It's time to act as though Iran has a nuclear weapons capablity. Being mad now is useless. Get over it and go on to the next way of dealing with it. There are too many objective reasons why Iran would want a nuclear weapon starting with national defense and the history of the USA interferring in its internal affairs. I've argued elsewhere that we currently do not have the economy, troops and support to OCCUPY Iran after a successful military operation to which there is considerable downside should Iran use nukes to defend itself.

My suggestion is a complete reversal of current policy and in effect do a Nixon, i.e. recognize the government without preconditions and trade with Iran. They are in bad shape internally and dollars and prosperity work well in changing attitudes. Even if the trade does not include our companies and their multinational arms we will have a nose under the tent with a better likely hood of not provoking an extreme nationalist rally to the flag.

As you might imagine, I disagree with Robert M.

Iran (unlike, say, Pakistan) has no valid national security reasson for procuring nukes, and indeed will substantially endanger Iranians in unique new ways by doing so. Frankly, Robert's argument sounds perilously close to the lunatic "but they have a right to procure nuclear weapons" that I've heard from some on the left. Nukes in the hands of people who have and encourage a suicide bomber mentality are not something one can deal with the way one deals with, say, China. China was cohesive, rational, and deterrable. Iran's record calls all 3 into serious question.

Among other issues that arise.

Bluntly, this recommendation strikes me as incoherent:

My suggestion is a complete reversal of current policy and in effect do a Nixon, i.e. recognize the government without preconditions and trade with Iran.

Well, surrender is always an option. And what effects do you imagine this signal will send elsewhere? And what results do you expect re: secondary proliferation? Etc.

They are in bad shape internally and dollars and prosperity work well in changing attitudes.

Haven't seen the lucrative EU trade deals doing any good here.

What the Cold War amd North Korea have taught us is that these sorts of moves simply supply the system with the life support it needs. What actually happens is governments and officials pocket the monies, and use them to buy off lackeys to strengthen their oppressive system. Iran's dissidents understand this well, and that's why they condemn the EU's "blood for oil" approach.

Attitudes in Iran aren't a huge problem, there's already a big disconnect. The problem is the system of repression.

Even if the trade does not include our companies and their multinational arms we will have a nose under the tent

Really, exactly how does that work? To do what? And how does that alleviate any of the nuclear scenarios or proliferation concerns?

This strikes me as the purest fantasy.

with a better likely hood of not provoking an extreme nationalist rally to the flag.

Arguing that it's OK for the mullahs of Iran to have nukes, with all that implies, because otherwise we might provoke nationalism...? You know, a nationalist rally should be our biggest problem with Iran. But it's not.

Downside of Roberts proposal:

-Iran will use its new found security guarantee to blackmail the US. Without question. If we think Iran is being brazen about supporting terrorists now, imagine when they wont have military reprisals to fear. You cant launch tomahawks at a nation that can destroy a carrier task force in response. You probably cant even impose a blockaid on them (see NK).

-Nuclear proliferation control will be dead. If Iran and NK develop their bombs without repurcussions, any nation that desires to do so will do so. Moreover it will actually become harder to gain international action, as the same people in the UN (europe) that allowed Iran to get the bomb on their watch will ironically point to Iran saying, 'well, iran has the bomb how can we say anything about Syria'.

-We will live in perpetual fear. We will be at the mercy of whichever Mullah is the least stable. Those who propose that the Mullahs are rationale, deterable opponents better be correct. If they are the religious zealots they appear to be there will be a nuclear detonation on one of our or our allies' cities.

-Suddenly the overthrow of the Iranian regime will be against or interest. Or best interest will be to prop up the dictatorship (which is why the world is always hating us remember?). Should there be instability in Iran, the odds of a nuke slipping away to parties unknown goes up exponentionally. Anyway willing to bet Baltimore on whether a doomed Mullah is willing to hand a nuke to a friendly terrorist? And how do we respond to such an event? By nuking the newly free Iranians? That is the true nighmare scenario, being nuked with no possibility of reprisal.

"Iran (unlike, say, Pakistan) has no valid national security reasson for procuring nukes"

Joe, they're surrounded on all sides by US military force. The US is 2 for 2 in regime changes in the Middle East over the last three and a half years. If you were the mullahs, wouldn't you be getting just a little fuckin' jittery?

It bears repeating: the problem is not the nukes, the problem is VEVAK and the IRGC. These are the guys keeping al-Qaeda under "arrest" (re: pretty much operating freely within certain limits). The question should not be "how do we stop Iran from getting the bomb" because that's just putting your finger in the dyke. I don't think it's ultimately possible to do anything more than slow them down, and it doesn't solve the problem (not to mention that bombing campaigns would piss off the population of Iran which is currently mostly favorable to the US).

Unless you can show how it's feasible to dive in and pull another forced regime change in six months, then your only good option is some form of engagement, mixed with covert (or overt) efforts to catalyze internal regime change.

"Joe, they're surrounded on all sides by US military force."

Once we start with the assumption that Iran has a valid right to the bomb we're done. Criminals have a valid fear of being shot by police, that does not give them the right to machine guns to defend themselves. Rogue states dont gain the right to nuclear weapons by virtue of being so nefarious that they have reason to fear retaliation from the civilized world.
Realistically, yes, the Mullahs desire nukes as an umbrella against American military option. But the reason they require this option is because they do things like support terrorists. Logically, the defense shield will allow them to do more of what causes them to require the shield. That is not a good argument for either allowing them to have the bomb or changing our behavior. If the solution is either to let Iran have the bomb or stop deterring them from supporting terror, we are already beaten.

Fortunately there is are perfectly simple solutions short of invasion: offering the Euros a last chance by going to the SC for sanctions, and then simple precision bombing Iranian nuclear facilities. This is not a temporary solution, it is an indefinite solution, as we can continue bombing on a monthly basis until the stars burn out if necessary. This would require basically no further military assets on our part than are already in place (naval mostly).

"then your only good option is some form of engagement, mixed with covert (or overt) efforts to catalyze internal regime change."

We have established that nuclear weapons are the Mullahs top interest, hence engagement is only useful as a means of allowing Iran to have nukes and living with it. This is not an option. As I have stated, once the nukes are in place, regime change is most definately not in our interest as the danger of the nukes falling into the wrong hands is palpable. And then who do we retaliate against?

Mark,

Iran is in a rough neighborhood with lots of incentives for having nukes. It's our job to reduce the incentives and increase the disincentives.

We're not done by admitting this. Iranian nukes, while Iran is run by the mullahs, are a direct and immediate threat to American security at home. Iranian nukes absent the mullahs would be a lesser, though still serious, threat. I.e., it's the mullah regime which is the real problem.

If we can't admit this and act on it, we deserve what will happen to us. There is a price for irresponsibility.

Keep in mind that we can reduce large areas of southern Asia and northern Africa to subsisdence level economies and population levels. We don't have cause to do so yet. We will once we've been nuked.

No single country or group of countries can inflict similar damage on us.

I won't like living in this world, and fear for my children, but it will come if we do nothing.

"Iran is in a rough neighborhood with lots of incentives for having nukes. It's our job to reduce the incentives and increase the disincentives."

True. But unfortunately Iran itself is what makes the neighborhood rough at the moment. What external threat is there to Iran besides the US? And again, the reason the US is a threat to Iran is because Iran is a menace to civilized society. So how do we reduce the amount Iran feels threatened? By not opposing Iranian goals, which happen to be hegmony of the region, removal of the United States as a political, cultural, and military power, and the destruction of our allies. In other words, surrender. The incentives we can offer Iran is to not crush them if they play ball. Otherwise we are appeasing them. It would be wise not to forget the Mullahs are our ideological enemies in every way. One might note they didnt begin their nuke program the day we invaded Iraq or even Afghanistan. Their nukes are a spear as much as a shield.

Mark,

Saddam Hussein invaded Iran and used chemical weapons when they tried to remove him from power. That is a mighty good incentive to develop nukes. Pakistan is dominated by Sunnis of whom the Saudi-funded Wahabbi & Salafist factions feel Iran's Shiia majority should be exterminated at the earliest possible opportunity. And Pakistan has nukes.

An Iranian leader would have to be insane NOT to want nukes for his country.

The major incentive we can offer Iran not to have nukes is our protection from local nutballs like Saddam, i.e., we should be the "sovereign" as explained by Lee Harris here

"7: CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT

Here we have the heart of our historical impasse, and the only way out of it is to cut the Gordian knot. And this is precisely what the current United States administration has elected to do, beginning with its post-9/11 declaration of the Bush doctrine which unapologetically asserts that states sponsoring terrorism are legitimate targets - the first of the basic, and vital, negations of the concept of national self-determination.

This doctrine, however, can be only coherently implemented if the U.S. is prepare to negate the other basic principle of the liberal world order, the refusal to use unilateral force, except in those cases of the "straightforward, conventional unprovoked aggression." And this next logical step was taken by the present administration in its declaration of the policy of the pre-emptive strike.

But this in turn, if it is to be carried through coherently, necessitates yet a final negation of the principle of the right of national self-determination: the U.S. must be willing to discard the Clausewitzian goal of making another nation state merely fulfill its political will. It must in fact be prepared to dismantle and reconstruct the other state, if, like Iraq, its behavior poses a threat to the general international system.

This limited negation of the principle of national self-determination, however, does not mean an abandonment of the liberal world order. On the contrary, it is the only way of saving this order from its own internal contradictions. And let there be no doubt about it. If we permit every honorific state to pursue the acquisition of WMD under the cover of national self-determination, this will spell the end of the liberal world order as we now know it, and will mark a steep descent into a Hobbesian world of nightmarish proportions.

This is the problem: We must preserve what is still viable in the old concept of classical sovereignty, and yet we must not allow the unrestricted principle of national self-determination to permit the destruction of the liberal world order. How do we achieve this goal?

There is only one solution, and that is for the United States to consciously adopt a policy of what might be tentatively called neo-sovereignty.

At the heart of the dialectically emergent concept of neo-sovereignty is precisely the double standard that Mr. Butler denounced - a double standard imposed by the U.S. on the rest of the world, whereby the U.S. can unilaterally decide to act, if need be, to override and even to cancel the existence of any state regime that proposes to develop WMD, especially in those cases where the state regime in question has demonstrated its dangerous lack of a sense of the realistic.

What the critics of this policy fail to see is the simple and obvious fact that if any social order is to achieve stability there must be, at the heart of it, a double standard governing the use of violence and force. There must be one agent who is permitted to use force against other agents who are not permitted to use force. The implementation of the fashionable myth that all violence is equally immoral and reprehensible would inevitably result, in a typical dialectical reversal, in the Hobbesian state of universal war.

Every civilized order, precisely in so far as it is a civilized order, relies on such a double standard. The only alternative to this is the frank and candid acceptance of anarchy, the state in which all recourse to violence is equally legitimate. But what Mr. Butler and others fail to realize is that anarchy with clubs and sticks is a much preferable to anarchy with nuclear weapons.

But if this double standard is necessary to avoid inevitable historical catastrophe, it is equally necessary that this standard be imposed by an agent who has the will and the force to do so. Only the United States that can fill this role. It has the force to do so, and it alone has the ability to act alone. A double standard, by its very nature, cannot be imposed by a multi-lateral body; else it quickly ceases to be a double standard.

But this is one of those areas where the habitual reliance on our old concepts can be dangerous. To invoke antiquated concepts like Empire to describe this new stage in world-history is sheer anachronism. For this overlooks a number of critical distinctions.

"...if any social order is to achieve stability there must be, at the heart of it, a double standard governing the use of violence and force. There must be one agent who is permitted to use force against other agents who are not permitted to use force."

An empire acts to insure its own self-interest. But, in this case, the U.S. is rather acting as an agent for the interests of others at precisely the same time it is acting to insure its own national interests. Indeed, this is what Hegel meant by the cunning of reason. No matter how cynically one might choose to view American motives, what matters, at the world-historical level, is the objective consequence. Interpret America's true motives as cynically as you please - let it be the defense of the interest of big business in the stability of world markets - it makes no difference. What counts in the long run is the kind of world that arises out of this subjective intent. And this is where the enormous difference between the obsolete concept of empire and that of the emergent neo-sovereignty becomes strikingly clear. For in its role as neo-sovereign the United States, in pursuing its selfish policy, is also forced to increase the general level of security throughout the world.

First, by closing the nuclear club to any new members, it acts to secure the monopoly of those states that are already members in good-standing of this club. Hence the U.S. is defending its interests as much as its own.

Second, by closing the nuclear club, it takes away one of the main incentives to enter into this club, namely, the fear that your neighbor will get there before you do. Would India and Pakistan have been worse off if such a double standard had been applied to them? And this fear would become endemic in a world in which every state, no manner how marginal, was developing weapons.

And, third, the principle of neo-sovereignty is strictly limited to a monopoly of violence above a certain threshold, namely, the threshold created by weapons of mass destruction. It will only be viable if the U.S. scrupulously refuses to intervene in the self-determination of any state except for the purposes of maintaining the double standards in respect of nuclear weapons. Indeed, neo-sovereignty is entirely compatible with less, rather than more, U.S. involvement in matters like the internal disputes of the Balkans.

These enormous transformations of the world system must be recognized, both by their defenders and their critics, as genuinely world-historical in the full sense of this term. But the critics, if they are to be responsible, must do more than merely apply outmoded labels to the newly emergent possibilities - they must suggest others that realistically grapple with the impasse the world is facing, and with the consequences of failing to act at this time, when it is still possible to prevent the kind of nightmare scenarios that we have explored. They, too, have the intellectual duty to think the unthinkable."

Tom,
Saddam Hussein is no longer in power. A democratically elected gov under the UN and US eye is in power of a shattered country with no WMD and no power to make war.
Pakistan has Afghanistan with thousands of UN troops in between as well as a mortal enemy on their borders. I might add I could name about a hundred nations with far more dangerous and agressive neighbors that have intentionally and roundly abhored nuclear weapons.

"An Iranian leader would have to be insane NOT to want nukes for his country."

Then why dont the Saudis have them? The Jordanians? The Egyptians? The Kuwaities?
The truth is a democratically elected Iranian government with no desire to dominate the region or advance their idiological borders would have no need for nukes. The United States keeps the peace and isnt going to allow Pakistan or some jumped up Iraqi state to attack a peaceful Iran. Those days are over.
The only reason to desire nuclear weapons is to inocculate oneself from US power. And the only reason for a nation to do that is because they wish to do things against the interests of the united states to such a degree that military force is contemplated.

It is absurd that the most populous nation in the region with the most powerful military fears its broken down, chaotic, backwards, militarilly inept neighbors so much that they need nuclear weapons to defend themselves. Particurly knowing that aquiring such weapons creates a real threat, that of the United States. Again, the only reason to do this is to challenge the US.

Mark,

Trust in the Middle East is for dead people.

Tom,

Never thought I'd see the day you'd be arguing for the mullahs of Iran, and with such thin material, too. What you've essentially done is make the moonbat leftist argument that Iran deserves and has a right to nukes. I think it's just as nutty when made by the Right.

Start with the secondary proliferation fallout, the consequences it will touch off among other Arab states in the region (Belmont Club's 3 Conjectures notes that nuclear weapons also threaten to destroy Islam via intra-Islamic strife) as well as Israel, and the not-entirely stable nature of any Iranian regimes.

This is a bad idea, even without the mullahs' regime.

As for relying on the USA as the sovereign power for security in nuclear situations, I think frankly that any country in the world would be insane to make that reliance. Look at your foreign policy record of abandoning friends over the past 60 years or so. Then look at the guy you almost elected in November. If that's your case, you're effectively in the "Iran has the right to nukes" club.

But the realpolitik logic behind this "necessity" doesn't even hold:

• Saddam has been deposed and will be executed. He's gone.
• Pakistan and Iran are not in tension, ethnic persecution is local, it's all about Pakistan-India there and that's very unlikely to change.
• Given that China is Pakistan's big backer and just signed a huge oil/gas deal with Iran, Iran also has all the protection it needs from Pakistan, whatever happens.
• Russia is not a threat, indeed Russia is a supplier.

So nuclear weapons are not necessary for Iran's security, even from a pure geopolitical power politics perspective. They do set up a zero-margin nuclear situation with Israel, however, thus placing all Iranians in a level of personal peril they have never known before. Bravo.

Which segues into the point that these weapons are infinitely worse in the hands of the current regime, which preaches a murder-suicide complex and inculcates it among its elite forces, has fragmented accountability and control, is the #1 world sponsor of terrorism, and harbours al-Qaeda. Their overt threats of using such weapons don't exactly reassure.

Mark put it perfectly:

"Once we start with the assumption that Iran has a valid right to the bomb we're done. Criminals have a valid fear of being shot by police, that does not give them the right to machine guns to defend themselves. Rogue states don't gain the right to nuclear weapons by virtue of being so nefarious that they have reason to fear retaliation from the civilized world."

Mark's description of the consequences of surrender is also excellent. We cannot afford that price.

Iran may be close to a bomb, or it may not be. I don't have that intel. The question of how to stop its ambitions remains, however. It has never really been addressed by Bush (who got a semi-pass because Kerry's plan was nuts and rejected immediately by Iran), and still hasn't been. I might see the point of silence and lulling moves until Iraqi elections on Jan 30th, followed by swift action, but we're running out of time and excuses.

If Bush fails with respect to the Iranian mullahs and their nukes, he will likely go down in history as a failed/sub-par President even among the Right.

You'd better have something good up your sleeve, W....

Joe,

Criminals don't have a "right" to expect to be shot by the police, any more than the police have a "right" to shoot criminals. The State of California pays me to, among other things, second-guess police officer use of firearms against criminals.

You and Mark both err in ascribing a criminal justice model to this situation. Garbage in - garbage out.

We're talking about power and force in the context of international relations, not domestic relations.

We have the power to limit Iran's development and use of nuclear weapons. Whether we do so is the question. We'll pay an awful price for not doing so. The people of Iran, among many others in that area, will pay a much more horrific price if we don't.

Framing the conversation as "moonbat left" is a just an example of you deciding to reduce the argument to infantilism. The reality to be acted upon is Iran has nuclear weapons. The "right" is not a moral decision. It is a totally logical one called self defense. To call Iran criminal is naive. It doesn't take into account the only country to interfere in its internal affairs is the USA, Mark acknowledged that. Making arguments as to whether it is in Iran's interest is arguing what's best for our country is the same as Iran's. We don't make policy that way. Why would they? The zero -margin peril has been Israel's for a while. Both nation states have policy's hostile to one another.

The issue remains what to do about Iran's nukes. I don't have the intel to determine where all the nuke facilities are and I doubt as a country we do either. Without this total knowledge a strike by naval assets will bring a response and if you through in your martyrdom actors it will be uncontrollable. The success of one nuke is devasting. Play with the scenario's yourselves and pick a number.

As to pooh poohing economic openness by calling it surrender or asking how it has benefitted the EU doesn't answer the question. Pointing out what trade has gotten the EU is a digression as the flip side is what has threatening benefitted our government. The purpose of true open all out trade is to change Iran from the inside. It will strengthen those bent on changing the internal dynamics even if it only comes as a response to corruption.

Let me add another action to open and immediate recognization of Iran. In the State of the Union address the President announces whom we think has nuclear weapons, whom we think might give them to non-state actors and announce they are the target of an immediate nuclear reprisal should a nuclear explosion take place in areas we regard in our interest. This may or may not get the attention of other state actors and their decision to acquire nuclear weapons but it ends the debate about how responsible you have to be if you have them.

Joe you and your colleagues blog regularly discuss how things are getting better for almost everyone in Iraq everyday. Everyday you blog about threats and concerns long term and short from nation states to this country. You then ask how do we deal with them before they reach a certain threshold. It's all point counterpoint, theorectical and real points to come with scenarios of action. Now it's time to fish or cut bait.

So the question remains if you do not want to engage a nuclear armed Iran economically and diplomatically what do you reccommend? Do you agree w/ Bill Roggio and engage in a quiet surrounding of Iran for the purpose of intimidating it into givng up nuclear weapons? If I understand Mark Buehner correctly he says use naval assets to systematically destroy Iranian nuclear assets do you suggest that?

Robert M.,

I advocate forcible overthrow of the mullah regime as a solution to the threat of Iraqi nukes. I even have money on when - no later than next Halloween, which is really a matter of winter weather in the Zagros Mountains.

I also advocate an "Israeli" air attack on Iranian nuclear facilities as a means of delaying Iran's nuclear weapons production until we take them out on the ground.

The major problem is the mullah regime. No solution less than that will do diddly squat.

The alternative is, IMO, certain massive genocide throughout the Middle East within ten years. IMO the Arabs will do that to each other first, but we'll end up helping, and we'll be much more thorough. I'll risk just about anything to avoid that.

It seems that people here are forgetting what Iran wants.

Iran wants the same thing it has since 1979, which is total hegemony over the Gulf and turning most of that region into it's own set of client states. This is nothing new, the Shah wanted it, and the Persian Shahs wanted the same thing in opposition to the Ottoman Empire going back to the Renaissance. Nukes make sense only in this context of a continued Iranian drive for empire (running straight up against the US Navy in the way).

If Iran wanted better relations with the US; they could hand over Al Queda members currently sheltered in Iran, including senior leaders close to Bin Laden. They could stop terrorism activities against the US, and give valuable intelligence on about Taliban activities in Afghanistan (the US did them a favor by getting rid of the Taliban, ironically the Taliban executed a bunch of Iranian diplomats). Heck the Iranians could do many concrete things to achieve security quickly and efficiently wrt the US. None of this would, however, make the US Navy leave the Gulf which is what they really want and why they have not done ANY of the above steps, and pushed their nuke program as fast as possible.

Sadly, I'm pessimistic that a few US cities will be nuked, followed by a demand from some "Revolutionary" organization that the US leave the Gulf immediately or more cities will be destroyed. This is the 79 Embassy Hostage crisis, writ large. It worked for the Iranians then (Carter was impotent) and they probably think it will work again (European impotence with the current agreement seems to reinforce this).

Let's not forget that the current regime has travelled little outside the country, has no experience with the US; and seems to genuinely think that "the Great Satan" is a corrupt house of cards needing only great violence to collapse. Of course a nuking of a US city or two will only invite massive retaliation, Iran as a nation would then pretty much cease to exist. This calculation though, doesn't seem to exist for the Mullahs, who expect simple retreat.

The regime does know from bitter experience that the US Navy controls the Gulf, all their missiles and even nuclear armed ones won't change that, indeed they lost decisively in the 80's. Iranians do however believe that the US is "weak" in that we "love life" while they "love death." Etc. More of the 9/11 pattern; Islamists attack the US at the "soft underbelly" at home seeking to initiate a US retreat, only to find the US even more involved in the Middle East.

>>Iran wants the same thing it has since 1979, which is total hegemony over the Gulf and turning most of that region into it's own set of client states. This is nothing new, the Shah wanted it, and the Persian Shahs wanted the same thing in opposition to the Ottoman Empire going back to the Renaissance.

And now the US wants it. And with a little luck, the US will get it. Will it have been worth it?

If the Iranians succeed in getting regional hegemony, will it have been worth it for them, I wonder?

The basic problem with the Iran situation is the Mullahs' big mouths. I'm not a big fan of Sharon, but any reasonable person in his position can't listen to what the Mullahs have been saying and just sit on their ass. If there's any legitimacy to Sharon's job whatsoever it's keeping Tel Aviv from being nuked. And I'm quite certain that Sharon will use All Means Necessary™ to assure that outcome.

Some of you are obviously unaware that Israel is the world's 3rd greatest nuclear power. If I was in Iran I think I would want some deterrent against this. If you want Iran to stop trying to get the bomb disarm a nuclear Israel, thus removing the need for one. Get real. The two are linked but the US will never do this.

Thanks, Tom H, David T, TJ Madison and Jim R. Mr Katzman?

Eerie Parallel thanks to Jim R. In the 1930's the Imperial Japanese Navy officiers were the ones who had traveled extensively in the West.Few if any of the the Imperial Army had. Yamamoto I believe was the Naval Attache and had traveled extensively in the US.
His quote after Pearl Harbor Paraphrased(?) I am afraid all we have done is awaken a sleeping drag
on and instilled in him a terrible wrath."

Are or is there any comparable figures in Iran who can counsel wisdom? Can this be expected from the scientific community?

The problem for America is that the Iranian Mullahs are not rational actors by Western standards. They cannot be trusted with WMDs of any sort and nuclear weapons in particular.

The problem with Tom Holsinger’s Israeli Strike/American conquest scenario WRT Iran is that the Israelis are not rational actors either. It looks like a strike against the Iranians is too politically problematic for the Israelis given their domestic politics. Far too large a percentage of the Israeli electorate is either Post-Modernist European or Settler/Militant so that a proper evaluation of Israeli national security interests cannot take place.

I publicly predicted that the Israelis would do just what Tom predicted and strike Iran before America’s Presidential elections. It didn’t happen because the Israeli cabinet was more interested in the results of the Gaza withdrawal vote than it was the chance of Israel getting nuked by the Mullahs in the next 12 months. Maintaining domestic power in the very short term was far more important than avoiding an Iranian nuke in the short term.

That’s tough for Israel. Ultimately, Israel is the guardian of its own survival and if they want to commit suicide for domestic reasons America cannot prevent it.

One more thing, in the aftermath of a "Nuke from Allah," the American people would not be content with genocide of "the Terrorist list of usual suspects" in the Middle East.

Every nation in the WMD nuclear proliferation chain will get American "Stand and deliver" ultimatums in their near future. This would not be limited to Pakistan and North Korea -- assuming the latter was still a going concern. France, China and Russia would expect visits from American non-proliferation teams. The last two may be after America deploys space based missile defenses and orbital strike kinetic energy weapons, but it would happen.

A few points:

-We have to seperate the 'moral/legal' aspects of Iranian claims to nukes from the realpolitical aspects. The former are simply a matter for debate and diplomacy, the latter are what really matters. Iran is developing nukes, whether they need or deserve them is immaterial, it is happening. Our only question is can we live with that and how do we prevent it if we cant.

-Relying on Israel to do the dirty work is dangerous business. To pick up on Jim Rockford's point, we have to consider that Israel's goals are not completely in step with our own. I would argue that a nuclear Iran is a bigger threat to the US than to Israel. The US will be the one that has to contain and deter Iran, not Israel. Israel simply has to survive. There is a strong chance that Israel will make the decision to live with a nuclear Iran at this juncture. We cant take that for granted.

-Back to the important point: can we live with a hostile nuclear Iran? Considering how ambitious and aggressive the Iran we have now is, I dont see how we can allow it.

Calm down everyone. Iranian scientists don't know how to make a cake let alone a bomb. Do you think it is as easy as putting something together on the kitchen Table from instructions off the internet? Weapon research is an elite technology requiring enormous resources and extreme care. Iranian scientist would probably blow themselves up sooner that get something into a delivery system capable of striking the U.S. Israel can defend itself when it comes to nukes. Are the Iranians ready to go down 20 minutes after they launch their home made nuke? That is if it suceeds at all ? One look at the dumbclucks in white coats, hair nets and face masks messing around breaking the UN seals off 44 gallon drums should be enough to make us laugh not fearful. If you think the sky is failing go see the latest Disney flick and then get real.

I've read some of your comments here, and am really interested with your assesments on Iran
and their lust for nukes. According to Ezkiel,
one of the prophecy books of the Bible, Iran and
Persia play a role in the endtimes, or study of
Escatology. It's a fact....There is only one
way to keep to have peace on this earth, and that
will be when Jesus steps foot on the Mt. of Olives. He will clean up the mess that the opposers of his people, Israel, and the Christians
have had to endure on this earth. Only then, and
that's at the end of 7 years of the tribulation,
or Jacob's Trouble. Believe me, everything is
only going to get worse, with Iran blackmailing
America and Europe, and wishing to destroy Israel
and us all. It's Satan's last fight. The GOOD NEWS is Christ is returning within our lifetime,
and we will be witnesses to His Glorious Appearing. Now, I'm sure that some will toss this
information, but that will not make it any less
real!

Freya Peterson (#22): //It's a fact//

Glad someone is finally using real facts here!

//The GOOD NEWS is Christ is returning within our lifetime, and we will be witnesses to His Glorious Appearing.//

Pfew! Now I feel better! Good news indeed :)