Posted on 06/24/2006 1:32:23 PM PDT by IsraelBeach
Russia and china are already alligned with iran. Why do you think iran has been running off at the mouth? Countries have been choosing sides for the next war for awhile now.
BTTT
"Russia and china are already alligned with iran."
The irony is, Iran is filled with people who love America, hate their rulers, and are more receptive to the gospel than they have been for a millenium. Last I heard, Israel was not terribly friendly to the gospel.
There is NOTHING pre-emptive. Iran has been attacking American
and Israel for decades. Most IEDs killing Americans TODAY
are from Iran. This would be retaliatory, not pre-emptive.
"Why stop there, why not hit China, North Korea, and Venezuela while your at it?"
"They are not willing to blackmail the world with nuclear weapons. Iran will use its nuclear weapons to blackmail the oil producing states with its technology."
You telling me the mangy little "dear leader" isn't engaging in nuclear blackmail?
There are lots of other options. And, while they like their fiery rhetoric, the regime in Tehran has done little to suggest that they are not rational.
Apart from the ethical and strategic objections to the course of action suggested, above all I feel it would be counter-productive. Even if it didn't provoke further nuclear exchanges on a state level, I'm sure that someone would find a way of delivering retaliation in kind to Israel.
Someone said, "a nation doesn't have friends; it has allies."
Israel should not depend on "friends" to do for it what needs to be done.
They call it "survival instinct" for a reason.
A nuclear "accident" at the Iranian facilities would be a good start, but hard to do while maintaining plausible deniability.
I have no ethical objections for the use of tactical nuclear weapons especially with a nation(Iran) threatening to use nuclear weapons to make war upon her neighbors.
Israel certainly has a right to defend herself, and I myself, am ready to go stand guard on the Golan Heights to defend this island of courage in a sea of fanaticism. However, I am opposed to a preemtive nuclear attack on Iran that would turn Iran into a radioactive wasteland, and you should be too.
Considerably more rational than allowing an enemy committed to your annihilation to obtain the means to do it.
An Attack on Iran would be a major mistake. Too many Iranians have good and positive feelings about relations with the USA. Two better targets would be North Korea and/or Syria. The total wipe-out of these two rogue countries would send a message to Russia, China, Iran, etc., that if you fool with the bull, you get the horn. Not one person in the world really cares about North Korea and Syria. North Korea is an obvious target. Syria has hidden Saddam's WMD and has caused many American deaths as well as Iraqi's.
For a less rabid analysis, see:
Nuclear Proliferation and the Future of Conflict
by Martin Van Creveld
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0029331560/qid=1151183051/sr=1-14/ref=sr_1_14/002-4753117-6221614?s=books&v=glance&n=283155
From Publishers Weekly
Though the possibility of nuclear confrontation between superpowers has greatly diminished since the end of the Cold War, the possession of nuclear weapons by states whose conflicts are unresolved could turn out to be equally threatening, notes Van Creveld ( The Transformation of War ). He here considers the likelihood of conflict between North and South Korea, China and Taiwan, China and India, India and Pakistan, Israel and the Arab states, as well as the nuclear status of other countries currently developing the scientific, technological and industrial infrastructure that would enable them to build weapons of mass destruction. Van Creveld begins this academic study by describing the basic characteristics of large-scale warfare as it evolved before the introduction of nuclear weapons and the effect of the latter on both the countries that possess them and on those countries threatened by them. Finally, he assesses the impact of nuclear proliferation on the future of war itself, including the configuration of the armies that would be prepared to wage it. For specialists.
From Kirkus Reviews
A somewhat reassuring audit of the residual threat posed by nuclear weapons, from a military analyst whose previous predictions have proved chillingly prescient. With defense budgets in both the US and the erstwhile USSR in full retreat, van Creveld (History/Hebrew University, Jersusalem; The Transformation of War, 1991, etc.) focuses on the state of the atomic-arms art in a clutch of less-developed countries--China, India, Iraq, Israel, Pakistan, etc. Among other matters, his informed survey considers the impact of strategic circumstances on national nuclear policies, and provides estimates of each country's atomic inventories. For various reasons, van Creveld concludes that the use of A-bombs or their tactical equivalents by Third World nations is effectively foreclosed. In the case of Pakistan, for instance, the author contends that the development of a nuclear arsenal has made its rulers ``simultaneously more confident of themselves and less adventurous.'' Which is not to say that van Creveld believes the West to be home free. Indeed, he reiterates previous warnings as to the faltering capacity of even modern industrial powers to monopolize violence, let alone combat or contain terrorism, grass-roots insurgencies, and allied belligerencies. For the time being, however, van Creveld doesn't see any danger of nuclear holocaust at the hands of the less- developed nations. A perceptive study that affords a measure of cold comfort on the score of deterrence.
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