Comments on: Iran War Posturing

By: James Joyner

James Joyner — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 14:00:45 +0000

Barry: Iran doesn't HAVE nukes. The point is to deal with them before they do and our hands are tied.

Putin is unstable but not crazy. He's got a Muslim problem on his doorstep. A nuclear Iran is his greatest nightmare.

And, despite our inability to stop suicide bombers, we still control Iraq's airports and several military bases. It would certainly be a staging area for ground troops. Obviously, our carrier fleet off the Persian Gulf would be our primary launching pad.

By: Barry

Barry — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 13:25:25 +0000

James, Iraq is not a 'staging area' for a gound invasion of Iran. Unless you redefine 'staging area' to mean 'hostile zone'. And any rational government in Iran's place would now be at least thinking about nukes; Bush put them on his 'take-out' list, even though they sought better relations. Other countries have been alienated, making it harder to lean on Iran if we wanted to (frankly, if I were Putin, I'd be helping Iran develop nukes as a counterweight to the US).

By: Herb

Herb — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 12:36:04 +0000

The solution is to give full responsibility to Ken, Kerry, Gore Hilly Mae, Murtha, and the rest of the sorehead Democrats and help Iran get all the Nuclear Weapons they want. The result, according the the fore mentioned will be "Peace", as they see it.

The real world can then suffer the results of a Nuclear Holocaust brought on by the Islamic Extremist and enhanced by those who do not know the difference between what is good for the world and what is not.

By: Jeff Cosford

Jeff Cosford — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 06:04:40 +0000

Ken I had no idea that Iran and Ahmadinejad were such reasonable chaps. I'm sure we can all sit down to tea and cookies and well after some heartfelt discussion the Mullahs will simply relinquish their weapons development.

Ahmadinejad will of course take back that nasty bit about Armageddon and the 12Th Imam. And all we be right with the world before dinner.

Thanks I was worried that the boys in Iran might be just a little bit nuts and not give hoot about our way of life and had it in for us in any manner that they thought they could dream up. Something to do with dhimmi stuff.

After all the schools where children are taught how good it is to strap on some dynamite and walk into a crowd and poof or should I say boom.

This stuff had me worried but apparently I was on the wrong track. Thanks for setting me straight.

By: ken

ken — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 16:44:19 +0000

James, as long as Iran faces the hormonally driven hostility eminating from the Bush administration they see that they have no choice but to obtain a nuclear arsenal as a deterent to unprovoked aggression. Who can blame them?

I wish we could promise them no harm if they refrained from such a course but we cannot offer any gaurantees that Bush would not attack them anyway. Bush is insane.

And if even we cannot trust Bush, why should the Iraqies feel any different about him?

By: James Joyner

James Joyner — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 15:13:02 +0000

Iran war planning is beyond standard contingency planning, given the gravity of the threat and the comparatively narrow window before the option is forestalled. If they reach the nuclear finish line, our options are even more limited.

Nobody denies that a nuclear Iran is something to be avoided. The problem is that virtually everyone agrees there are not a lot of things we can do about it that won't create a mess.

By: legion

legion — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 14:53:39 +0000

Normally I give short shrift to such discussions as well... there's always some breathless report about how the military is 'making war plans for such-and-such'. Big whoop - as I'm sure you know, James, the military makes & revises war plans for various parts of the world all the damn time - it signifies next to nothing. But the recent murmur about debating the use of tactical (or even strategic) nukes to clear out Iran's problem areas makes me sit up a little straighter. That's the sort of policy-level debate that only the really high-level decision makers get deep into; normal OPLAN revision doesn't make new policy, it just adapts to the current policy. Also, you must admit, the things the administration is saying about Iran are exactly the same noises they made when gearing up for Iraq. And even Bush's supporters now know that decision was made in private long before it was made in public...