should the West invade and/or bomb the fuck out of Iran?

behavior, it would have no incentive for restraint.

What about a pre-emptive strike of our own, like the Osirak raid? The problem is that Iran's nuclear program is now much more advanced than Iraq's was at the time of the raid. Already the U.S. government has no way of knowing exactly how many sites Iran has, or how many it would be able to destroy, or how much time it would buy in doing so. Worse, it would have no way of predicting the long-term strategic impact of such a strike. A strike might delay by three years Iran's attainment of its goal—but at the cost of further embittering the regime and its people. Iran's intentions when it did get the bomb would be all the more hostile.

Here the United States faces what the military refers to as a "branches and sequels" decision—that is, an assessment of best and second-best outcomes. It would prefer that Iran never obtain nuclear weapons. But if Iran does, America would like Iran to see itself more or less as India does—as a regional power whose nuclear status symbolizes its strength relative to regional rivals, but whose very attainment of this position makes it more committed to defending the status quo. The United States would prefer, of course, that Iran not reach a new level of power with a vendetta against America. One of our panelists thought that a strike would help the United States, simply by buying time. The rest disagreed. Iran would rebuild after a strike, and from that point on it would be much more reluctant to be talked or bargained out of pursuing its goals—and it would have far more reason, once armed, to use nuclear weapons to America's detriment.

Most of our panelists felt that the case against a U.S. strike was all the more powerful against an Israeli strike. With its much smaller air force and much more limited freedom to use airspace, Israel would probably do even less "helpful" damage to Iranian sites. The hostile reaction—against both Israel and the United States—would be potentially more lethal to both Israel and its strongest backer.

A realistic awareness of these constraints will put the next President in an awkward position. In the end, according to our panelists, he should understand that he cannot prudently order an attack on Iran. But his chances of negotiating his way out of the situation will be greater if the Iranians don't know that. He will have to brandish the threat of a possible attack while offering the incentive of economic and diplomatic favors should Iran abandon its plans. "If you say there is no acceptable military option, then you end any possibility that there will be a non-nuclear Iran," David Kay said after the war game. "If the Iranians believe they will not suffer any harm, they will go right ahead." Hammes agreed: "The threat is always an important part of the negotiating process. But you want to fool the enemy, not fool yourself. You can't delude yourself into thinking you can do something you can't." Is it therefore irresponsible to say in public, as our participants did and we do here, that the United States has no military solution to the Iran problem? Hammes said no. Iran could not be sure that an American President, seeing what he considered to be clear provocation, would not strike. "You can never assume that just because a government knows something is unviable, it won't go ahead and do it. The Iraqis knew it was not viable to invade Iran, but they still did it. History shows that countries make very serious mistakes."

So this is how the war game turned out: with a finding that the next American President must, through bluff and patience, change the actions of a government whose motives he does not understand well, and over which his influence is limited. "After all this effort, I am left with two simple sentences for policymakers," Sam Gardiner said of his exercise. "You have no military solution for the issues of Iran. And you have to make diplomacy work."

But for the purposes most likely to interest the next American President—that is, as a tool to slow or stop Iran's progress toward nuclear weaponry—the available military options are likely to fail in the long term. A full-scale "regime change" operation has both obvious and hidden risks. The obvious ones are that the United States lacks enough manpower and equipment to take on Iran while still tied down in Iraq, and that domestic and international objections would be enormous. The most important hidden problem, exposed in the war-game discussions, was that a full assault would require such drawn-out preparations that the Iranian government would know months in advance what was coming. Its leaders would have every incentive to strike pre-emptively in their own defense. Unlike Saddam Hussein's Iraq, a threatened Iran would have many ways to harm America and its interests. Apart from cross-border disruptions in Iraq, it might form an outright alliance with al-Qaeda to support major new attacks within the United States. It could work with other oil producers to punish America economically. It could, as Hammes warned, apply the logic of "asymmetric," or "fourth-generation," warfare, in which a superficially weak adversary avoids a direct challenge to U.S. military power and instead strikes the most vulnerable points in American civilian society, as al-Qaeda did on 9/11. If it thought that the U.S. goal was to install a wholly new regime rather than to change the current regime's behavior, it would have no incentive for restraint.

oh great. thanx for the link ! i'm gonna order it right now... (should be good to watch it with some junk food !).

Turkey is kind of an Israeli ally, so they might turn a blind eye to Israeli overflights, though that would mean their reaping the hurricane of Iranian vengeance.

and anyway, is israel that apocalyptic? i would think not.
m.

israel wouldn't have to use nukes.

Clearly Iran is at least a few years away from being able to nuke Israel , and it's hard to imagine why they would. But everything I've read indicates that a nuclear Iran with advanced missile technology is just a matter of time, Iran's desire, and continued help from China, Russia, and North Korea.

They've certainly tested it, but the success of those tests is an entirely different story. There's been six tests, with only half of them attaining any degree of success. Still, I think it gives enough reason for Israel to bomb all the bomb plants and probably a few missle facilities too. I've said many times that I don't see the US doing it (and we certainly won't invade anytime in the next 10-20 years, if ever), but Israel is different.

well... what other routes could they take? Through Turkey or through Saudi Arabia, I reckon. Again, depends on range. I've lost track, do either of these American allies have US fighter planes based in them? Would either of their own air forces have the capability of taking down any Israeli bomber planes en route to Iran?

I wouldn't be surprised to see them fly over Saudi Arabia. They're not going to fly in a straight line anyhow.

They have a pretty good idea where all the facilities are. Even if they miss just one, destroying 4 or 5 others is gonna put a huge dent in the Iranian plan to build nuclear weapons. That alone will probably delay it about 3-4 years. Were Iran to respond with a nuclear weapon (I can't imagine them building a big stockpile in the next 12-18 months), what's left of Israel would flatten Iran within an hour.

Its not like Israel is the size of Rhode Island. Again, it comes down to whether or not Israel would feel comfortable that Iran has no nuclear weapons and lacks the capability to use those weapons against Israel, and right now, I think most folks feel pretty strongly that they do not (unless they've stolen them from Russia).

Invasion is insane. The gains from doing so just aren't worth it, even if there's some mild (and its just that, mild) justification. Bombing nuclear facilities? I'm a little less opposed to that. Basically only if all the diplomatic means have been exhausted. I can certainly understand why people might ask, "how come the Iranians can't have nuclear missles and we can?," but by the same token, I don't think its bright to allow them to develop a nuclear program just to follow a personal philosophy in that way. Its not an easy question to answer, and realistically, no one should try to reduce geopolitics to yes/no or true/false questions.

The article Ned posted up top is pretty damn good, though I'm not sure how we can automatically infer that the Iranians have lost any hope of making Iraq a sister state.

Iran's acquiring an atomic weapon is not a threat to the lives or safety of westerners. It is really nothing more than the Iranian's buying some insurance against an invasion of its territory or a direct military threat from the outside.

This fact would change the diplomacy of the middle east, tilting greater power and influence in the direction of the mullahs, but it would be a hell of a long way from decisive. Iran already has a fair amount of power, based on its oil income. A handful of crude nuclear bombs (kiloton, not megaton, range) mostly puts an umbrella over the real source of their power and protects it.

There is no real danger of Iran detonating one of its bombs as a first strike against the west, even if they were to use a proxy group like Hamas to conceal their responsibility. A much bigger fear would be that they leverage their ability to make bombs by signing treaties or secret agreements with other middle east oil powers that tend to weaken USA power and influence in the region.

Again, good people, this all about oil, not bombs. Oil. Oil. Oil. Oil. Oil. Black gold. Texas tea. And ultimately about the power to control the world's resources. The US military and all those grunts in Humvees are just pawns in that game.

There's other issues like the article, like its claim that the IAEA has been consistent in finding Iran to be in compliance with their rules. This, of course, is ridiculously false. The IAEA found Iran to be in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which they happened to sign, several months prior to this article's publishing. In fact, that's why Iran is going through the process of tearing those IAEA seals off and restarting their reactors, which is why this is such a big story right now.

http://www.rense.com/general59/theSunburniransawesome.htm

That Russia has even better ship-killers is not a surprise, either. Nor that they would sell them to generate cash. Our current navy is an expensive bauble that would die quickly against any especially well-equipped foe. But, just how many of these Russian missiles the Iranians own is a secret the author of that article didn't know and couldn't say. So he guesses they own gobs and gobs of them. Right.

His imaginative scenario for a decisive American military defeat by Iran in the Persian Gulf seemed like a lot of hand waving to me. If we lost that many lives and that much treasure in that short a time, the pressure to obliterate Iran would be overwhelming. Only the assurance that the USA would suffer equally in the exchange would deter a massive, explosive response.

The idea that Putin would underwrite the mullahs' adventure and put Russia's nuclear umbrella over Iran makes no sense at all. None. Zero. The scenario's picture of Putin sipping cocktails and deciding to teach the USA a lesson is, well, utter silliness from a crappy James Bond script.

In fact, come to think of it, its as if nowhere in the article is it mentioned that the US owns submarines. There's also the fact that if the US feels the carriers are so threatened, they don't need to drive them into the Persian Gulf. What, the commanders aren't going to think of that beforehand?

Israel Says It Has Proof That Iran Financed Tel Aviv Bombing, and That Syria Carried It Out

http://www.shoutwire.com/viewstory/4701/17_Year_Old_Girl_Sentenced_To_Death_By_Hanging

Islamic/Sharia law rules!

As an American I don't think we should have a death penalty at all, but the fact that we do doesn't mean we can't point out pure injustice when we see it.

I question this story as a pretext for "bombing" anyone. And I especially question it in light of the US's ramping-up of propaganda intended to soften up public opinion for a possibly imminent invasion. Ask yourself how many women were killed by state or quasi-state machinery LAST WEEK alone. Why is it this one we're hearing about?

Well, clearly not, at least not according to Amnesty, who tends to get this sort of thing right.

Yup. And Saddam Hussein was a bloodthirsty tyrant who killed his opponents, his detractors, or just about any old person he happened to find irritating. But look how wonderfully our invasion of Iraq has gone. Up for another experiment in occupation?

That has a lot to do with the fact that the drug traffic in the eastern parts of Iran aren't really regulated and because of Iran's rather arcane system of punishment. I'd guess that there's a lot more people in the Iranian system who don't serve time, but happen to be missing substantial portions of their body.

Lemme also repeat this for the thousanth time: there will not be a invasion of Iran in the forseeable future. Maybe bombing, and if so, probably by Israel, since they have the most to lose to a nuke empowered Iran. But no invasion.