after he gets elected, or else he'll issue an ultimatum for verifiable inspections, led by the US, and in that ultimatum Iran will believe Bush will actually invade. UN or no UN. Bush getting re-elected is the best hope for Iran NOT getting invaded AND not getting nukes. Iran will NOT believe Kerry. I mean, if I don't believe he'll invade, why should they?

This obvious issue of Kerry's believability, by the terrorists/ dictators, should be a much bigger issue.

The "global test" that Kerry was talking about is a successful terrorist nuke attack (Tel Aviv, Miami, Moscow) -- after THAT test result, when it's too late, the world will accept US action.

--
Please consider asking your blog readers the following question:
What is the probability that Iran will have a nuclear bomb in the next four years:
If Kerry is elected?
If Bush is elected?

For me, it was 40%/10%, but now I have to say it is worse, with Kerry.

Kerry 50%; Bush 10%.

See http://tomgrey.motime.com/1096664156#349530

[It would be nice to be on YOUR blogroll -- you've been on mine for a year, and I've even commmented here a bit. Of course, where? Liberty, Other Meam -- how about a new Other Players or Draft Prospects (to be scouted)?]

The international policy on Nuclear material control is not clear. The countries raise the matter when it is expedient for them and look the other way when convinient. South korea having Nuclear material or Pakistani scientist's being instrumental in nuclear proliferation are all the result of the lack of commitment on part of nations to stop the spread of such weapons. A major part of the blame would fall to the US as the sole superpower and super manipulator on the world stage. The change of presidents is hardly likely to change the state of affairs in the short term.

Actually, kautilya, the matter is clear. Carter unilaterally abrogated the NNPT in 1977, proclaiming that a U.S. refusal to re-process "spent" fuel rods from foreign countries would eliminate their ability to produce nuclear weapons. He appears to have been wrong about that, too.

Can you find a better source than WorldNet Daily?

I've learned my lesson about the reliability of exiles. On the other hand there is no doubt in my mind that Iran is pushing to develop their bomb at top speed. That bomb will istantly make Iran the premiere Islamic power in the world, provide them total protection from American reprisal to their terrorism, and allow them to churn out as many nukes as they desire going forward. We have to stop them before they develop, everything becomes infanitly more complicated and dangerous afterwords, which is something the Euros either dont understand or dont care.

Tom Grey "Liberty Dad:" With what army will Bush invade Iran? The Afghan or the Iraqi or the Georgian?

This editorial cartoon sums up our position vis a vis Iran.

The delusion and ignorance of some people around here is more frightening than their statements. Unfortunately, the Bushites have also already been proved to be deluded.

Whats dellusional is the concept that we would have to invade Iran to end their nuclear program. An afternoon of Tomahawk missiles would take care of that.

Mark, the idea that one afternoon of Tomahawks is sure to take care of Iran's nuclear program is also delusional.

Are you sure that all sites have been identified? Iran is huge. How many sites are hardened, underground, in city basements or underground facilities?

klaatu -

Assuming (which I don't) that it was necessary to invade Iran, would we be better off with more troops undeployed and available - but Iraq still under Hussein's control? That's a serious question; I can see arguments going both ways.

A.L.

Mark, the idea that one afternoon of Tomahawks is sure to take care of Iran's nuclear program is also delusional.

Are you sure that all sites have been identified? Iran is huge. How many sites are hardened, underground, in city basements or underground facilities?

The other overlooked consequence is how an air and missile strike on Iran would affect the Iraq mission.

Do you think that the Iranians would say "OK, you bombed our nuke facilities, our bad?"

Believe me, they could raise so much havoc in Iraq that we would not be able to stay there.

Once again, this cartoon sums it up.

I posted the following comment over at the command-post.org on a similar subject.

Please see my novel way of getting the Iranian story to the American people:

Ron Wright

*****

FLASH - IRAN AT THE TIPPING POINT! [?]

From: Ron Wright
TO: Informed Source
CC:

Date: Sat Oct 02, 2004 02:08:39 PM PDT
Subject: FLASH - IRAN AT THE TIPPING POINT! [?]

See following post by Jonah Goldberg, NRO editor-at-large on the Free Iran site:

Here

Perhaps this is the beginning. We can only hope.

See my post on The Command Post:

Here
(The sixth comment under the original post)

Also here's my previous piece of the great impact the Net and the Blogosphere can do in support of the Free Iran Movement. Please remember the Mad Mullahs of Iran will soon have nuclear capability and recently hanged a 16 year-old girl because they believe they have a "Divine" right to do so!

Here

Ron Wright, Moderator
HSPIG Forums Site
www.hspig.org

DISCLAIMER - This is not the position of my employer and/or any organizations I'm affiliated

"Mark, the idea that one afternoon of Tomahawks is sure to take care of Iran's nuclear program is also delusional. "

'Sure to', what does that mean? Degrading Irans nuclear infastructure isnt like targetting an individual. Yes there are a variety of targets, and any that we find and kill is a setback to Iran. I dont doubt that we wouldnt find them all, but we would find many and each one we did would cost them time and money. Not all of the sites are secret, nor are they small.
There are also other options short of invasion. If we had to, we could simply blackmail the regime by turning the lights out in Tehran every day until they gave up. We could close their ports. We could destroy their transportation infastructure. We could return a favor and smuggle tons of weapons to the resistance movement.
As far as Iran's response, who has more to lose? What can Iran do to our Iraq efforts that they havent done already, and if they decided to invade Iraq I cant think of a much better way to galvanize the Iraqi people to unity. Do you really think Iran wants to get physical with us when we can utterly devastate their economy through airpower alone? Think of the Serbia model and how easilly we can shut down an entire country indefinately. Iran is not going to risk having their nation economically devastated by tangling with us, and if they do so much the better, it would be the perfect conditions for an overthrow.

klaatu, you might be interested in my post Courting disaster. It includes a map of Iran's known nuclear sites, populations, some observations.

Whether attacking Iran's nuclear sites would eliminate their nuclear weapons development activities or not it would certainly retard those activities. But it would also produce an almost unimaginable level of carnage. And such an attack is not entirely within the U. S.'s ability to control. But it is completely within the Iranians ability to control.

Believe me, they could raise so much havoc in Iraq that we would not be able to stay there.

I don't think anybody really has any idea of what the results would be. Something depends on how much support the insurgency has actually been getting from Iran.

klaatu - cute cartoon. But why do you think it "sums up our position vis a vis Iran"?? It surely has the Iraq situation incorrectly portrayed. I would think that an Israeli-style attack would be quite suitable: send small missles where the head mullahs are. We should be able to do that as well as Israel does their Hamas killers.

Dave, I fail to understand how a targetted strike by bunker buster conventional missiles would cause thousands of casualties. Certainly we bombed hundreds of cites in Baghdad with thousands of missiles and didnt see anywhere near the level of carnage you are supposing. Is there an element Im missing?

Mark, quite a few of the nuclear sites are located in major population centers. The level of damage that would have to caused by a bunker buster is substantial. Now consider the damage caused by the earthquake in Bam late last year and compare it with the slightly greater earthquake in Northridge. Low building standards, unenforced building standards, poor emergency services.

Can we assume that a non-nuclear bunker buster would be sufficient to do enough damage to the nuclear sites that it would do the job? I'm assuming nuclear.

"Now consider the damage caused by the earthquake in Bam late last year and compare it with the slightly greater earthquake in Northridge"

I dont understand how earthquakes are remotely analagous. An explosion by its nature is in a confined space, an earthquake by its nature directly affects a huge peice of real estate. The train explosion in North Korea (described as 'massive') killed 154 people and that was in the middle of a rail station.

I also dont get the assumption that it would be a nuclear strike? Why is everyone trying to complicate this? We have conventional weapons like this: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/gbu-28.htm
capable of penatrated more than 20 feet of concrete and 100 feet of earth. What could ten of them do? The fact that they penetrate into the earth will limit casualties in surrounding areas.
Remember, this is in fact easier than trying to kill Hussein in his hardened bunkers. Even a partial hit will wreck the facility, we dont need to squash every peice of equipment down to dust. Burning up records, smashing computers, killing or wounding scientists, throwing off sensitive equipment, those are the results of even a 'failed' strike and will set back the program.

"Now consider the damage caused by the earthquake in Bam late last year and compare it with the slightly greater earthquake in Northridge"

I dont understand how earthquakes are remotely analagous. An explosion by its nature is in a confined space, an earthquake by its nature directly affects a huge peice of real estate. The train explosion in North Korea (described as 'massive') killed 154 people and that was in the middle of a rail station.

I also dont get the assumption that it would be a nuclear strike? Why is everyone trying to complicate this? We have conventional weapons like this: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/gbu-28.htm
capable of penatrated more than 20 feet of concrete and 100 feet of earth. What could ten of them do? The fact that they penetrate into the earth will limit casualties in surrounding areas.
Remember, this is in fact easier than trying to kill Hussein in his hardened bunkers. Even a partial hit will wreck the facility, we dont need to squash every peice of equipment down to dust. Burning up records, smashing computers, killing or wounding scientists, throwing off sensitive equipment, those are the results of even a 'failed' strike and will set back the program. Lets not reinvent the wheel here. We are really good at blowing stuff up without damaging the surroundings.

"Now consider the damage caused by the earthquake in Bam late last year and compare it with the slightly greater earthquake in Northridge"

I dont understand how earthquakes are remotely analagous. An explosion by its nature is in a confined space, an earthquake by its nature directly affects a huge peice of real estate. The train explosion in North Korea (described as 'massive') killed 154 people and that was in the middle of a rail station.

I also dont get the assumption that it would be a nuclear strike? Why is everyone trying to complicate this? We have conventional weapons like this: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/gbu-28.htm
capable of penatrated more than 20 feet of concrete and 100 feet of earth. What could ten of them do? The fact that they penetrate into the earth will limit casualties in surrounding areas.
Remember, this is in fact easier than trying to kill Hussein in his hardened bunkers. Even a partial hit will wreck the facility, we dont need to squash every peice of equipment down to dust. Burning up records, smashing computers, killing or wounding scientists, throwing off sensitive equipment, those are the results of even a 'failed' strike and will set back the program. Lets not reinvent the wheel here. We are really good at blowing stuff up without damaging the surroundings.

Sorry for the multi-posts.

Once again, this cartoon sums it up.

Riiight. Because trying to invade Iran would be much easier if we tried to do it from the Gulf and Afghanistan.

To be honest, I suspect that if Iran wanted to retaliate, it could simply prevent any oil getting out of the region with a combination of missiles, terrorist support, etc. Keep it up for 3-4 years. Any idea what $200/barrel oil prices would do to the Western economies?

Any idea how many governments would be willing to take the heat for it? Bush was willing and able to attack because he had persuaded himself and the people that it would be easy. Nobody is going to make that mistake again...

Prepare for a nuclear Iran.

Mark, there's a lot of nit-picking I could do about the GBU-28. For example, I doubt that we have the assets in place to do laser guidance on all of Iran's nuclear targets. But targeting is largely beside the point. I haven't been able to identify any reports on the effects of these munitions on adjacent structures. The issue is not just what target it actually strikes but what it does to the area.

Do you have access to any such reports?

It's my understanding that we have about 300 of the warheads necessary for the fabrication of the GBU-28 in inventory. Will that be enough to take out all of the sites? Some of them are pretty extensive.

"It's my understanding that we have about 300 of the warheads necessary for the fabrication of the GBU-28 in inventory. Will that be enough to take out all of the sites? Some of them are pretty extensive"

Couldnt tell ya, but again, you are assuming this is a decapitation strike, it's not. We dont have to similtaneously and utterly destroy every target. We hit the ones we can knowing that we are setting the enemy back with each strike. Even the very deeply buried facilities can have their entrances destroyed, and when they try to dig out you do it again. And again. This is an attrition attack, not a permanent solution. Not ideal but worlds better than letting Iran proceed unimpeded. Ideally a surprise attack would kill a number of skilled scientists and engineers, and Iran cant replace those so easily.

Tom West - "if Iran wanted to retaliate, it could simply prevent any oil getting out of the region with a combination of missiles, terrorist support" a good point which is, I hope not lost on Washington. That means that any strike against Iran will have to be against the leaders first. That is a bridge which many countries' leaders would be loath to cross.....

"if Iran wanted to retaliate, it could simply prevent any oil getting out of the region with a combination of missiles, terrorist support"

Who's more likely to survive that kind of war, Iran or us? How long can the Iranian regime survive without oil exports, even assuming they can influence oil shipments in the region to any significant degree?

"... a U.S. official said, according to Geostrategy-Direct, the global intelligence news service."

I'm very familiar with this source and don't find them trustworthy -- their reports are way too often unsubstantiated ("an official said" blah blah; what official? whenever I want to make something up, I'll say it's from an anonymous official...) and consistently slanted politically, sometimes preposterously so; their Latin-America analyst, for example, is something else, he's worth watching for a while just to get a taste.

Otherwise an interesting discussion.

One of the assumptions in this thread is that a nuclear Iran is a bad thing. Well, perhaps, or perhaps not. Was the USSR or PRC or India going nuclear a bad thing? The historical record is mixed in these cases as none of these countries have used these weapons, or even substantively threatened to do so asides from the Cuban missile crisis.

There is however a considerable body of literature which cites how a nuclear capability actually reinforces totalitarian trends in nuclear powers due to the need for system reliability and control. Again, would this be a bad thing for Iran? For the world? Again, the answer is mixed, possibly being weighted negatively concerning Iranian internal politics which don't need any more centralizing than they have now.

Finally, given a nuclear Iran, what is the targeting and delivery tactics they will use? Now here is the real issue. If they are to proliferate small warheads to terrorist groups with suitable delivery systems, that would be a serious issue which the world would have to contend. But technically how that would practically be done isn't at all clear, so we are still talking about hypotheticals here. So we are left with the obvious outlines of the current Iranian warhead and missile development programs we now see, and that might produce a Pakistan sized threat in the next decade.

At this point, spending $10-15bil on theatre missile defense might be more effective than ten times that on invading the country.

"One of the assumptions in this thread is that a nuclear Iran is a bad thing. Well, perhaps, or perhaps not. Was the USSR or PRC or India going nuclear a bad thing? "

BIG difference. Iran is an Islamic theocracy. We arent dealing with garden variety fascists, we are dealing with religious zealots. In a sense a secular enemy like the Soviets is much more predicatable, they want to live. How can you apply that logic to an enemy who believes in jihad and suicide? It would be entirely irrational for Iran to use or disperse nukes? True, but irrelevant. Our enemy isnt rational by our standards.

Secondly, and more pressing, using nukes is the least of their utility. A nuclear armed Iran is an Iran with a trump card allowing them to do basically whatever they wish in the world without fear of military reprisal. They can churn out an infinate amount of nukes and do what the wish with them. They can harbor and train terrorists to their hearts content. Are we going to bomb a terrorist base when Iran fields 20 nuclear missiles capable of striking Rome or Athens? History tells us that a nuclear armed nation is sacrosanct. Why do you think Iran wants them so badly? If you think Iran has been beligerant and pushed the line with us to date, imagine what they will do with nuclear insurance.

It is beyond dangerous, it is deadly to go along thinking that just because no terrible accident, misunderstanding, or miscalculation has happened between nuclear armed nations to date that it wont happen in the future. Particularly when we are talking about nutcase religious fanatics.

How long can the Iranian regime survive without oil exports

Well, given that it would follow an attack upon their soil, I don't imagine that a combination of "us against them" along with a healthy dose of killing the dissenters wouldn't keep the population in line for a lot longer than those who authorized the attack would keep their seats.

After Iraq, no politician is going to risk the costs of an attack for a good that few of the electorate either understand or believe.

"After Iraq, no politician is going to risk the costs of an attack for a good that few of the electorate either understand or believe."

Totally disagree. If, at some point, we come to the end of the rope with Iran and decide to bomb their facilities, I dont doubt the majority of the country will be on board. This isnt some he-said she-said intelligence debate, Iran is being blatant about whats going on. If the response was escalation I also dont doubt the American people would support a bombing campaign on the Mullahs and their support. I dont think invasion needs to be on the table at all. Tom, a nuclear armed Iran may not scare you, but im betting it scares a lot of Americans, and rightly so. It scares the willies out of me.

Sometimes it occurs to me this election's outcome is a crapshoot in terms of foreign policy results. I have to admit that I don't think I'd mind if Europe even pretended to get along with the US, under Kerry. It would buy some political capital within the West. Yes, I know that those alliances are skin deep; I know about Oil-for-Food scandals; I know about EU socialist designs on filling-in the Soviet vacuum to counterbalance the US.

Bush invading Iraq was a crapshoot. Iran's response will be as well. It could be that the mullahs are taking the US seriously for the first time since they came to power, because 'Crazy Bush' did what he said he'd do and invade Iraq; they might understand the consequences of their actions as a result.

I could also be that the Iranian regime is on double red-alert mode, being surrounded by Americans. The rush couldn't be greater for a nuke as a result of realpolitik's demise. Who knows what mad mullahs think.

I do know if Kerry is the next president I am going to hope like hell that his ideas have merit. I have serious, nagging doubts. But if all this country is capable of from now on are narrow elections resulting in 50% of the citizenry opprobriously tearing down the president for four years---back and forth, left then right---then we're doomed.

Anyone who voted for W in '00 thought the troops were coming home from Kosovo, and that we were going to get smaller government. 9/11 transformed Bush and politics. Now convervatives masquerade as liberals and visa versa. Bush had no strategy to unearth the AQ Khan network when invading Iraq, anymore than a farmer ploughing his soil plans to find lost gold coins; God knows what delicious morels will be unearthed with Kerry at the till.

If I sound fatalistic, I damn sure have become that way. Like I have said before, my faith that our political system can deliver us from the threats before us is rapidly diminishing.

Thats a damn good analysis I have to admit. I hope god continues to favor fools, drunks, and America.

Tom, a nuclear armed Iran may not scare you, but im betting it scares a lot of Americans, and rightly so. It scares the willies out of me.

No, it scares me to death. That's why I am so mad that (in my opinion) Bush started an unnecessary war in Iraq that will make it almost impossible to face real threats in Iran and North Korea. (In fact, without the war in Iraq, I don't think Iran would be attempting to nuclearize.)

While you seem to think there'd be political support for the action from a wide variety of Americans, I think (and the politicians will anticipate) that the support will drain away if Iran retaliates by attacking all oil supplies. Anyone for gasoline rationing for the next 5-6 years? $150 per barrel prices?

And as for he says/she says... Come on, are you saying the government wasn't absolutely certain beyond a shadow of a doubt about the threat that Saddam posed with his WMD? They can't say that now we mean it...

"That's why I am so mad that (in my opinion) Bush started an unnecessary war in Iraq that will make it almost impossible to face real threats in Iran and North Korea."

Possibly. Or possibly Iran will take our threats seriously instead of expecting a decade and 14 UN resolutions worth of leeway.

"I think (and the politicians will anticipate) that the support will drain away if Iran retaliates by attacking all oil supplies. "

I dont think so. I have more regard for Americans than that. Are Americans really so shallow that theyd allow a rabid dog like Iran to have nukes rather than risk paying an extra buck a gallon? And again, that is worst case. I think its unlikely Iran would retaliate in that way as it would doom them while only inconveniencing us. As I said, its impossible to predict what the irrational will do, but I doubt they will see that as their best opportunity. More likely they will try to save face and start over (hoping for the next John Kerry to turn up and win?)

"Come on, are you saying the government wasn't absolutely certain beyond a shadow of a doubt about the threat that Saddam posed with his WMD? They can't say that now we mean it..."

True. But anyone that entertains the notion that Iran is developing peaceful energy is so unserious and/or naive that their opinion can be safely discounted at face value. We know Iran is developing centerfuges, they admit that. This isnt a yellowcake debate of what if.

Mark B.- I'll not argue over the Indians, but the USSR was pretty scary in its day, especially under Khruschev. Remember shoe banging at the UN? If not see the shoe sitting in front of the USSR nameplate and the worried looks on the Spaniards faces.

I'll admit things quieted down under Brezhnev, but most of the US build up to the Cold War was in response to Khruschev's "We'll bury you" lines.

What scared the US about the PRC is our experience in Korea added to the PRC getting nukes. If you added up the lack of interest in their own casualties to a way of inflicting massive casualties on an enemy, that meant that not getting involved in Asiastic land wars was probably a good idea.

In all, I just don't see how Iran today is qualitatively that much different than how we historically felt about those other countries back then. Notably, back then we didn't have any real offensive response capacity either when it came to conventional forces, so we devised the doctrine of containment combined with technological superiority.

Apply this historical similarity to the Iranian case and you might be able to convince me that the correct US policy is in fact intervention on the ground in Iran. I'm actually open in my opinion there. But merely calling them crazy fanatics isn't sufficient. Notably, if we were Israelis, the documented Iranian support of client militias to strike at Israel would have made your point. But that is not the case for the US, nor even concerning US troop dispositions in the Mideast, despite rumors of Iranian complicity with al-Sadr and the Khobar bombings.

"he's going to invade Iran after he gets elected"

If he doesn't get re-elected he's going to invade Iran decisively before he leaves office.

"In all, I just don't see how Iran today is qualitatively that much different than how we historically felt about those other countries back then. "

Then, forgive me, you are willfully closing your eyes. Were Communists taking over schools and slaughtering hundreds of children? Were communists strapping bomb belts to their bodies and walking into cafes? Where communists blowing up car bombs next to children running to get candy?
Iran has been the number one driving force for Islamic fundamentalism since the revolution. Listen to what the Mullahs say and have said, it is little different from what AQ says, if any. These people are not driven by a logical if misguided idiology, they are driven by a fundamentalist religion, and one where self preservation is not a tenant. Would the Mullahs sacrifice Tehran if they could destroy Israel? I dont know and I dont think anyone can claim they do. I dont think anyone believe the Soviets were going to sacrifice Moscow for London. How can you have MAD if one side isnt faced by self immolation? You really dont see the difference?

TR---You said:_In all, I just don't see how Iran today is qualitatively that much different than how we historically felt about those other countries back then._

The difference is Iran's support for Islamic terrorist organizations like Hamas, which in turn is connected to much of the Islamic terrorist world of lose networks, whose tendrils spread out to uncontrollable, unaccountable, inconceivable places across the world.

For the most part, we could count on the Soviet Union not proliferating their own nukes to underground networks out of their control. The Soviets were never going to give Che Guevara a nuke to sneak into a foreign city. They tried it on a more sovereign model with Castro after he came to power---and even then the deal was that it was a Soviet base on Cuba, not a handover of nukes to the Cuban underground.

The Cold War was a Klauswitzian game with basic rules accepted by both sides. It is in the interest of no sovereign nation for an extranational agent to possess WMDs. That's the irony, because even Iran, such as it is, is a sovereign nation.

Soviets are not Islamofascists. In fact, they fought each other in Afghansistan, as the Russians are doing today in Chechnya. The world order during the Cold War was threatened mainly in the event of a massive nuclear exchange, with its attendant high threshold. Our war has a low threshold; one or two well-placed anonymous nukes could bring down the entire Western world as we know it. Where that kind of disruption was in nobody's interest during the Cold War, it is in the interest of a radicalized, utopian religious suicide cult with a fetish for 70 virgins in heaven. When the goal moves from control (US vs. USSR) to distruption (West vs. Islamonuts),equilibrium is displaced between adversaries. The fewer Irans that proffer nukes to the highest bidder, the better. With all the caveats.

Sidebar: when did we become so complacent about nuclear weapons in general? I remember going to sleep as a kid terrified that the bombs would start dropping. We dodged a bullet in the Cold War so we assume the gun is shooting blanks?

Mark Beuhner

We should be scared more than ever because a nuclear attack is more likely now than it ever was in the Cold War. The horror of a massive exchange made for some very peaceful years.

The difference is, I think, that nuclear war no longer means the end of the world, and nuclear winter. The attacks will be rogue, and limited---no massive exchange like was promised in the good old days of MAD.

Silly, in a way, because although the chances of you or I being nuked are higher, the threat to all of mankind is less, so we take comfort in that subconsciously. But dead is dead, whether my family and I die in a single nuclear attack or as part of a massive exchange.

Mark and Marcus- I might as well respond to both of you at the same time, as I do or don't concur with your posts for almost identical reasons. I think you ask some excellent questions, but you are looking at the period 1948-1992 through exclusively Cold War filters. Both of you ask if Communists committed a series of atrocities which characterize current Islamic fanatics. Well, yes they did, and if you wanted a litany of such atrocities I could give them to you. Let me just cite the Vietnamese War and the Soviet Occupation of Afghanistan as two examples of children being slaughtered as a means to a military end. The fact that the Afghan situation could go on for as long as it did was precisely because of the nuclear equilibrium.

Which brings up an interesting point: what was the nature of that nuclear equilibrium? Consider the possibility that it was not MADD but rather an appreciation that each side's nuclear strengths might be countered by responses considerably less than a total second strike annihilating attack. MADD was good press in convincing the publics that trillions of dollars invested into nuclear inventories were wise. But consider the PRC case, which invested far less for the same result, as US or Russian nuclear threats could be answered adequately using a very limited asset base. The question then becomes for the present, what response is appropriate or possible to contain nuclear threats from Iran, or for that matter from North Korea?

NK's genie is out of the bottle. We are badly limited in our response to them. Were we to strike at their facilities their conventional artillery alone is enough to ravage Seoul. Were they to get a nuke off San Francisco could be destroyed. We missed our window, and missed it badly.

As far as Iran goes, I would be willing to use any means short of invasion to stop them. With or without allies. Bush made a good start by stating clearly he would not allow Iran to develop nukes, period. Allowing the diplomacy to continue to humiliate itself until post election is fine. After that I think a simple deadline with 'serious consequences' is in order, with air strikes to follow. The world will thank us someday just as they would thank Israel for defanging Hussein if they could crack their teeth to compliment Israel for anything.

There is another thing we can do to make our credibility known. We should declare that if a nuclear weapon is ever detonated on ourselves or an ally and we cant immediately trace the source, we will hold every rouge nuclear regime directly accountable. Our response will be the total annyhilation of NK and Iran, no discussion, no delay, no investigation. If they want off that list they will disarm under whatever inspectors we decide on. If not, they are at the mercy of whichever nuclear regime is the least stable.

Mark- To clarify something, I believe that diplomacy will get us nowhere with these two regimes, unless it is diplomacy with dissident groups in those countries. But my reason for this is the same reason why I don't think MADD would work with them: as you've cited before their matrix of motivations is so deviant that no logical treaty or agreement can ever be signed with them. So we are left with three advantages:
a. the ability to project force into their countries, which you note in your last quote, even if that means that we can't occupy them
b. superior technology of almost all types.
c. forward strategic basing so that we have troops next to them, but not visa versa.

The combination of these advantages can be combined so that the use of nuclear warheads will be impractical against US territory. Concerning their possible use against our allies in the Mideast, Korea, Japan, or even Europe, I would not be so complacent if I were an Israeli, Korean, Japanese, or EUnick. But as an American, we still have some 'distance' from the problem, in the conventional tactical sense. But this simply shifts our interest to eliminating Iranian or NK sympathizing terrorists before they can do what their masters might wish on us.

Agreed, we dont seem too far apart in the end. Im just very worried about the Iran clock. Just as with NK, once the genie is out of the bottle things become way more difficult and dangerous.

Agree there too, my point was that there might (hopefully) be some intermediate positions between the do-nothing and Dr Strangelove extremes. And I do hope so, as I think that nuclear proliferation has been a technological fact of life ever since the PRC was guided into the nuclear age by the USSR in the 50's and early 60's. So as we have to deal with Iran and NK, we'll probably also have to deal with a few other tinpot dictators and lunatic fanatics that have foreign policy axes to grind.

Too bad they can't get the jollies by torturing their own followers, like their daddies used to...

Mark - "we will hold every rouge nuclear regime directly accountable"
you might want to add any nation which helped those rogue regimes as well, unless you have a problem nuking Beijing, Islamabad, Riadh, Moscow, Paris and Berlin.....