But I would point out that the Iranians have multiple facilities, not all of them obvious targets. Where, for example, are they storing the uranium they've already enriched? Surely not in the same place as the reactors or their centrifuges, and these are widely distributed across the country. Do we know where? Maybe. Do we know how much? Maybe. It just depends on how good the secret intelligence is, just like in Iraq, right?

My point is that any successful military intervention from this point forward will be such a massive committment that it will either need to be a joint Israeli/US venture (at the very least, I should guess, US refueling for Israeli warplanes, given the distance involved) or a US venture alone.

And that such a venture must be backed by the capacity, at least, to invade the country with ground troops. That is the current fly in the ointment.

The Iranians realize this full well, which is why they have openly announced that they will continue to enrich uranium for "peaceful purposes". And why, I suspect, our President and his advisors are not saying that much about the Bush Doctrine at the moment.

My point is that these free choices and are not made under constraint of the “hidden forces of History” or any such Buncombe.

Incorrect.

Unless, that is, you consider it not in our self-interest to pursue ustice in the world.

Nobody should even entertain the notion that one “surgical strike” by the Israelis is going to put Iranian nukes completely out of business like it did the Iraqis long ago. They have clearly learned from experience and dispersed the assets.

Again, incorrect. Dispersal as a tactic assumes there's enough material to disperse, and yet maintain weapons status should one of these sites of dispersal be taken out by bombing or whetever means are to hand.

Based on what we know it seems a safe bet that they don't have enough, either material or expertise to rebuild with any kind of speed once such a facility is taken out. I agree that all this does, mostly, is buy time, but isn't that the idea?

My point is that these free choices and are not made under constraint of the "hidden forces of History" or any such Buncombe.

And they should be made with rational consideration of results. It is my considered opinion that the invasion of Iraq was undertaken without such rational evaluation and has produced no serious change in the region that benefits either Israel or us.

Not only that, it severely limits further military choices which might benefit Israel or us. About one-half of our ground combat forces are tied up between Iraq and Afghanistan--not surprising since we have built our military to take on only two wars at once.

So where does that leave either Israel or the US in relation to Iranian nuclear ambitions?

Nobody should even entertain the notion that one "surgical strike" by the Israelis is going to put Iranian nukes completely out of business like it did the Iraqis long ago. They have clearly learned from experience and dispersed the assets.

There is more to war than merely talking tough and dropping ordinance. And there is more to foreign policy than merely making thoughtless war.

You could wrap your bit of constructive conciousness around these ideas with great profit.

Sorry, I won't be marching in your parade, thank you.

No they are not.

They are all choices our leaders have made for us and could work to unmake. The illusion that these choices are inevitable stem from the bad habit we have here of making choices in foreign policy without involvement of the voting public and then wrapping those choices in the American Flag to sanctify them before burial.

The real meaning of the sequence of events in Iraq is that, for once, the completely voluntary nature of our foriegn policy choices was revealed in all its nakedness.

This was the war we didn't have to fight. This was the war that the devil didn't make us do. This was the war that contributed absolutely nothing to any sane and reasonable conception of our "national interest". This was the war that has created an unthinkable mountain of debt for the sake of toppling and capturing one tin-horn dictator and nothing else.

But at least we succeeded in toppling and capturing him.

The irony is that the Iraq war, framed in neo-con terms, is a bit of a failure thus far. However, framed in realist terms, it's an unmitigated success.

Finally, as for destroying the enemy without alienating the broader population, it seems to me that we don't need to immediately win the hearts and minds of the Arab street, but instead convince them that our war against this global islamic jihad is their war too -- at that point, they may not love us, but they'll let us do what needs to be done.