"If anyone, the United States or even Israel, gets the idea to bomb the Iranian nuclear weapons program back 10 years into the past, then God help us,"

We will need God's help the most if Iran actually gets the bomb.

What is the worst case? (1) That Iran is forcibly prevented from getting nukes and then responds to unleash thousands of terrorist suicide bombers equipped with conventional explosives to destroy thousands of building-sized targets taking thousands of lives? Or (2) Iran succeeds in getting nukes, supplies nukes to one or two carefully selected non-suicidal terrorists for use against city-sized targets taking hundreds of thousands of lives?

I suppose it depends on precisely where you think those scenario-2 cities might be located.

If, just for instance, the United State and Israel were inclined to suppose European and Jordanian cities would be the few cities nuked, we might be willing to let the Iranians have their nukes rather than risk the wrath of world-wide conventional terrorists. We might. It seems to me unlikely, but we might.

Of course if France and Germany were inclined to suppose that US and Israeli cities were high on Iran's scenario-2 nuke list and that Berlin and Paris would only be conventionally attacked as a response to a scenario-1 de-nuclearization strike, then they might -- might -- decide the worst case was case (1).

It just all makes me want to join hands and sing*

"It's a Small World, After All;
It's a Small World, After All;
It's a Small World, After All;
It's a Small, Small, World ... "

• "You want to end war and stuff, you gotta sing LOUD!" -- Arlo Guthrie, Alice's Resturant, 1966.

"If anyone, the United States or even Israel, gets the idea to bomb the Iranian nuclear weapons program back 10 years into the past, then God help us," says a Western intelligence officer."

First of all, if this is a CIA source I have little faith in the analysis. Secondly, what about what we could do to Iran? If they want to play hardball, i'll be happy to take my chances with whatever terrorists they can stoke up (that we havent taken out already) compared to shutting down their oil trade which wille effectively choke them to death in short order. Finally, even if that wasnt the case, if we are going to start cowering before the mighty Iran now, exactly what are we going to do when they do have nukes and no reason to fear using those terrorist assets unfettered? Better to take the sting now than later.

Iran is forcing the issue. There may be no choice but to wreak havoc on that heaven cursed country. The alternative is to sit quietly while mass murdering muslim fanatics grow powerful enough to massacre millions in radioactive fire.

Shiite or Sunni is irrelevant. Fanatic muslim killers with nukes is relevant. "They believe in using nuclear weapons to kill infidels," a western intelligence analyst stated recently.

Affairs with both DPRK and Iran are rapidly approaching the 'nuclear blackmail' standard. As I understand it, the official policy of the US is to respond to nuclear blackmail as if it were a nuclear detonation on US soil. If we don't start taking that hard line soon, things are very rapidly going to deteriorate and there will likely be a nuclear detonation on US soil.

There are times when the media does need to beat the drums of war, to at the least warn people what threat they are under. With the recent esclation in rhetoric out of Iran, its increasingly looking like one of those times. We have two states who either are nuclear equipped or which will be nuclear armed soon and whose internal structure basically violates the MAD doctrine because the leadership of the two states cannot at this point be considered rational actors by Western standards. But what are the odds that Western news outlets will wake up to the threat that they are under and willingly beat the drums of war?

If I have a very bad feeling right now - one that I never had during the cold war - that I could wake up in the morn and find we are at a state of nuclear war (fortunately I don't live in a major western city, or I'd have an even quesier feeling). The Soviets were a known factor, and the we were a known factor to them. Religious zealots in Iran looking for martyrdom and a glorious afterlife and apparantly incapable of believing that we would respond to an attack with equivalent or greater force, and megalomaniacs who measure success not in terms of thier absolute influence but in their relative influence over their own population are not known quantities whose actions can be predicted with a reasonable degree of success. We can't manage a US/Soviet style nuclear detente with people like that. There can be no hotline, no crisis management, no real meeting of the minds. And even if their could, why would we want to risk such a thing again?

I recommend a re-read of Lee Harris' Our World Historical Gamble.

Replace 'Iraq' with 'Iran'. But with caveats -- there would likely be little cohesion within the West for preemptive action in Iran.

The difference between now and the 80s is that there is a foreign-policy procedure in place for hunting down the enablers where they live. If it comes to it, we WILL bomb the Iranian facilities. If the Iranians retaliate by unleashing terrorists everywhere, we WILL respond by gutting Iran directly.

Of course, Aminedezhad knows this, and has been whipping up his domestic suicide bombers in preparation for the possibility. What I DON'T think he realizes is that the Iraqi example by which he is planning is one in which we still have the kid gloves on. If we have to go into Iran, the gloves will be coming off, and we will behave much more like World War II than like Gulf War II.

MAD was never as stable or as certain as people like to believe in retrospect. The number of sleepless nights several generations spent waiting for the bombs to drop should remind us, but i think a lot of people dont want to think about it. Worse, MAD is a very different beast when dealing with the potentially suicidal and/or those who miscalculate as often as Iran and NK do.

One thing we absolutely need to do is announce a new rogue regime doctrine. Basically it must say that any nuclear detonation over a US or allied city will be held against every nuclear rogue regime regardless of where the weapon originated. Just as we needed a form of automatic retaliation in the Cold War, so do we need one now so that we arent spending months deciding who did what, because at that point it is very very likely 'cooler' heads will prevail and there will be no response. That sounds nice but it guarentees future strikes. Instead, the policy needs to be that any belligerent nation who fails to abide by our nonproliferation demands will be on the target list. Such that NKs fate is tied to Iran, and they can each decide if they trust the other with their existance. Of course if they reliquish their programs to our satisfaction they can get off that list.

Better to take the sting now than later.

Exactly. Military options look unfeasible now, but 'unfeasible' takes on a whole new meaning when you're looking down the nose of a nuke-tipped ballistic missile. We'll wish we had as many choices as we have now.

Something else: Bush needs to be prepping the American people now for a possible collision. Its not a hard sell, a nation currently harboring at least 25 Al Qaeda, threatening Israel (and the US) with destruction, and infiltrating Iraq with terrorists cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons. America will agree with that, but unless it is debated and repeated it will never resonate. I understand Bush has a credability problem with large segments of our country, but that is all the more reason to get ahead of this thing now rather than trying to give our citizens the Cliffs note version at the last minute.

I think the most obvious (and least mentioned) result of a U.S. preemptive would be the esclation of our proxy war with Iran in Iraq. Simply put, they can make us hurt there much more than we hurt now.

That said, from what I've read there are just too many "unknown-unknowns" for any sort of strike in the near future. Thus the real worst case scenario is not (1) we set back their nukes 5 years and get hit by biological/conventional terror attacks or (2) wait 5 years and they have nukes, but rather is (3) we hit them but fail to stop their nuclear program. That would suck.

(3) we hit them but fail to stop their nuclear program. That would suck.

Americans had better prepare for $5 a gallon gasoline. Now that internal reform has totally failed in Iran, it's time to pull out the grimmer tactics. For every bomb Iran sends to Iraq, send one hundred bombs back to Iran. For every terrorist Iran sends to Iraq, send one hundred anti-theocracy insurgents to Iran. For every threat Iran makes against the US, destroy one hundred pipelines and oil terminals in Iran. For every threatening act against US citizens, assets, or allies, destroy one hundred villas inhabited by high ranking Iranian government officials.

I agree with SAO and Lurker on that. Cold front must be descending on hell ;)

Most important is to bring Moscow and Bejing on board. And most unlikely.

Furthermore, with military strikes you cannot end the program, maybe delay it, maybe.

So the only option seems to me to embrace Iran, make the country part of the "core". As Thomas Barnett writes in his new book (Blueprint for action): The choice is between an Iran with nukes hostile to us or an Iran with nukes friendly (or at least less hostile) to us.

Furthermore, with military strikes you cannot end the program, maybe delay it, maybe.

I'll take that before cuddling up to Iran.

"The choice is between an Iran with nukes hostile to us or an Iran with nukes friendly (or at least less hostile) to us."

Huh? Sounds about like the decision Joe Stalin made about 60 years ago. You cant befriend a rabid dog, no matter how he wags his tail.

"I think the most obvious (and least mentioned) result of a U.S. preemptive would be the esclation of our proxy war with Iran in Iraq. Simply put, they can make us hurt there much more than we hurt now."

I think that the immediate result of an escalation in the proxy war with Iran would have to be removing the 'proxy' from the war. The minute we took direct military action against Iran, I think it is reasonable to assume that US troops in Iraq would cease to be merly defacto at war with Iran and be simply at war with Iran.

I consider this an all the marbles situation. If Iran continues to escalate the rhetoric and continues to work toward nuclear weapons, then we should expect the US to entire its first total war since WWII. My reading of the Iranian rhetoric is that the Iranians are being motivated by a calculus similar to that of the Japanese prior to Pearl Harbor. They are assuming that if they hit us hard enough they can knock us out of the war and cause us to seek to negotiate a peace on thier terms. They basically assume that they can politically or militarily paralyze us, either by using nuclear weapons or threatening to do so.

Im not sure this country has the political will to ever enter into another total war. We have grown soft and complacent, and our politicians make the top priority of all international diplomacy including war to be that the average American is in no way inconvenienced (except for the military families who bear the true costs).

Bush had his chance to prove his seriousness by gearing up American industry in a desperate bid to rebuild, repair, and secure Iraq. Instead he handed the job over to beurocrats, politicians, and yes the evil Haliburton. If we were rebuilding Grenada I would have no problem with that, but when a vital national security interest is at stake and our politicians still cant muster to political will to even increase our army by 2 divisions, we have a major problem. We've become Rome or Starship troopers, relying on a small class of warrior elite to produce miracles while the rest of us live in our own fantasy worlds. And i am no exception. Americans have come to treat our wars like public works projects, with no sense of desperation or true danger. If you are going to go to war, you'd better strain every last fiber to win it, and we dont believe that anymore.

Remember the battle of Manassas I, in the US Civil War? Men and women rode out to the battle site in carriages with picnic lunches to observe the route of the confederates. Just another public works project of the 1860s, no sense of desperation or danger. Until the confederates burst through the lines and the civilian "observers" had to high tail it back to safety or become part of the battle themselves. After that most union citizens started taking the war more seriously. That attitude is not new. Sometimes you must hit the mule on the head with a 2×4 to get its attention.

If we are unable to decisively confront the threat posed by Iran, it will be because the rabid, juvenile sputtering wing of the Democrat party was allowed to poison the well of public debate to our nation's long term harm.

Yes, blame it on the Dems, how grown up of you, Robin.

SAO, try denying my point. It should be amusing.

This is a 'when' not an 'if' situation. Iran has said publicly they wish to wipe Israel off of the map, which connotates the US, also.

We may have lost the taste for total war here at home, but the mullahs have not. They are just now beginning to relish it's taste.

Beware, fight now, totally or be prepared to bend your neck to 'submit'.

Fight or die, it does not matter to the mullahs.

The Iranian MMs are like Kimmie of North Korea with money. They will play the mad dog and threaten everyone with the Sea of Fire thing. Hey, it works on the EUniks. The only thing is that the MMs of Iran believe their own sh*t. They threw away hundreds of thousands in the war with Saddam. For nothing. They have no compunction to throw literally millions away to achieve their own fanatical ends. When they say that they will wipe Israel off the map, they mean it, and we better plan for that contingency and others like that.

The West, as well as Japan and others are being attacked with our petro-money that is coming back through fanatics in Saudi Arabia and Iran. So we have to so some things to prevent the money from reaching these fanatics. That would involve:
1. Hobbling Iran's ability to sell oil and get the necessary currency to finance their dreams.
2. Developing significant alternatives to fossil fuels from the Middle East. This is a tall order, but anything we can to for ourselves and the rest of the free world will put a dent in the MMs. They need big cash flows to buy all the war-making and terrorizing junk that they have such an appetite for.

and a pipe dream 3: What if we and the Chicoms could put the squeeze on Iran together? Probably not. The tense situation with the West and Iran works to their advantage. Hey, I can dream, can't I?

"Iran has said publicly they wish to wipe Israel off of the map, which connotates the US, also."

There is no connotation about it. Iran has said explicitly it wants to wipe the USA off the map as well, and it did so in the same speach.

http://regimechangeiran.blogspot.com/2005/10/why-havent-we-seen-this.html

Robin,

I won't argue for a second that many Democrats have retreated from a humanitarian-interventionist perspective to some sort of vague, reactionary-isolationist stance. It's sad to see how weak the firmament was that supposedly held those ideals.

It's also sad to see Republicans (such as yourself) excitedly, almost gleefully pushing them into the wilderness. Your eagerness betrays the very same motive you are supposedly rooting for, namely a decisive and unified country.

"If anyone, the United States or even Israel, gets the idea to bomb the Iranian nuclear weapons program back 10 years into the past, then God help us," says a Western intelligence officer. "Then the Mullahs will unleash their guard dogs worldwide. They will equip and support all Shi'ite terrorist networks with the Sunni networks globally, that is, with everything that they have. For us it would be the ultimate worst-case scenario, one for which we are not prepared."

I suspect this was someone at Langley, because it has all the trademarks of a CIA lifer. If we act, then all hell breaks loose.

The problem is that Iran is clearly already preparing for such action. Better to smoke out their sleeper cells now than to wait until those sleepers move into our cities with suitcase nukes.

The worst case scenario is not a bunch of radicals machine gunning or bombing their way through our cities. The worst-case scenario is one of our cities going up in a large cloud of radioactive smoke.

It's war, dammit. When will the Foggy Bottom and CIA bureaucrats and career people start to realize this, and to realize that the enemy is already fighting now?

One last thing for SAO. Like the rhetoric or not, Robin has a point. There's only one of the major parties that has a sizeable wing that is reactionarily against any military or other decisive action. No one's pushing Howard Dean et. al. in to the wilderness. Dean and others in that wing of the party (and Robin did say wing, acknowledging via implication that the entire party is not a lost cause by any means) have happily turned their backs on any serious or practical response to the threat of interational terrorism and terror states.

Disagree? Then name the serious and substantive proposals Dean and others in that wing have come up with to deal with a nuclear Iran, with Al-Queda, etc.

That, as you surely understand, would be a futile effort.

""If anyone, the United States or even Israel, gets the idea to bomb the Iranian nuclear weapons program back 10 years into the past, then God help us," says a Western intelligence officer. "Then the Mullahs will unleash their guard dogs worldwide. They will equip and support all Shi'ite terrorist networks with the Sunni networks globally, that is, with everything that they have. For us it would be the ultimate worst-case scenario, one for which we are not prepared."""

Iran's guard dogs without nukes are a worse case scenario than Iran's gurad dogs with nukes???

My guess is this is a western european intelligence service making this statement

The only way to resolve this is to have a Quadro-lateral agreement among the United States, China, Russia, and the European Union, to occupy the Middle East and split up interest in the oil fields. A world bank of oil would be created, and too bad for the former governments of Saudi Arabia and Iran. They will be occupied. There weaponry will be contained, and a truly New World Order will have come to its fruition.

CB-- I think that wing has come up with a very serious and substantive position on the war in Iraq, aka Get out ASAP, different, but still similiar to it's ugly step-sibling, Get out Now! You probably disagree with both, but that doesn't make them invalid, treacherous, or otherwise poisonous.

Howard Dean has been demanding a "clear timetable for exit" for I don't know how long. This means setting a definable goal and reducing troop levels over time, as fast as possible without fomenting a civil war. Well.. that means a pretty slow withdrawal. This is not exactly treachery, in fact it might be pretty close to the current White House plan.

Now I realize it might be hard for you to differentiate between the positions of the left-wing of the Democratic party and the "progressive" anti-war movement; at times they're in collusion, and they certainly agree about much. But what they don't agree on is the WOT, Democrats like Dean will support the invasion of Afghanistan but not Iraq, while "Progressives" will shun both.

Asking someone here at Winds to recognize the differences between the left wing of the Democratic party and the assortment of socialists to their left might be asking too much. As a conservative/liberal Democrat, I'm often confused with moonbats or accused of being one here.

That last bit I chock up to the growing number of rightwing pundits, who have seen these wars as an opportunity for political gain and as a tool to bash liberals with. I believe thee people have been far more succesful in getting their message across than the far-left. Perhaps that is why I take offense to Robin's statement.

The US public as a whole is not worried enough about the Islamists to go to wage total war. . . yet. Unfortunately this is causing the Iranians and Saudis and the Iraqi Sunnis, for that matter, to misunderestimate us.

The WTC attack was spectacular but a relative flea bite. We reacted to that by taking down down two Muslim governments and by taking down some tens of thousands of the supporters of those governments.

Unfortunately this has not yet taught the beasts a lesson. So eventually they will get a nuke, or they will spread a chemical or biologican, and then they will suddenly find themselves facing the sort of leader Americans turn to when they feel threatened.

we hit them but fail to stop their nuclear program. That would suck.

It's time for war. Iran has threatened the world long enough and with the appointment of a terrorist for president we better act now. When we hit them we will need to ensure that they are completely gutted. In fact Iran as a country should cease to exist, a better name would be "The Country that glows in the dark."

I don't think this is a time to play games on who is right and who is wrong when it comes to political parties because it should be evident by now between all political parties that we are now in a grave state of affairs.
As a Nation we need to pull together and turn off the Play Stations and get off our rears and make this a nationwide effort, regardless of our political affiliations and every single one of us should do are part to support the very right of our nation to exist.
We have many options in which we can go to take action on Iran, however anything we do will be a gamble but than again so is life. First we could as show of resolve force them from the UN this sounds small but Muslim fanatics are very pridefull and will take this as an insult other options we have is to close all diplomatic ties and stop all business transactions with them and seize all thier assets they have invested around the world and believe me they have many out there, we should also look at using Naval assets to blockade all ports and ships from entering or leaving thier ports, establish a no fly buffer zone on the iraq border with constant aerial patrols with orders to shoot to kill if anyone is seen with in so many miles of the established buffer zone, this is no gaurantee to stop them but it will be a sore spot to them. Are next area of concern should be to establish a repore with Russia, and if they refuse to help we may also need to take measures against them using political pressures such as stopping grant packages and goods to be imported into the USA and refusing to coperate with any programs they wish to have passed by the UN and or American business ventures. Our next option could be if we are not making any dents in Irans sick plans for the world is a sustained air campaign, basically bomb all assets and economic targets vital to Irans economy and military. When we start any campaign with Iran we should not waver, give up hope even when things look bad, but keep a steady pressure on iran. The choice is really up to us, live or Die.

CAO - "Get out" and "Get out now!" aren't strategies for dealing with terrorism, they're responses to the Administration's strategy, and knee-jerk in the case of the progressives. Get out...and then what? That's not a strategy at all, it's a slogan.

It's quite obvious that some Democrats, and I think I'd include Dean here, supported action in Afghanistan because it would be political folly not to. At the time, Dean was preparing to run for President, so the last thing he could afford to do was to drift out to the left immediately. That said, I can't recall the Doctor lauding progress in Afghanistan anytime recently, or recognizing any global aspects of the terror problem. Dean talks about Bin Laden, but only in terms of law enforcement. Again, not a strategy, but simple reaction to terror, followed by inertia.

A strategy must be proactive, because terrorists will be. I can agree that there are many different wings of the Democratic party and the left and that there is some overlap on their stances on the war in Iraq and dealing with terror, but when we get down to brass tacks, Dean is a no show on the terror war, and there is a coalition of Democrats and others on the left (as well as quite a few people in State and the CIA) who seem determined to thwart any strategic action to disable or even limit terror operations, beyond the politically necessary.

Dean can be himself now because Iraq has been difficult. If the Constitution pans out and Iraqi military forces begin to shift American troops home on Bush's timtetable, Dean will have to adjust politically again, but his heart and the hearts of many in that wing will still be firmly against a strategic plan that involves any kind of intervention overseas.

So invalid? Yes. Because they have no long term strategy that actually makes a difference where terror is concerned. Get out? That was the Somalia strategy and you can see where we are now.

Treacherous? Your words, not mine, nor Robin's as far as I can see.

Poisonous? Let's see, the number one charge out there is that Bush lied. Reid's stunt in the Senate yesterday is piggybacked on that myth. Joe Wilson's fame is tied to it, despite his demonstrable lies to the public and members of the media. Dean rides the wake of the Move On crowds' thunderous echo of the false charge. No one asks why or how Bush should have reached a different verdict on WMDs than the rest of the world did. No one on the left says France lied and people died, or Russia lied and people died.

Attacking a foreign policy by dishonestly questioning the integrity with which it was implemented to the point of calling it criminal? That's as poisonous as it gets.

The Democratic party gets poisoned too, because the hard left threatens the sensible center, and forces people to to a little political calculation. A nuclear Iran, even the threat of that, should change this, but alas, I don't see it happening. And no one on the right is pushing. Indeed, the advice of most right-wing pundits is to get out the way and let the hard left fully implode. Democratic centrists and conservatives would do well to use the opportunity to reclaim the party.

And there are Democrats who get it. I'm no Hillary fan but don't think she's is being totally calculating when she offers support for the war in Iraq, nor Biden, and many others who stand behind the action. I agree also that they are entitled to criticize the specific strategy and tactics of the Administration in Iraq, even if they support the war. It would be nice if they could get beyond criticism to actual alternatives that have practical value. Most Democratic "plans" are restatements of the President's plan to build up democracy and Iraqi security forces. I don't think the Democrats have any better plans or strategies, quite frankly, but if they do, as the Bull Moose pointed out this week, let's hear them.

That's a productive contribution to the War on Terror, and one that many Democrats are capable of making because that wing knows the score.

If Dean and the Sheehanistas would get out of the way, we might very well have some productive bipartisanship on the issue. As long as Reid is selling crap stories about doctored intelligence and Administration lies to go war, and riding them alongside the despicable Wilson's fallacious narrative, that hope is, unfortunately, a long shot.

Cheers,

JSc is on to something here. Currently, we cannot presently risk open war with Iran. Given the death toll in Iraq and the national fatigue with the conflict, the poltical will for a war that would almost certainly be more costly in terms of human lives is simply not there. The news relayed in the story above also leaves us with the sobering thought that the current regime has a fair amount of support among the populace still, if the vote tallies can be trusted - which is an open question I think. In some regards this is not unexpected given that the hard-line mullahs that control the country also control religious life. There is certain a fair percentage of the population playing to pious loyalty.

Most of us have been hoping for internal dissent and unrest to foment into some sort of uprising. However, the electoral victory, however suspect it may or may not be, of reactionary elements, coupled with the failure of the Administration to funnel significant funds and diplomatic support to the Iranian opposition, including mullahs and clerics dissatisfied with totalitarian rule, means that Iran may very well be a deeply divided nation that could not easily or peacefully see regime change.

JSc hits upon actions that can be taken though. Seizure of funds, boycotts of Iranian oil, serious support for democratic opposition, tightening the Iraqi and Afghani borders with Iran and restricting trade with Iran thorugh those and other borders (with the cooperation of our allies there, of course) is a way to destablize the mullahtocracy. One thing in our favor is that Iran has a history of internal political change, at least so far as the original Islamic Revolution in that country. The opposition needs to seize on that, but they also need charismatic leaders - positive versions of Khomenei, both secular and religious - to stand openly against Khamenei and his underlings.

Most of all though, we cannot allow the number one terror supporting nation in the world to obtain nuclear arms. Doing so I believe would be a death sentence for Tel Aviv and potentially major European and American cities.

We must recognize that Iranian radicals do not believe that Iran and other Islamic nations will be able to militarily defeat the West in a direct conflict. Rather, like some American white supremacists, the goal is to goad Islamic peoples into a global jihad against the West and Western ideas and ideals. A nuclear Iran may be content to wait until demographic trends in Europe and the self-defeating domestic policies of Western Europe improve the possibility for disorder and disruption of those nations. Indeed, the disruptions in France might be seen as a test case for such action. At some point though, the mullahs and their underlings will thirst for action. It will likely come in the form of a nuclear terror attack - with some level of deniablilty for Iran to attempt to draw her Islamic neighbors support.

Eliminating Iran's capacity for nuclear weapons is vital, even if Iran might not use them against the West. Iran can certainly cause chaos with well spread global terror actions, but this is a strategy with diminishing results, otherwise the mullahs would be unleashing such terror now. Iran with nuclear weapons though, would be able to act with impunity as far as non-nuclear teror goes, because they could threaten any invading force with nuclear retaliation, against their troops or their neighbors.

Even North Korea, for the utter vileness of its despotic and genocidal regime would be far more stable politically that a nuclear Iran under the current authority.

How some Western intelligence "expert" concludes that stopping such a scenario would somehow lead to a worse scenario, leads one to contemplate old jokes about the use of the word "intelligence" to describe such agencies.

SAO,
John Kerry, Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats, Jimmy Carter, and others are all beating the same dishonest drum. That they have chosen to flog the same corrosive vile rhetoric for the short term joy of sticking it to those evil Republicans regardless of the harm it is doing the nation is clear.

Explain the difference between the "left wing" and the socialist wing of the Democrats from the "liberal" wing again, because someone is not getting it.

And I don't think that I'm the one failing to do so.

*covered Vietnam four years until 29 April 75;

*covered boat people and Cambodia six years after the war;

*covered Afghanistan "I" from inside and Peshawar;

*covered Central America 10 years;

*covered Iraq "I" before and after in Bahgdad;

*covered Bosnia/Serbia;

*made three trips to Chechnya during Chechnya "I"

1. Do NOTexpect the media to "wake up;" they and the Dems are too busy insanely trying to take down Bush.

2. EXPECT that we will be nuked with months to several years; it is not a question of whether, but when.

Nha Bao Noi Lao, An Tien.

"Finally, even if that wasnt the case, if we are going to start cowering before the mighty Iran now, exactly what are we going to do when they do have nukes and no reason to fear using those terrorist assets unfettered? Better to take the sting now than later.

Precisely, Mark.

America's very idea of exporting dmocracy to the middle east is being resulted in global terrorism.Iranins know that US can do nothing now ,thats the reason the negotiation be highly unpredictable

Thank you for this support. It's clear, concise and helpful.

The only way to resolve this is to have a Quadro-lateral agreement among the United States, China, Russia, and the European Union, to occupy the Middle East and split up interest in the oil fields. A world bank of oil would be created, and too bad for the former governments of Saudi Arabia and Iran. They will be occupied. There weaponry will be contained, and a truly New World Order will have come to its fruition.

Most important is to bring Moscow and Bejing on board. And most unlikely.

Furthermore, with military strikes you cannot end the program, maybe delay it, maybe.

So the only option seems to me to embrace Iran, make the country part of the "core". As Thomas Barnett writes in his new book (Blueprint for action): The choice is between an Iran with nukes hostile to us or an Iran with nukes friendly (or at least less hostile) to us.

I have to disagree...

Great ARTICLE!!!

Wow. Very impressive.

Thank you for great article.

grete site, nice article, thanks!

"Most important is to bring Moscow and Bejing on board. And most unlikely."
- heh :(
It's very simple to talk about Moscow and Bejing on board. It's very hard, i think impossible to do this.