Much more difficult? Few things can be more difficult than a 4+ year nation-building exerise in a Muslim country filled to the brim with suicide-bombing terrorists (Iraq), and conducting air strikes against a few dozen sites in Iran certainly is not of them. The entire operation will be over long before you and your buds on the other side of the aisle can screech "quagmire."
Prepare yourself for the inevitable -- The U.S. isn't going to allow a hostile Muslim nation to manufacture nukes and initiate a nuke arms race throughout the entire region. A Middle East filled with Muslim nations armed to the teeth with nukes is not an option.
You say such a strike would only set the Iranians back a few years in their nuclear quest? Even if true, a few years can make all the difference in this crisis. They could easily have their long-awaited revolution by then and by governed by sane people who have no interest in starting a nuke arms race with their neighbors.
“You say such a strike would only set the Iranians back a few years in their nuclear quest? Even if true, a few years can make all the difference in this crisis. They could easily have their long-awaited revolution by then and by governed by sane people who have no interest in starting a nuke arms race with their neighbors.”
That is the only argument FOR a military strike which is even close to making any sense whatsoever. But what it comes down to is whether the resulting costs, risks, and fallout justify taking military action to delay their nuke program for a couple of years. I’m betting that Bush will not make that determination. I bet he passes the decision onto his successor. And I bet that his successor will do nothing except exert diplomatic pressure. All of these “hints” at a military strike are intended only to ramp up pressure on Iran to come to heel. And that ain’t gonna happen.
To me, it looks like another Cold War brewing. We’re going to spend the next 40 years or so reliving the 1940s and 1950s, except with Iran instead of the Soviets.