'Bush may strike Iran near end of term'

Maybe he meant a deliverable nuke? If it isnt deliverable it cant be used as a weapon. Good point though and thanks for the link. I dont know if this promise has been broken or not, if not he probably doesnt have much time to keep it.

The 2006 North Korean nuclear test was the detonation of a nuclear device conducted on October 9, 2006 by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. North Korea announced its intention to conduct a test on October 3, six days prior.[1] The blast is estimated to have had an explosive force of less than one kiloton, and some radioactive output was detected.[2][3] United States officials suggested the device may have been a nuclear explosive that misfired.[2] An anonymous official at the North Korean Embassy in Beijing told a South Korean newspaper that the explosive output was smaller than expected.[4] Due to the secretive nature of North Korea and small yield of the test, there remains some question as to whether it was an unusually small successful test, or a partially failed "fizzle" or dud.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_North_Korean_nuclear_test

Really - then who do you propose is responsible for this debacle? Sharpton? It came down to CENTCOM wanting a force of 300,000+ troops that would be required to seal the borders and bring order to the country vs. Rumsfeld's obsession with replicating the light-and-fast operation in Afghanistan. This is about Bush blindly trusting Rumsfeld,who wouldn't listen to his own generals on the ground (Franks, Shinseki, McKiernan, Abizaid, etc.) who warned that the aftermath would become untenable without a standard force. Now we're stuck with BEGGING Congress to please let us send an additional 25,000 troops when they would have already been there in even greater numbers if CENTCOM had its way.

In fact, the plans for administrating the country in the aftermath wasn't assigned to CENTCOM until roughly four months before the invasion. CENTCOM was told from the beginning that the State Dept. was going to draw up the plans, and then Rumsfeld took it back from State and foisted it on CENTCOM as they were immersed in finalizing all the loose ends on the war plans. So Phase IV (the occupation) wasn't even on the drawing board until Winter '02. Once we won the war, Bremer assumed power and proceeded to dismantle the only security apparatus left in the country - the Iraqi army - which, by the way, wanted nothing to do with fighting us on our way to Baghdad. This blunder, alone, put the occupation under an unimaginable burden to restore order among a group of people who have hated each other for centuries.

Once the terrorists started pouring in from Iran and Syria, it became painfully obvious that there was little we could do to stop them, since we didn't have enough troops to patrol the borders. So as Syria lifted a giant middle finger in our direction, and our troops were being told to bide their time in Fallujah, it was painfully obvious that we were in over our heads - not because it was inevitable - but because we weren't prepared in any way whatsoever to deal with the realities of throwing out a despotic government that was the only glue among avowed enemies. Whatever can be said about the dreadful, treasonous behavior of the media, they had no influence on Donald Rumsfeld, who was the architect of this short-sighted mess. We had every opportunity to do this right, and failed. The buck stops with President Bush because his loyalty to Rumsfeld blinded him from the obvious shortcomings of the war plan.

And frankly, deflecting responsibility is more typical of leftist Kool Aid drinkers than simply admitting the truth. Patriotism doesn't make excuses for weakness.

The 'Rats are going to do stupid things regardless. If a 'Rat is elected President in '08, the choice will be 'Rat stupidity and Iranian nuke capabilities intact versus 'Rat stupidity and a weakened Iran. I prefer the latter.

I hate to break it to you, but Bush doesn't intend to act on Iran. The situation is not going to be resolved until an international crisis occurs and an actual international coalition takes it to Syria/Saudi Arabia/Iran. There's no guarantee whatsoever we can destroy all of their facilities. Given our intelligence apparatus, we could be flying blind anyhow. So if these pre-emptive strikes do not, at the same time, decapitate the government, we're just pushing the clock back a few more years since technological know-how can't be "destroyed".

Add to that, we don't have the manpower to help Iran transition to democracy, and we're looking at a pretty toothless warplan. My view of the situation is that it will require anywhere between a half-million to 1,000,000 troops to set the Middle East straight and remove these threats. For the U.S. to go it alone, it would require a military draft. Since that's political suicide, it's going to necessitate renewed commitments from NATO to provide manpower. And that's not going to happen until Iran has a nuclear weapon aimed at Rome. I'm afraid we're in it for the long haul...

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