So, Trent: Predictions? Suggestions? (About us, not them.)

You assume, of course, that Iran intends to use them against America in an offensive action. I must disagree, I think the Mullahs want the bomb so they turn the ME into their playground.

Either way, something must be done to rectify the situation.

FH:

Either way, something must be done to rectify the situation.

Like what? Bomb them? Invade?

If the former, what happens when (not if) we miss some important parts of their program and piss off the rest of the world? What happens when the Iranians shut off the Straits of Hormuz and land a few missiles on Saudi Arabia's oil fields?

If the latter, then pray tell, with what Army? Are you under the impression that our forces in Iraq can be re-tasked, re-armed with tanks, and sent charging into Persia at the drop of a hat?

Such an invasion might just work. But it probably wouldn't. And please, please, please, just for entertainment's sake, try to envision how we might re-supply such an invasion. Through Pakistan?

Oh, and for an especially fun exercise, dream up a situation where we fight our way through to Teheran. How do we occupy the country?

If the former, what happens when...

...then pray tell, with what Army?

...how we might re-supply such an invasion. Through Pakistan?

...How do we occupy the country?

Questions such as yours are unacceptable to the right-wing hawknuts in the world. They (both the US hawks AND the Iranian hawks) live in a simple fairytale land, where there is good and there is evil and good must have the most powerful weapons and must use them to kick the shit out of evil at the earliest opportunity, otherwise we will all die.

Complexity does not exist, nuance does not exist, cost/benefit analysis is meaningless, discussion is counterproductive, and questions such as yours are MOST unwelcome and clear evidence that you are an antipatriot who hates your country.

Go away, stickler. You ask hard questions that are irrelevant, and you poison the rhetoric.

Trent, I believed you the first time. ;)
But what are our options at this point? And are any of them cost-viable?

"ou assume, of course, that Iran intends to use them against America in an offensive action."

They have repeatedly said they want to use them against Israel. They also mentioned once that their missiles can reach Europe. Why Europe continues to play footsie with them I do not know.

IdahoEv

Hmm, Yup, Pretty on target description of how the world works.

pretty good decription of the left too, there isnt much room for "nuance" among mass graves of the lefts murdered, but its one applicable word for the leftist lack of moral clarity they use to excuse it. (and they pretend to offer us advice?)

Ive seen every "nuance" from "any death is unacceptable" to "o well people die anyway"

The situational ethics of the left, is well, political calculation, there is no ethic behind it, its all oppertunism.

The lefts use of our losses as political props correctly raises ire of those of us who understand their fake compassion, the same left spit on our troops and want us to give more money to prop up turd world leftist hellholes than we will ever spend in iraq,

But consider the source, they have mass murdered 174 Million people over the last 80+ Years for utopia, and that has not lost them their blind faith to their egalitarian religion.

So in the end, its proper to simply hold anything they might say as having no value, and rooted in their evil Cultural Marxist religion.

(to the others, yeah I know, the answer in kind was apropos, Yes?)

Mr. IdahoEV,

Just as I thought. Here I cast pearls of screaming obvious fact upon the waters of WindsofChange.Net, and hope for the best. I haven't been faced with much "best" yet.

You are, of course, right. I will endeavor in future to hew to a more optimistic, if deluded, course. All is well! Hail the votes! We have always been at war with Eastasia!

Etc.

Stickler and EV --

The Iranians want something. To kill all the Jews in Israel of course, but more than that the removal of all US forces, ESPECIALLY the US Navy, from the Gulf. This has been a consistent wish from the beginning of the regime, they fought a losing action against the Navy in the 80's. Heck the Persians wanted hegemony over the Gulf since before Alexander, and at various times had it.

The only way nukes work for the Iranians is to "allow" Hezbollah to use a few of them to blow up a major City or two; then sit back as a "revolutionary organization" demands US forces leave the Gulf. Or more cities get blown up. This is entirely consistent with the Iranian use of Hezbollah (largely run by Iranian intelligence agents) to blow up things and make Americans leave. See: Beirut barracks 1983 and Reagan's panicked withdrawal; Khobar Towers in 96 to make the US withdraw from Saudi.

Given that the Iranians have no real idea of US military power, culture, political climate, and response of the average American, I'm sure this seems like a good iead to them. Bin Laden was sincerely surprised that the US Government did not simply fall into disarray. We know nothing about Iran; but the converse is also true.

EV and Stickler, you ignore America's options. We can strip forces from Germany (where they are useless) and Korea (where they are sacrificial tripwires) and stage punitive expeditions to destroy nuclear bomb related sites. We don't have to hold the country, just destroy things. Will the rest of the world jump up and down? Sure.

[No argument our forces are nowhere near where they need to be; but we still have much more power than the Iranians]

But it beats the hell out having a city nuked. Which would inevitably draw a massive strategic nuclear response, resulting in the death essentially of the Iranian people.

EV and Stickler, you ignore America's options. We can strip forces from Germany (where they are useless) and Korea (where they are sacrificial tripwires) and stage punitive expeditions to destroy nuclear bomb related sites. We don't have to hold the country, just destroy things. Will the rest of the world jump up and down? Sure.

For crying out loud. So you propose to remove our troops from Korea, where they face a rogue power which already has nuclear weapons to face Iran, which may or may not have nuclear weapons, so they can be used to slog around the Persian heartland. This is wrong on a number of levels: I'll let you know about my own personal one. I live in Oregon, which is within range of North Korean nukes.

And "punitive expeditions" into Iran? What the hell would that look like? Are you under the impression that they're armed with sticks? Or that they haven't spent the last two years watching our soldiers run into Rumsfeldian lunacy spiked with Soviet RPGs? Do you think the Iranians are blind? Oh, I'm sure they won't be able to replicate Stalingrad. Maybe, though, a nation of Fallujahs. I mean, come on! Do you really contemplate sending US reservists on a new tour of duty? Would you like to explain that to them personally?

And there's still the matter of the straits of Hormuz. You know, where all the Arabian oil gets out to, well, US. Think carefully here: what would it mean to shut that waterway down for six months? How does $6/gallon gasoline sound? A just price to pay for liberty in Persia? Try selling that in Congress.

Jim

Thats the grim reality, an Iranian nuke going off just about anywhere outside their own borders would result in the death by nuclear fire of the county of Iran.

The kamakazi nature of islam gives one no hope that they would not use nukes in fear of their own extinction, so the only thing left is the automatic infliction of doom opon them as soon as we think they are about to go nuclear.

Pakistan wont be allowed to keep its nukes when we leave, we already have designs to get them, perhaps your aware of the scramble to stop us from taking possession of his warheads when a hint of instability was seen in pakistan ?

No good options, but, thats been a constant of every conflict we have been in.

Every large war except GW1 (thanks to Reagan) found us ill prepaired, and we have had to re-arm after a foolish lapse in military strength.

One would hope we wont need to lose more of ours to topple Iran, the alternative to their nuclear extermination, But, as always, no good choices to be found, in action or inaction.

Europe can carp because we provide their security, they have become deluded and spoiled.

Its time we pulled out of europe, and let them take resposibily for themselves, hand them a cold dish of reality.

Let us help our friends, in europe, with the blood stained leftist religion that rules there, they are no longer our friends.

Even Germany is shrugging past mass graves of innocents, and took the side of a leftist butcher. those are not the values America wants to mingle with.

I would Look to the freed peoples of Eastern Europe, whoes memeory of leftist holocaust and the iron boot is still fresh. they seem to like us better. they know the difference between right and wrong.

The lefts use of our losses as political props correctly raises ire of those of us who understand their fake compassion, the same left spit on our troops and want us to give more money to prop up turd world leftist hellholes than we will ever spend in iraq,

But consider the source, they have mass murdered 174 Million people over the last 80+ Years for utopia, and that has not lost them their blind faith to their egalitarian religion.

All right, Mr. Raymond. Are you accusing me of complicity in the deaths of 174 million people? Your sloppy reasoning has lumped together everyone who hasn't drank deeply from President Bush's Kool-Aid. Pat Buchanan isn't Stalin. Brent Scowcroft isn't Trotsky. Ted Kennedy isn't Mao. And your semi-literate assertions to the contrary serve merely to prove your own blinding ignorance (or drunkenness; in which case I extend my solidarity). Seriously: if opposing this blinding stupidity on the Tigris makes you want to accuse me of complicity in the 1932 Ukranian famine, then bring it on. You're a worthless ignoramus. If you were within fist-reach I'd rearrange your dental profile. You're a coward and a blowhard.

"Pat Buchanan isn't Stalin. Brent Scowcroft isn't Trotsky. Ted Kennedy isn't Mao."

Your partially correct.

Mr Buchanan's opposition is reasoned and principled,

We have all heard the leftist demands that boil down to: since we cannot free all people everywhere we should not free any people anywhere. but its just another expression of their opertunistic situational ethic, that is a fraud and a fake, as fake as their feigned compassion

Well except the discarded concern of "screw them Kos" and his ilk.

But Buchanan? his reasons for deciding NOT to go into iraq are the proper ones, he isnt in charge any more than I, and i share all of his reservations, sending in our people into harms away might not be the decision I would have made, if it was Me, making the call.

And so I see him as an honest broker in the debate.

Ted Kennedy ? Yes he is Mao, Hochimin, He is Castro, he is as twisted as the congressional members of the DSA. he is worse than John Kerry, who gave aind and confort to the land of the 5% death quota Veitnam, and called the man that murdered his own people by 5% death quota "George Washington" He is Bagdad McDermot, he is Hanoi Jane, who got a photo op, sitting in an anti aircraft gun, of the glorius land of the 5% death quota, who handed the guards the paper with the SS numbers, so that those POWs would be executed.

We remember what support and words of love the American left has given to the communist regimes of crimes against humanity, telling us those lands of holocausts is the system we should emulate.

We remember, and we wont forget.

And they are in no moral position to advise us for anything.

Yehudit (#6), perhaps to cover the fact that Europe is unable to do anything else.

There was a request for alternative options. The mistake is in taking the Iranian regime as a constant absent a US invasion. It is not. They might have 20%-30% support and it's all hard shell Shia muslims. We have a hole card that is simply not examined by most commentators. Ayatollah Sistani thinks that direct mullah rule is heresy. He thinks that what is going on in Iran with the veneration of Khomeni is heresy.

Sistani is also likely one of the most well respected and influential Shia clerics in Iran. Imagine 2006 comes to an end and Iraq caps off a successful constitutional referendum and a new government under that constitution with Sistani issuing a fatwa declaring that it is every muslim's duty to overthrow the false muslims of Iran, that supporting that regime means you are going to hell. Would the mullah regime survive? I don't think so.

The Iranian mullahs could nuke Najaf but that's like Franco bombing the Vatican, it's just not going to happen. The mullahs will likely send hit squads after Sistani (if they aren't doing so already). The US absolutely has to keep Sistani alive and as much of the Najaf and Karbala Hawzas as possible. 2006-2007 is a lovely time for a revolution and if it turns out that Iranian Shia pilgrims to Najaf have been getting democracy organizing lessons at the same time as their religious visits and had been doing so for the past 2-3 years, all the better.

TM, its the strings of successes that won me over, and the genus of planting a democracy in down town terror central

As exampled by this

But analysts warned that the pressure for reform now risked becoming unstoppable, however much authoritarian governments around the region tried to resist it.

”Democracy is an idea that is now on the march in the Middle East even if the efforts to contain it are immense," said Amr al-Shubaqi of the Al-Ahram Centre for Political Studies in Cairo.

If the Bush plan to pull down Iran without firing a shot, planting the seeds of democracy in the minds of the peoples looking longingly at the free people of Bagdad ....

If he pulls this last one off, Bush could go into the history books as th most heroic figure since Churchill. and for very good reason.

Interesting thought exercise. Meanwhile, in the real world, it ain't gonna happen, and everyone knows it. China has promised to screw the American economy in the event of an attack on Iran, for starters. OPEC would switch to the euro. I've been burned by Novak before, but he says it's not in the cards. There's not gonna be "any invasion and conquest of Iran."

You guys are taking every option to the extreme. What about diplomacy backed by force? Give up your program or we take it out, and if you try anything nasty we torch your oilfields, take out your prize missiles, and turn the lights out in Tehran until we get tired of it? That kind of credible threat could work. And the attack would work also. Think about it, we could ruin the Mullah regime while barely touching most of Iran by kicking them where it hurts, oil and nasty weapons. Their response is exactly what our navy and AF have trained to defend for the last 20+ years. We have Aegis ships to deal with attempts on the Gulf. Will Iran really risk economic devastation on a counterattack that will very likely be nothing worse than a pinprick? Perhaps, perhaps not. Will they invade Iraq? We couldnt ask for a better way to unite Iraqis behind our banner I can assure you (yes Shiia as well, they fought long and hard against Iran once, they are very nationalistic). Send in insurgents? That would be new. And what would stop us from arming insurgents in Iran as well?
Look, hopefully none of that would be necessary, but we are completely hobbling ourselves by creating all these fanciful scenarios where we would need to either invade Iran or where they would stand a ghost of a chance going toe-to-toe with us in an AF-Naval-Embargo war. Lets recognize our own stregnths, stop worrying about what Iran is going to do to us, and start reminding them of what we are going to do to them if they dont get in line. A few pictures of Hussein cooling his heels in his cell might get the Mullahs attention.

For those who haven't yet, I recommend reading Lee Harris' essay, Our World Historical Gamble:

http://www.techcentralstation.com/031103A.html

A snippet from Harris' essay dovetails well with Telenko's article:

- - -

In dealing with the Japanese or with the Soviet Union, we were never forced to wonder whether they might delegate their actions to such utterly informal and irresponsible entities as Al Qaeda. The threat they posed they posed in their own right, and hence they were accountable for their actions, and knew that we would hold them accountable. But this is no longer the case. For example, even today, over a year later, there is still debate about the possible connection between Iraq and the events of 9/11 - a debate that may well never be resolved. And this means that if a nuclear device were to be detonated in downtown Chicago tomorrow, from an unknown source, could we really count on being able to find its "return address" if in fact it was the work of a "rogue" state? We know that, in fact, the answer is no; and we know that "they" know this as well; and they know we know - all of which only begins to suggest the surrealism that is characteristic of the crisis with which we are faced. For it means that if they chose to delegate such a horrendous act to an entity like Al Qaeda, they would force us into an impossible choice: Either we accept such an attack without retaliating, or else we are forced to lash out blindly - and in the same spirit of blood feud and vendetta with which the attack was made. And either choice transcends our present categories of comprehension.

The first "rogue" nuclear strike - a strike from an unknown and even unknowable source - is a genie that once out of the bottle can never be put back in. It would cause an overnight catastrophic transformation of the world. In many ways we must be grateful that Al Qaeda's fingerprints were over all 9-11. For what if we had had no clue - even today - who had perpetrated such an act?

...they are not playing by the same rules of realism that we are. And it is this that renders so much public debate so historically dated.

The Iranian mullahs may fantasize about demolishing Israel, but they know perfectly well that they would be vaporized in the process. While they are probably not deterrable in the same sense that the Soviet Union was, they also don't seem too eager to get their own raisins (or they would have done so long ago). So MAD may work, sort of.

The important point is that MAD sucks even when it works. MAD means that their is a balance between the good and evil, leaving evil with much more freedom of action. When the bastards know they can be vaporized with impunity, then there will be limits to what they will do. The Korean War should be the classic example. In early 1949, Kim il-Sung asked Stalin to help in launching the war. Uncle Joe turned him down flat. A year later Kim asked again, and was given the green light. In the interim, the Soviet Union had gained the atomic bomb, which made it much less likely that Stalin would pay the ultimate price for assisting in that aggression. MAD helped kill some 30,000 Americans and millions of Koreans.

That's why I believe that hundreds of thousands of people in the Middle East will die if Iran gets nuclear weapons - even if Iran never uses those weapons. The balance of power will allow Iran to support more terrorism. There will be more Hezbollah attacks on Israel, overt support for al Qaeda, and more aid for insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Compared with that near-certain disaster, the risks of bombing Iran are pretty mild.

Very well said Jacksonian, great point. It seems to me that those who dont have a problem with a MAD situation with Iran tend to be the folks have trouble deciding if who's worse, Bush or the Mullahs. Our famous 'nuance' friends (hey, even the Nazis were art collectors, right?). Fortunately we can safely ignore such wrecklessness. The country does.

Stickler,

What do you propose we do? Throw our hands up and just live with the nuclear destruction of a major American city or a nuclear exchange between Iran and Israel? True none of the options presented by us redneck chickenhawks is ideal, but other than sit around bashing Bush and assigning blame for the current situation vis a vis Iran what would you do?

I'll say it again- deterrence. We get nuked, we launch on Iran. No questions, no investigation. That was the way it was for 40 years with the Soviets. It worked. The Iranians can decide whether it is worth having nukes, and whether it is worth sharing them.

The pros to this strategy are the same as in 1949- we don't have to go to war unless they attack us. We don't have a big enough army and I don't the the country would support it.

The cons are that the may attack us anyway, forcing us to kill millions of innocent people. We never had to do this, but maybe the mullahs are less rational than the communists.

And a discussion ensues ... awesome! I wish I had time to involve myself in the discussion deeply, but my dissertation is due this week, so I can't really. But briefly...

EV and Stickler, you ignore America's options...

I ignore nothing, what I wanted (and have always wanted) is to see is a rational discussion of the issues.

My point, really, is just that the right generally tries to oversimplify the world, and (usually) brooks no discussion or dissent. (cf the White House statement yesterday that some dissent from the opposition is unacceptable). The fact that WoC actually allows comments from the readers is one of the reasons I read it.

Compare: PoliticalAnimal (Kevin Drum), DailyKos, Eschaton (Atrios), Kicking Ass (DNC), Kerry's Blog (during the campaign) ... all allow comments.

Instapundit, Andrew Sullivan, RealClear Politics, Volokh Conspiracy, RNC President Gillespie's blog ... don't allow comments.

Compare the number of conservatives who read and post at Kos or on Drum's blog (next to none) to the number of liberals who read and post here or at Tacitus .... it's often more than half the posts. The fundamental difference between the left and the right often seems to be that the left is interested in knowing and understanding the other point of view, and discussing the issues rationally, and the right simply doesn't want to hear it.

This is, IMHO, why the right wins lately: they appear strong because they are shielded from debate. It's also, it seems, pretty dangerous: flying down any path with blinders on is a bad idea.

My point was not that we should ignore Iran. (Another common right wing attitude is the assumption that disagreement is equivalent to arguing that we do nothing). My point was that whatever we do it should be carefully considered with all options available, and that perhaps there are options other than "ignore" and "full scale invasion", and that perhaps there are consequences to all options that should be taken into account before a decision is made.

Trent's original post was EXTREMELY reductionist: evil, bad Iran. Gets nukes, we will all die. Only option: invade with full force.

Sorry, Trent, the world is simply more complex than that; this isn't the kindergarden playground. I am very glad to see that a full-scale discussion has ensued.

"I'll say it again- deterrence. We get nuked, we launch on Iran. No questions, no investigation. That was the way it was for 40 years with the Soviets. It worked. The Iranians can decide whether it is worth having nukes, and whether it is worth sharing them."

What city do you live in? Can we advertise to the Iranians that that is the one to choose if they arent as rational as you assume?

"The cons are that the may attack us anyway, forcing us to kill millions of innocent people. We never had to do this, but maybe the mullahs are less rational than the communists"

Exactly. But there are other downsides. The minute the Mullahs get the bomb, it becomes strongly in our interest for the regime to maintain stability. A civil war or coup in Iran would present an extreme danger of some radical Islamist ending up with a bomb. If you are John K Mullah and your office is under seige, why not hand a bomb over to your Al Qaeda buddy to use as he sees fit? You arent gonna haev to worry about the consequences. Worse, who do you bomb in response to that? So we go back to de facto support of nasty tyrants, which got us where we are in the first place in many ways.

The Iranian Mullahs are already funding the Ba'athists and Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Taliban and Hekmontiar (sp?) in Afghanistan and have recently done the same with the Pakistanis via funding Baluchii (sp?) religious extremist/seperatists.

Now they face a real American backed Democracy next door that had the first free and fair election in the Middle East. The clock is tolling and it is tolling for the Mullahs.

Given the above, the Mullahs are under incredible pressure to act. Which leaves us this reality:

"Irrational regimes become more so under pressure."

The Iranian Mullahocracy cannot be trusted with nukes under any circumstances. Only by removing this regime before they have nukes will the American people be safe. We don't have time for anything but main force ground invasion to work.

Our current ground forces are sufficient given a formal declaration of war by the Congress because the reserves will be in for the duration. And we will need to call them all up for the occupation campaign.

After that, the Army and Marine reserves will be burnt out as institutions, but they will have served their purpose. We need to increase the active duty ground forces in any case and this will be the political excuse to do so...for the next Presidential Administration.

At the present moment, America's only genuine option, if the Iranians are indeed that close, is interdiction from the air to delay, though probably not stop this process. Will we do it? Either directly or by proxy through the Israelis? All indications are at the moment, no.

The Bush Administration has a long history of telegraphing its military punches. It has not done so here. One of the most important considerations is that the sentiment inside Iran to go nuclear is widely popular and an aerial attack would strengthen the current government considerably.

Moreover, despite the gloom and doom scenarios above, the greatest danger is not that Iranians will use the weapons offensively, or give them to someone to use them so. The greatest danger is that they will become what Afghanistan was, a safe haven for all our terrorist enemies, only this time under a nuclear umbrella.

The problem, of course, is that if you don't act militarily, and you refuse to talk directly to the Iranians, there's not much left.

"Compare: PoliticalAnimal (Kevin Drum), DailyKos, Eschaton (Atrios), Kicking Ass (DNC), Kerry's Blog (during the campaign) ... all allow comments. "

Most of which require registration, some of which (the Democratic Underground being notorious) require registration and pull down posts they dont like and ban you for it.

"Instapundit, Andrew Sullivan, RealClear Politics, Volokh Conspiracy, RNC President Gillespie's blog ... don't allow comments."

Instapundit and realclear arent even blogs, Volokh is a communal blog where you can link to the authors own sites almost all of which have comments. And what about the site you happen to be on? What about Command Post? What about Drezner? Polypundit? Belmont Club? Adventure of Chester? 2slick?
Hell, every warblog i can think of allows comments and there is fierce debate.

"Compare the number of conservatives who read and post at Kos or on Drum's blog (next to none) to the number of liberals who read and post here or at Tacitus .... it's often more than half the posts"

Doesnt that indicate conservatives are the ones actively going out looking for a debate? Instead of sticking to their safe little homes?

IdahoEv and Stickler,

You have each raised good points in this thread pertaining to Telenko's report and analysis on Iran's nuclear program. You've each done so in language that is particularly patronizing to other commenters and to much of the readership.

Many of us come to web-logs and to Winds of Change in particular for a diversity of viewpoints, well thought-out and fairly presented. One corrolary is a decline in patience with people who insist on using inflammatory language, or who are so taken with the breadth and subtlety of their vision that they must use Comments as a soapbox.

In supposing that your intentions were not to act out personal dramas or start flame wars, I am making the guess that you would each be appalled by the way that your comments end up appearing. To many readers, myself included.

Please give this unsolicited advice some thought, and please return with further insights. I'm particularly interested in your thoughts on Fred's question (#22) -- What are your policy proposals? IdahoEv, your response (#24) that Telenko's post oversimplifies matters is a start, but only that.

Mark, I think IdEv was saying that many comments here are liberal while almost no comments on lefty blogs are conservative, ergo liberals like debate while conservatives don't. Of course, he totally disregards the possibility that conservatives don't comment on Kos, Atrios, etc. because they get shouted down, insulted, and eventually banned while more conservative sites such as this one are more tolerant of dissent. The idea that the left is more tolerant of dissent and debate than the right is, of course, profoundly laughable, as any conservative who's been on a university campus for more than five minutes can attest.

I happened to catch a snippet of Wolf Blitzer interviewing Thomas PM Barnett on CNN the other week, and he threw out a suggestion that surprised and intrigued me: have Bush go to Teheran, along the lines of "Only Nixon can go to China".

So there you have another option, one I think is worth thinking about.

IdahoEv wrote:

Compare: PoliticalAnimal (Kevin Drum), DailyKos, Eschaton (Atrios), Kicking Ass (DNC), Kerry's Blog (during the campaign) ... all allow comments.

Instapundit, Andrew Sullivan, RealClear Politics, Volokh Conspiracy, RNC President Gillespie's blog ... don't allow comments.

Which is rather meaningless since one could just as easily cherry-pick popular left-wing blogs (e.g. Talking Points Memo, Wonkette, etc.) that don’t allow comments and contrast that with a list of popular right-wings blogs (e.g. Citizen Smash, LGF, Asymmetrical Information, Arnold Kling, etc) that do allow comments to make an equal and opposite strawman argument.

Oh and Andrew Sullivan endorsed Kerry (and prior to that flirted with supporting a Dean-Clark ticket) so he’s one of yours (and you can have him).

Compare the number of conservatives who read and post at Kos or on Drum's blog (next to none) to the number of liberals who read and post here or at Tacitus .... it's often more than half the posts. The fundamental difference between the left and the right often seems to be that the left is interested in knowing and understanding the other point of view, and discussing the issues rationally, and the right simply doesn't want to hear it.

Actually – speaking as one of the editors at Tacitus – it’s probably because unlike Kos and Drum we (a) have a code of civility that allows posters to debate topics in a respectful manner (rather than the flame wars that seem to dominate many of the left-wing blogs you listed) and (b) our host wants us to post something generally more substantive rather than an inflammatory post that leads to a flame war. We encourage and generally have had better debates on our site because we set a better tone. Not that we haven’t had the latter (unfortunately) but typically they have tended to come from our more left-leaning editors IMO.

Moreover something I have noticed is that left-wing “collective” blogs tend to be rather monolithically left-wing such as Crooked Timber whereas amongst right-wing “collective” blogs such as Volokh, Tacitus, and Winds of Change we have or invite left-leaning “guest” bloggers to participate. It seems then that not only are we more receptive to debate, we go so far as to encourage by inviting the other side to come in and state their case.

AMac,

Don’t thump on IdahoEv to hard, he is far too useful too me as a straight man.

Note IdahoEv said:

Trent's original post was EXTREMELY reductionist: evil, bad Iran. Gets nukes, we will all die. Only option: invade with full force.

Sorry, Trent, the world is simply more complex than that; this isn't the kindergarden playground. I am very glad to see that a full-scale discussion has ensued.

“Reductionist?” Nope. Try much larger scale.

We are not looking at something “reductionist” here. We are looking at survival issues, not survival issues for America as a nation, but survival issues for literally billions of non-Americans.

You seem to assume that the Chinese nuclear design that A.Q. Khan was peddling somehow teleported into Pakistan via some magical method that did not involved the Chinese.

Either the Chinese nuclear weapons leak was an act of corruption or it was an act of state policy. Given the regime security surrounding nuclear weapons in Communist Regimes, Occum’s razor cuts for this being an act of policy. That would make every bit of nuclear proliferation by A.Q. Khan something that was serving China’s interests in weakening the USA around the globe.

That would also make an A. Q. Khan ISO container nuke going off inside an America a covert attack by China on an America armed with 6,000 plus nuclear weapons.

Whether this line of reasoning would be true or not is irrelevant in a post "ISO container nuked America" world. The American government would face an enraged American people who would demand that at a minimum China be disarmed of nuclear weapons because it could not be trusted not to repeat its proliferation again.

Just what form do you think that American “Stand and Deliver” ultimatum would be delivered in?

It is better for the world that we don't find out.

"That would also make an A. Q. Khan ISO container nuke going off inside an America a covert attack by China on an America armed with 6,000 plus nuclear weapons."

Actually that would make it a covert attack on America by Pakistan.

Or are we not allowed to point out that Pakistan isn't the swell ally they're made out to be?

Has anyone yet been able to ask Khan about any of this?

Is that the fault of China as well?

While discourse on matters of foreign policy is normally beneficial, it seems to me that America's historical flaw is that we tend to discourse too long and, in doing so, provide our adversaries ample time to strengthen the military forces that, ultimately, are used against us. As an example, twice in the last century America essentially ignored the rise of fervent German nationalism and, once apparent, we continued to debate it's future ambitions while it's militarism proceeded unchecked. The result of this tragic mistake was that, ultimately, our forces faced a much stronger adversary than they otherwise would have had America instead have found the resolve to initiate a first strike, at the very dawn of German militarism.

Considering the potential consequences of a nuclear strike on our homeland, and considering that this strike could well be delivered via a shipping container or another, low-tech method undetectable by our missile warning systems, it seems to me that further debate on this topic is rather moot. If the state of Iranian nuclear technology is, in fact, on the threshold of success, America simply cannot afford to repeat the mistake of procrastinating again. We must strike before Iran obtains nuclear weaponry and do so in the exact manner that Israel dealt with Iraq's nuclear menace: employ airpower to destroy their nuclear facilities. Had Israel not found the foresight and resolve to do this, Saddam Hussein might well be in control of the Kuwaiti oil fields today.

#21 Mark Buehner

Yes, I am also amazed that some people really cannot decide whether they fear Bush or Khameini more.

When the mullahs oppress women, some will say that it's not our problem. Fair enough. But when Iran supports terrorists who kill Jews, are they really still indifferent? How about when those same terrorists killed American Marines in Lebanon, or took our diplomats hostage? And when the Iranian regime wages war on our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, the moonbats pretend not to notice. And now Iran is building nuclear weapons, and the moonbats only scream about is that BUSH is a threat to peace? That level of evasion is almost beyond belief.

That reminds me of how the terrorists really can win. There are a lot of childishly irresponsible peaceniks right now. After the next really big attack on America, many of them would finally wake up and recognize the threat. But there will be others who never will. No matter how many thousands or tens of thousands of Americans perish, some Mooreons will still blame America and excuse the terrorists. After the next big one, I doubt that there will be much tolerance for such traitors. So while terrorists could never force America to submit militarily, they could touch off a devestating civil war. That's there best hope.

This is somewhat sad: I thought that moderate Muslims had 30-50 years to prevent the destruction of Islam, now it looks like 6- 8 months. I won't mind the passing of Islam, but the self-loathing caused by the numbers of burned dead bodies will warp Western Civilisation for 100 years.

"That reminds me of how the terrorists really can win. There are a lot of childishly irresponsible peaceniks right now. After the next really big attack on America, many of them would finally wake up and recognize the threat."

I thought the whole point was to prevent future attacks on America. You seem to be anxiously awaiting one to both prove your point on foreign policy and provide a parting shot to other commenters.

So I guess the question is, how long will it take (your plan for global conquest of terrorism and terrorist states) and how can we prevent attacks in the mean time.

By my count, we have a core issue with 8 to 10 countries including Iraq, Iran Syria, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan (once the US well dries up) Sudan and others.

It's an unfair comparative data point, but we should be able to use the populations of both Afghanistan and Iraq to determine just how much time and treasure (and blood) will be required to change that situation in each country.

Do the math. We've started on but haven't finished either of the first two, Afghanistan and Iraq. And they represent the small side of both the threat and their ability to defend against us.

So, say 75 years? One hundred?

A grand undertaking to be sure. But wait, it gets better.

You can't tackle Saudi Arabia without a whole new group of populations getting into the fray.

So where does that leave you? 150 years of constant deployments and losses? 200? Doesn't sound outlandish to me at all.

If you want to undertake such a daunting task I'd say that points to both a true "big picture" spirit on your part as well at a total lack of understanding of what it will take. Additionally, you'd have to sell the American public on the idea. And that will be much harder now that the "imminent threat" angle has been tossed out of the equation.

To sum up I'll say this. Anyone suggesting a military solution to this problem hasn't grasped either the scope of the problem, nor the willingness of the public to address it given realistic expectations of what that will require (a massive tax increase and a draft).

"Do the math. We've started on but haven't finished either of the first two, Afghanistan and Iraq. And they represent the small side of both the threat and their ability to defend against us."

The one killed 3000 of our finest citizens and cost our economy hundreds of billions of dollars. The other was tying down thousands of our troops at a cost of billions more, including forcing us to base in Saudi Arabia which further inflamed our enemies, and also kiss the rears of every surrounding regime indefinately. If those were the small side threats, we started none too soon.

"So where does that leave you? 150 years of constant deployments and losses? 200? Doesn't sound outlandish to me at all."

Sounds like the last 200 years. Welcome to the human race.

"To sum up I'll say this. Anyone suggesting a military solution to this problem hasn't grasped either the scope of the problem, nor the willingness of the public to address it given realistic expectations of what that will require (a massive tax increase and a draft)."

Anyone who makes such a rash generalization probably hasnt taken the time to debate or read those on the other side who have a clue what they are talking about. And moreover is engaging in pointless hyperbole where the same solution is used on every situation, and also where previous solution have no positive affect going forward (democracy in the region, scaring the crap out of tyrants). Fortunately in the real world such nonserious thinking counts for little amongst those looking for legitimate strategies.

That's quite an elaborate strawman you'be built there, Davebo. You try to refute the claim that we could invade and occupy every single country that is a major source of Islamic terrorism. Yet nobody here has made any such claim, or even implied that such a thing would be desirable.

It seems to me the only realistic choice we have, given the situation, is a nuclear pre-emptive strike of our own. Consider:
1. We are too stretched thin with our conventional forces - we cannot, within the next calendar year, have enough armed forces to defeat the Iranian regular and revolutionary guard forces; occupy the country; search and destroy all nuclear facilities; and then prevent a new Iranian government from starting over, which we would have to do. We could seriously damage the Iranians conventionally, we could not stop them.
2. The consequences of an Iranian terrorist nuke in a US city is not acceptable: millions dead, tens of millions injured, massive economic losses, etc.
3. If we were to be attacked, we would have no choice but to respond with nuclear weapons: There would be no time for anything else, and the threat of continued nuclear bombs in cities would cause mass panic, so forget about mobilization for conventional war.
4. So, since nuclear weapons are our only hope, why wait? Yes, I KNOW what nuclear strikes will do to the people of Iran, but it's them or us. The Government of Iran has openly expressed it's hate of the US and intention to destroy us; we know from history that if someone says he plans to kill you, you better believe him!
5. As for the world's reaction - who cares? Most of the world hates us anyway, we have little good will to lose. In any event, it's better to be alive and feared than dead and pitied.

Trent, i don't think this is strictly true--
We don't have time for anything but main force ground invasion to work.

And BattleofthePyramids, i doubt we'll do a first nuclear strike.

But, we could employ Agressive Deterrent, like Josh Marshall said.
We know where the suspected sites are, and have informed site models for all of them. We should extend an ultimatem requiring not just the inspection but the relinquishment of all nuclear materials related to weaponry. If they do not comply we bomb the [more]easily accesible targets first with conventional bombs. And then we ask again.
Trent is right about the pressure building on the Iranian regime-- they are desperate to acquire nuclear weaponry which they reguard as a magic bullet that will enable them to retain power. The flow of religious Shi'ia back and forth to Najaf in newly democratic Iraq will be a nightmare for their control of the population. Nothing but the application of direct and consistant force will sway them in the slightest.

Some of the options proposed here aren't options at all, because they are impossible--impossible for US domestic political reasons is just a long-winded way of saying fuggetaboutit.

* Nuclear first strike against Iran isn't going to happen. Morality aside.

On the "Left" (I don't know what that term represents any more, so I'll use Transnational Progressivist), the most common shortcoming is Vision. Advocating talking or negotiations is fine, but what are the bases of the give-and-take? What are we willing to offer to give up that the mullahs want? What is it that we are expecting them to give up, and how will we know that they follow through?

What the mullahs want is clear from their statements and actions:

* noninterference in domestic affairs (jackboot in the face of (Persian) humanity, forever),
* Western acceptance of Iran as the regions predominant, nuclear-armed power,
* the Middle East free of Western (American/Christian/infidel) forces and influence, and
* the destruction of Israel.

How can any of these four goals be made to comport with the practical or moral dimension of US foreign policy? If they can't, what, exactly, can we expect to result from negotiations?

What the Right downplays is the Law of Unexpected Consequences with respect to military actions. In particular:

* Airstrikes won't get all, or even most, of the components of the Iranian weapons program. We don't know where they are, they're hardened and dispersed, etc. Strikes can thus delay, somewhat, the day of Iranian nuclear capability, but no more.
* Given Iranian nationalism and national pride in Iranian nuclear aspirations, military action will provoke a groundswell of popular support for the mullahs. It will cripple the anti-mullah reform forces within Iran.
* The US has the ability to conduct a successful ground invasion of Iran. The cost would be stripping troops from Iraq while alienating many Iraqi Shi'ias, thus turning that country into the "Million Mogadishus" that some TPs hoped for from the onset.
* The US does not have the military ability or the domestic political cohesion to occupy and pacify Iran a la Japan-or-Germany. Anarchy and/or some form of dictatorship would be the likely result.
* The US would have to contend with Vietnam/Korea magnitudes of casualties, at a minimum.

The discussion in these Comments about MAD and deterrence is thought-provoking. Plausible deniability via cutouts is an inherently attractive strategy, and it's one the mullahs have used successfully against the US (Hezbollah and the Lebanon bombings, current espionage and support of insurgents in Iraq, IRGC support of and sanctuary for Al Qaeda). Of course they will continue to use it where they think it will help accomplish policy; inevitably they will incorporate it into their nuclear war-fighting doctrine. Who, in their shoes, would be so stupid as to fire a missile with a ZIP+4 return address, when a shipping container will do?

An ultimatum (private? public?) that any 'mysterious' detonation on US soil will lead to the automatic destruction of an Iranian target (Tehran? Qom? Bushehr? Bandar Abbas?) is a suggestion that has a lot of merit. But it has drawbacks too.

* Morality - the interminable New Yorker "Fate of the Earth" writings of Orville Schell are as good an accounting of the problems of deterrence as any.
* Freedom of action falls to the mullahs. They are free to murder X million Americans, if the cost/benefit analysis is acceptable to them.
* "Let's you and him fight"--Al Qaeda or other Saudi-affiliated Wahibbis would be only too happy to detonate a stolen nuke on American soil, if it meant that their Shi'ia rivals would get plastered in return. As pointed out earlier in the comments, the Chinese Politburo has had a large role to play in the way these developments are playing out, and they clearly see the 21st century as a struggle between China and the United States.

I wish I had fewer brickbats to throw against those proposing solutions, and more fixes of my own to suggest. Sorry Trent and fellow commenters...

"We are too stretched thin with our conventional forces - we cannot, within the next calendar year, have enough armed forces to defeat the Iranian regular and revolutionary guard forces; occupy the country; search and destroy all nuclear facilities; and then prevent a new Iranian government from starting over, which we would have to do."

Why would we have to do that? Our immediate goal isnt the destruction of the regime militarilly. It is the delay (and destruction if possible) of the nuclear program. That doesnt require any of those things. We dont need to destroy every, or even almost every facility.
Look at it like this: you are building a house and i am trying to stop you. I dont have to kill every contractor, smash every fixture, burn the frame to ash, and hammer the foundation to rubble to accomplish that. If I blew up your concrete mixer, you'd be out of business for a while. If i stole your roofing tiles, kidnapped your electrians, spiked your 2×4s, any number of things and you wouldnt be able to proceed with building your house for a long while. A nuclear weapon is much, much more complicated. 100 tomahawk missiles would set back the program some arbitrary number of months, and we could do that till the stars burn out without risking a single American life.

"We could seriously damage the Iranians conventionally, we could not stop them."

We could delay their program indefinately, and threaten to bring their economy to its knees if there are any reprisals. Without an economy and with missiles raining down at periodic intervals, Iran cannot field a nuclear weapon, much less an arsenal.

AMac, you are making good points, but I tend to agree with Mark.

Airstrikes won't get all, or even most, of the components of the Iranian weapons program.
Thass ok. Definitely we'll triage and hit the sites with the less civilian casualties. To start.

Given Iranian nationalism and national pride in Iranian nuclear aspirations, military action will provoke a groundswell of popular support for the mullahs.
I would say may provoke. Do you have sentiment polls to support your will? Of course, the demands must be issued through our new compliant UN mouthpiece, reformed Kofi.

Look, this is an evolving game strategy. I'm sure the guys behind the doors are gaming this as we speak. We can combine Agressive Deterrent with another strategy called Shake-n-Bake, where you "shake up" the adversary, and then "bake" them with an intensive propaganda campaign. There's a lot of stuff we can do, but I agree strongly with Trent-- if we don't do something, Iran is going to be in Club Nuke.

Another point against deterrence: a nuclear Iran would not have to target the US to inflict serious damage. Light off a series of container-nukes in certain key points in Europe, Asia, the Gulf, and wave the world economy bye-bye. And the politics of retaliation get very awkward.

If China or faction therein is linked to Iran, that could have serious implication for the dollar and US bond markets also. But I would expect Chinese leadership, apart from hypothetical nutcases, to be very chary of economic damage: if the world economy sinks, odds are high of massive disorder in coastal China.
Why would the Chinese play such an insanely high-risk game?
Though if this nasty version of the scenario is correct, an additional problem comes to mind: what about the related mischief potential of N. Korea?

Timing's everything. If Iran does not get nuclear weapons within a couple of years then the problem likely goes with the mullahs.

Several people have pointed out that a bombing attack on Iran coudn't possibly destroy all of Iran's nuclear program. After further review, I need to ask: does it matter?

As I picture it, a nuclear weapons program is like a stream (or a most, a collection of streams). The production process starts with purifying uraniam, combining it chemically for enrichment, doing the actual enrichment, extracting the enriched uranium, and making it into a bomb. If any point in the stream is dammed, the downstream production dries up. So while it might be nice to destroy the whole program, we would inflict a significant delay just by getting most of it.

The other point is that Iran can of course rebuild, no matter how many facilities we destroy. The most important infrastructure is not physical, but intellectual. We should be serious about attacking the personel who make up the program. Perhaps that would mean killing some, but more often it would mean things like encouraging defections.

The cliche is true: there are few permanent verdicts of history. We shouldn't expect to find a magic bullet that will keep us safe from Iranian nuclear weapons forever. What we can do is pick a reasonable goal - both worth achieving and obtainable at minimal risk and cost. A bombing campaign could be done without a huge increase in the size of our military or wrecking the Army Reserve. It would probably set back the Iranians by at least five years. We can do a lot with five years.

I see lots of comments about nuking Iran back to the stone age should one of their (coming soon to a theatre near you!) nukes explode in one of our cities.

I don't think a full-scale nuclear retaliation is necessary in order to bring Iran to its knees. I don't see the morality in killing tens of millions of innocent people due to the actions of their corrupt, unelected and evil government.

We could bring down Iran's entire military in about 30 minutes, with no loss of life. Ditto for their government and infrastructure.

The US Air Force has in its possession dozens of powerful EMP devices that could easily be mounted on ICBMs. In fact, I'll bet some of our missiles are already equipped with these devices. It would take just one to instantly destroy every single electronic device within a 300-mile radius of Tehran. No computers, no electricity, no radios, no TV, no tanks, no aircraft. Nothing that they need to wage war or generate revenue would be available to them.

You watch too much Star Trek, my friend. An 'EMP' device is also known as a nuclear warhead.

I don't watch Star Trek, and despite your snarky comment you know exactly what I mean.

Lou Minatti (#48) wrote:

I don't see the morality in killing tens of millions of innocent people due to the actions of their corrupt, unelected and evil government.

There, in a nutshell, is the moral problem of deterrence. Once it fails, killing tens of millions is all that we are left with.

In practical terms, we know this, and they know that we know. The side that acts first presents the other with a fait accompli. And certain third parties will be sorely tempted by this situation.

Figuring out better alternatives was a consuming think-tank pasttime of the Cold War. Plus ca change.

This is from the Janes Information group web site and it is a 06 Dec 2004 dated article:

http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/jdw/jdw041206_1_n.shtml

Tehran altering ballistic missile

By Andrew Koch JDW Bureau Chief Washington, DC

Robin Hughes JDW Deputy News Editor London

Additional reporting by Alon Ben-David, JDW Correspondent Tel Aviv

As the controversy over whether Iran is conducting a secret nuclear weapons programme gathers momentum, new details are emerging about Tehran's ballistic missiles likely to carry such weapons.

The mostly likely delivery system, a liquid-fuelled medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM), referred to in the US as the Shahab 3A, has been flight-tested several times in the past few months.

The Paris-based Iranian opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), in London on 2 December, claimed that Tehran, under what it alleged to be a " wider clandestine programme," is developing a new medium-range ballistic missile called the Ghadr-101. US intelligence officials believe the Ghadr 101 is the same as the Shahab 3A.

However,Uzi Rubin, former director of Israel's Ballistic Missile Defence Organisation told JDW: "It appears that there are two competing teams in Iran working on its future medium-range ballistic missile. The version that was recently tested [in August] and presented in public already deserves the title Shahab 4, as it is completely different from the previous Shahab 3. Everything but the propulsion system was changed, the range was increased, as well as the re-entry vehicle."

The missile has a modified nose section allowing it to hold a larger warhead and thus provide additional room for a nuclear device. Israeli officials have said the larger nose section is capable of separation and visually appears similar to that used on the Russian SS-9 intercontinental ballistic missile. "It is not a copy of a known missile but the new Shahab has a major-league design. It's clear that it is the work of seasoned missile engineers, probably Russian, rather than an experimental beginners," version, added Rubin.

Such extra room is vital as Iranian nuclear engineers would face major technical challenges in making the country's first nuclear weapon light enough and small enough to fit on its existing missiles, particularly without benefit of having conducted full-scale nuclear weapons tests. The weapon is believed by US officials to be an indigenous design although knowledge gained from blueprints of a working, but too large nuclear weapon, provided by the Pakistani nuclear scientist AQ Khan would be helpful to the effort. If true, the efforts would signify that Iran is further advanced in its nuclear weapons programme than previously known.

Tick tock goes the nuclear clock...the only solution to the Iranian nuclear weapons dilemma is regime change via American military ground invasion and occupation.

See below:

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050202/D880K5VG1.html

Iran Says It Will Never Scrap Nuke Program

Feb 2, 4:15 PM (ET)

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran will never scrap its nuclear program, and talks with Europeans are intended to protect the country's nuclear achievements, not negotiate an end to them, an Iranian official said Wednesday.

The remarks by Ali Agha Mohammadi, spokesman of Iran's powerful Supreme National Security Council, are the latest in a hardening of his country's stance amid ongoing talks with European negotiators. They also reflect Tehran's possible frustration at the lack of progress.
Europe is pressing Iran for concessions on its nuclear program, which the United States claims is aimed at producing atomic weapons. In exchange for nuclear guarantees, the Europeans are offering Iran technological and financial support and talks on a trade deal.

"We have the power to negotiate because we keep our (nuclear) achievements in our hands and we are negotiating to protect them," Mohammadi said Wednesday. "It's definite that we will protect our scientific achievements as a basic pillar, whether talks make progress or not."

Mohammadi's comments came a day after Iran's vice president, Gholamreza Aghazadeh, called on the Europeans to speed up the talks, amid reports that negotiations are deadlocked.

Aghazadeh, who also serves as head of Iran's atomic energy organization, suggested Iran was not happy with the progress of the talks, telling reporters: "We have to take the negotiations seriously and accelerate them."

European officials acknowledged the complexity of the negotiations, but said talks were going at a good pace and a diplomatic solution remained on track.

The talks have been carried out against a backdrop of U.S. warnings. In January, President Bush reaffirmed his support for a diplomatic settlement, but said he would not take any option off the table, including a possible military strike.

A summary of the negotiations that was leaked last week showed Europe had made little progress in convincing Iran to make permanent its temporary suspension of uranium enrichment activities, although negotiators said the atmosphere at the talks has improved recently.
Uranium enriched to low grades is used for fuel in nuclear reactors, but further enrichment makes it suitable for atomic bombs. The United States and other countries fear Iran seeks to enrich uranium not to the low level needed to generate power, as it claims, but to a weapons-grade that could become the core for a nuclear warhead.

While not prohibited from enrichment under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Iran suspended uranium enrichment and all related activities in November to build trust, reduce international suspicions and avoid U.N. Security Council sanctions. Tehran has said it will decide within three months whether to continue its suspension, which is monitored by U.N. nuclear inspectors.

Mark Buehner and Jacksonian Retribution are correct about the multi-faceted and inter-related nature of a nuclear fuel production facility. Given that, it is not necessary to entirely destroy a facility to eliminate the threat posed by it. One has only to remove any significant link in the production chain and Iran would be incapable of generating weapons-grade material. Further, there is historical precedent to substantiate this. Remember Israel's air-strike against Iraq's nuclear facility? Using conventional weapons only, Isreqal dealt a blow against Iraq's nuclear program that they were never able to recover from. While Jacksonian Retribution is quite correct that a country's intellectual capability is the most important part of it's nuclear program, it still costs billions of dollars and years of work to repair a seriously damaged nuclear facility. That would buy us some time, a few years, at least, which is the best we can currently hope for. An ground invasion of Iran or, worse yet, a US launched nuclear strike, would inflame the entire Islamic world and pose consequences, both foreseeable and unforeseeable, that would seriously threaten our future ability to import oil from the region. With regard to some of the other options posed above, even a cursory study of world history shows that a policy of appeasement almost never works and, typically, only provides more time for an adversary to organize. The French attempts to appease Nazi Germany are a prime example, as they were invaded by Germany before the ink on the agreements they signed with Germany were dry. Likewise, the policy of mutual assured destruction (MAD)may have worked with the USSR, whose basic orientation was political in nature, but I question whether it will work against an adversary whose primary motivation is so religious in nature that the promise of martyrdom brings suicide bombers out in droves.

However, the most salient point of this discussion is, I believe, that which Trent Telenko alluded to: there is definitely a Chinese connection to the Middle Eastern nuclear proliferation problem. The nuclear weapons possessed by both Pakistan and North Korea are of Chinese design and, presumably, Pakistani scientist A. H. Kahn obtained them with the knowlege and consent of the Chinese government. China is also a signatory to military alliance agreements with Middle Eastern countries that lay along the sea routes through which their oil, as well as our own, must pass. They have already established joint bases and stationed military forces at strategic points along this route as well. To my way of thinking, this is clearly indicative of their willingness to one day confront the US directly in defense of their oil supply and, through the dispensation of a tested and proven nuclear weapon design to Pakistan, North Korea and now, quite possibly, Iraq, via surrogates to boot. In view of this, I see no option for the US other than to increase our military presense in Iraq, Kuqait, Afganistan and Turkey, to help counter the Chinese Middle Eastern strategic advance and their new attempts to form an alliance with Russia. We must also eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat before it actually exists.

Trent, you should make the mullah's stop their nuclear program if you want regime change in Iran. It is about their only popular policy and any really democratic regime would instantly restart it.

I live in Durango, Co. Not a primary target of mad mullahs. Nevertheless, I don't see what else, other than the threat of assured nuclear anihilation, will convince the mullahs to not nuke us. That is the point of deterrence- to stop us from getting nuked. I am not considering diplomacy here. I don't think it is going to work. I hope I am wrong.

"If you are John K Mullah and your office is under seige, why not hand a bomb over to your Al Qaeda buddy to use as he sees fit? You arent gonna haev to worry about the consequences."

Well, yes you would. John K Mullah gets nuked if any bomb goes off, whether it's his or not. This is why the Soviets never shared nuclear weapons. Because they knew they would get it if anyone else nuked the US. I agree that Iranian nuclear weapons would make it harder to put military or diplomatic pressure on the regime there. However, that pressure isn't doing much anyway. And our military options aren't going to improve any time soon.

Look at the US Army. Look at what's left after taking into account what is in Iraq, getting ready to go to Iraq, and recovering from Iraq. There just isn't much left. Iran is big, and more populous than Iraq.

Can we bomb them? Sure. Did bombing ever work? Well, it got Serbia to back down over Kosovo. But there is some evidence than Slobo was more afraid of a ground invasion than bombing. Bombing Iraq didn't accomplish much. Besides, the Iranians have buried everything by now.

We could bomb their oil industry, and blockade their oil exports. This could work. Problem is, Iran accounts for 12% of the world's daily oil production. So, we'd have an oil price shock. Is it worth it?

Finally, bombing might not work. These guys could hold out like Saddam did. Without invading, we can't really force them to do anything. How long would this go on? How long before France and China and Russia break the blockade? Are we willing to sink a French or Chinese ship that's moving Iranian oil?

So, we're back to deterrence. We did it for forty years. There is a lot of opposisiton to the return of MAD here. I can't say I blame you. People back in the 50's hated it, too. The problem then was that no one wanted to go to war with the USSR to stop them from having the bomb. That looks like the situation here. I don't like mullahs, but I didn't like communists either. In the long term, will the mullahs last? I doubt it. Do they look like they are gonna be around in thirty years? Yeah, right. Will they nuke us before they go? I don't know. I do know that letting them know that the worst possible retaliation is waiting for them is the biggest threat we have.

So, if we get nuked, Iran gets it. Maybe North Korea, too. I don't see an alternative. Iran should be told this, and they can decide if having nuclear weapons is worth the risk. Maybe they'll get nuked by mistake. They need to think really hard about whether distributing bombs or technology is worth ending 3000 years of Persian civilization. Is prestige worth that much?

This is some really heartless, 1950's era deterrence strategy. It was nice not to have to think like this in the 90's, but we're back to the reality of nuclear weapons and everything they entail. We cannot conquer every country that builds a bomb. I wish we could, but we can't.

Sorry, Amac, I somehow missed your post.

"* Morality - the interminable New Yorker "Fate of the Earth" writings of Orville Schell are as good an accounting of the problems of deterrence as any."

Yup. Agreed. MAD sucks.

• Freedom of action falls to the mullahs. They are free to murder X million Americans, if the cost/benefit analysis is acceptable to them.

Yes. It falls to us to make killing X million Americans VERY unattractive. Procaliming MAD is not completely reactive. It does force the mullahs to acknowledge a very nasty reality.

• "Let's you and him fight"--Al Qaeda or other Saudi-affiliated Wahibbis would be only too happy to detonate a stolen nuke on American soil, if it meant that their Shi'ia rivals would get plastered in return.

Well, my assumption is that only state actors like Iran will have a bomb. This could be incorrect, but given the expense of making one, and the care countries take to keep track of them, I think it is reasonable. I am sure many disagree. This can work for us, however. We say, "Look, do you want to be nuked because some Al-Queda jerks manage to get lucky? Do you feel lucky?"

"I wish I had fewer brickbats to throw against those proposing solutions, and more fixes of my own to suggest. Sorry Trent and fellow commenters."

Nah. Good points.

John:

The strategy of mutually assured destruction did indeed work with the Soviets. However, I think that it is dangerous to assume, by extension, that it will also work with the mullahs. The atheistic Soviets had a lot to loose and nothing to gain from a US nuclear strike but, with the mullahs, theology enters the equation. No one is more assured of physical destruction than the Islamic suicide bombers, yet the after-life rewards of the Islamic theology promises great spiritual gains that, apparently, outweigh their concern for their lives. Fear of assured destruction did not mean much to the 9/11 attackers and I fear that it isn't going to be much of a motivation to the mullahs either. I therefore feel that it is safer, for us, to be pre-emptive in dealing the nuclear ambitions of Iran.

"Well, yes you would. John K Mullah gets nuked if any bomb goes off, whether it's his or not. "

Not if they are headed for exile in Paris or about to be strung up by angry Iranian students. Thats the point. We are talking about religious zealots. If they ever lose power how can you possibly predict they wont go down in flames? You would have to assume they would try, and hence we would be forced to work against their overthrow.

"This is why the Soviets never shared nuclear weapons. Because they knew they would get it if anyone else nuked the US."

How did the Chinese get their nukes again?

"I agree that Iranian nuclear weapons would make it harder to put military or diplomatic pressure on the regime there. However, that pressure isn't doing much anyway. And our military options aren't going to improve any time soon."

I'll turn it around, a nonnuclear armed Iran with American troops on both sides is still the biggest terrorism sponser in the world. What will they do with their nuclear get out of jail free card? See the history of the Soviet Union for the answer.

"Look at the US Army. Look at what's left after taking into account what is in Iraq, getting ready to go to Iraq, and recovering from Iraq. There just isn't much left. Iran is big, and more populous than Iraq."

Immaterial.

"Can we bomb them? Sure. Did bombing ever work? "

Many, many times. Most importantly perhaps the Israel bombing of Iraqs nuclear program.

"Well, it got Serbia to back down over Kosovo. But there is some evidence than Slobo was more afraid of a ground invasion than bombing. Bombing Iraq didn't accomplish much. Besides, the Iranians have buried everything by now."

Slobo wasnt the one who backed down. His people got tired of living in the dark and handed him over. And our bombs go through ground.

"We could bomb their oil industry, and blockade their oil exports. This could work. Problem is, Iran accounts for 12% of the world's daily oil production. So, we'd have an oil price shock. Is it worth it? "

Yeh. It is. Whatever the cost its a fraction of what it would cost Iran. For us its an irritation, for Iran its a death blow. Thats why its a great threat.

"Finally, bombing might not work. These guys could hold out like Saddam did. Without invading, we can't really force them to do anything. How long would this go on? How long before France and China and Russia break the blockade? Are we willing to sink a French or Chinese ship that's moving Iranian oil?"

Bombing will work well enough. Threatening the infastructure will be enough in all likelyhood.

"So, we're back to deterrence."

I dont think so.

"We did it for forty years."

Against completely different enemies. Nonsuicidal ones. As we all know, trying to fight the last war is invitation to disaster.

John (#56),

Some good points. But you miss the new problem with deterrence that we didn't face with the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

1 is a workable number for deterrence. 2 (add China) still works. Even 5 (adding UK, France, Israel); these latter were all state actors and were all more allies than enemies or neutrals.

If a bomb goes off in Durango next year, here is my hurried list of plausible sources, in addition to those listed above:

Ukraine, Kazakhstan (former SU nukes?); Pakistan, India, Iran, North Korea. Known programs in the past: Libya, Taiwan, South Korea, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina. Also readily capable: remainder of the First World. Possible current programs: Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia. NGOs with designs on weapons: AQ/IIF and ...?

This is not our fathers' deterrence. It can't work. Mysterious detonations and "Let's you and him fight" are too tempting and too practical.

Wretchard at The Belmont Club has some thoughtful posts on this subject in the archives.

"I don't watch Star Trek, and despite your snarky comment you know exactly what I mean."

Sorry Lou, shouldnt have been dismissive. However, i am fairly certain the device you speak of does not exist. The amount of energy required to produce a pulse large enough to fry a city is stupendous. A nuclear weapon is the only souce for that kind of power.
An E-bomb converts conventional explosives into an EMP pulse, but the effective radius isnt more than a couple hundred meters and you still have a big bomb exploding. So even if you used a bunch the collateral damage would be impressive.

The problem with deterrence is that it doesn't arrest the spread of nuclear weapons to new countries. As the number of nuclear-armed states increases, the risk of irresponsible or unauthorized use of these weapons will rise.

I'm not sure this danger can be met effectively on a case by case basis. I have proposed a more comprehensive strategy on my website below. I don't have room on my site for comments and (if it is all right with the editors) I would be grateful for any posted here.

http://members.aol.com/davidpb4/crisis.html

The article consists of three linked pages.

Here is some more "good news" via an e-mail from Tom Holsinger with the following caveats - its from an Iranian resistance group, and is published in Reuters

Iran Tests Nuclear Trigger Mechanism - Opposition
Thu Feb 3, 2005 11:27 AM ET

By Kerstin Gehmlich
PARIS (Reuters) - Iran has conducted successful experiments on a crucial triggering mechanism for a nuclear weapon, an exiled opposition group said on Thursday.

President Bush on Wednesday renewed his accusation that Iran was seeking to develop atomic weapons and called it the "world's primary state sponsor of terror."

Tehran dismisses the accusations and says its atomic ambitions are limited to the peaceful generation of electricity.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which wants to oust Iran's clerical rulers and has given accurate information on its nuclear sites in the past, said Iran was close to producing the 'neutron initiators' that spark the chain reaction in a bomb.

"Tehran has already succeeded in using beryllium in conjunction with polonium-210 for large scale laboratory testing purposes, and it is getting very close to the point of industrial production," Mohammad Mohaddessin of the NCRI told a news conference in Paris.

Diplomats have already said there is evidence that Iran has bought small quantities of beryllium and tried to buy much more, and that the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) is examining this as part of a two-year investigation of Tehran's nuclear program.

Beryllium also has many innocent uses, but Mohaddessin said Iran had not only secured significant quantities but also tried to conceal its purchases from the IAEA.

"Tehran currently has enough beryllium to produce initiators for a dozen nuclear bombs," he said.

He said the laboratory tests had been conducted at the Lavizan II site close to Tehran by experts from the Malek-Ashtar Industrial university, which is run by the Defense Ministry.

Germany, France and Britain, acting for the European Union, have been urging Iran to permanently scrap the uranium enrichment that could give it the potential to make nuclear explosives in return for political and economic incentives.

Washington takes a harder line and wants Iran to be reported to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.

The NCRI is a coalition of exiled opposition groups. The State Department lists it and its armed wing, the People's Mujahideen, as terrorist organizations.

The warhead design the Khan network supplied Iran with, calls for a payload space of 900 millimeters, in diameter, in order to house a warhead. I would love to hear how Iran is going to house a 900 millimeter diameter nuclear payload, in its Shihab 3 missile, Which is the missile that is claimed to be able to house a nuclear payload, when it only has a 600 millimeter payload diameter?

Did people not learn from the Iraqi WMD BS ?