Comments on: What Would Critics Have Done Differently in Iran?

By: Joseph Marshall

Joseph Marshall — Fri, 23 Jul 2004 21:50:55 +0000

What is NOT speculation, but fact, is the degree to which the invasion Iraq has undermined our current military readiness, and undermined it far longer, I think, than the President and his cohorts anticipated, and this with no good reason.

Maybe Iran won't become a nuclear problem, maybe the fundamentalist government will implode, though I don't think that alternative is likely.

But if it DOES become a problem, we will not be able to solve it with the overwhelming military force we used in Iraq. Such force is not going to be available for quite a long time, much longer, I suspect, than it would take Iran to achieve operational warheads.

By: Boyd

Boyd — Fri, 23 Jul 2004 17:17:08 +0000

From my viewpoint, Joseph, the circular reasoning is yours, but both perspectives (left and right) depend on speculation rather than fact. Krauthammer believes that Iran would be in the same place in their efforts to achieve a nuclear capability, and you believe that they wouldn't have bothered if we hadn't invaded Iraq, or at least wouldn't have worked so hard at it.

But who's to say? No one, not Krauthammer, not you, not John Kerry, not Richard Clarke, not Condoleezza Rice, not George Bush, nobody knows which is correct. There are no facts from which to draw a conclusion. There is only speculation and conjecture.

By: Attila Girl

Attila Girl — Fri, 23 Jul 2004 13:38:22 +0000

Being next door to a democratic country is going to exert a lot of pressure on the Mullahs from within. The theocracy may collapse of its own weight.

By: Joseph Marshall

Joseph Marshall — Fri, 23 Jul 2004 12:55:02 +0000

"Well, of course Iran is a threat and a danger. But how exactly would the critics have "done" Iran? Iran is a serious country with a serious army. Compared to Iraq, an invasion of Iran would have been infinitely more costly."

Exactly. We invaded Iraq solely BECAUSE it was not a serious threat and it looked like a pushover. How else could we have obtained the wonderful (and so politically useful) "Mission Accomplished" photo-op?

Iraq has not proved to be such a pushover in the long run, draining billions from our treasury and obliterating, as matters now stand, any pretence of miltary readiness to even deal with an immanent Iranian threat.

Since we have also promulgated a Bush Doctrine which states we will invade anybody we please at any time we have the force available, it was the exact stimulus nature ordered to push Iran to go nuclear as quickly as possible while our military options are mostly hamstrung.

So, of course, by now our options for dealing with the situation are rather limited.

What a wonderful example of circular reasoning.