Can War With Iran Be Avoided?

Assuming war with Iran can be avoided, it's Iran that ultimately has to do the avoiding. I'm not optimistic. What I particularly liked about this Krauthammer piece is the way it spelled out what we're facing. Given the cancerous nature of Iran's reach, a sound argument can be made that there's no good purpose served by waiting and we might just as well get on with it. Does anyone really believe Iran is going to somehow turn around and give up their imperialist designs in the Middle East (ME)?

There was some good discussion on that a ways into a Batchelor / Loftus podcast I linked the other day. Finally, what also truly amazes me in all this discussion around the Israeli strike into Syria, see Krauthammer link above, is that Israel finds it acceptable to sit there with Syria having chemical weapons, including Sarin nerve gas.

I guess they have a lot of confidence in their civil defense measures and ability to mitigate additional attacks should they ever begin. But one long range missile with chemical agents hurled into a populated Israeli area could leave a major mark, as well as result in a mushroom cloud over whatever ME state is found to be behind the launching - and I don't mean Lebanon, though that could be from where the rocket or missile gets launched.

The Middle East is going to explode, it's just a matter of time and un-timely politics. Again, per the podcast link, this war has to be fought and won in the media first, or it won't have the support needed to prevail.

Still, no matter how you slice it, we cannot allow Iran to have the bomb. It's tragic and a bit disgusting that, given its basic hatred toward all things religious, the Left won't grasp that fact. If Iran were a bunch of radical Christians, the Left would be screaming for us to take them out. As it is, they're trapped by their own distorted, anti-American, anti-Christian worldview. And that makes them a dangerous influence when it comes to our national security. I shudder to think about what a Hillary presidency might bring about, but that may be just what we're facing in 2008. Interesting times, my friends. Interesting and dangerous times, infact.

Tensions are already extremely high because of Iran's headlong rush to go nuclear. In fending off sanctions and possible military action, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has chosen a radically aggressive campaign to assemble, deploy, flaunt and partially activate Iran's proxies in the Arab Middle East:

(1) Hamas launching rockets into Israeli towns and villages across the border from the Gaza Strip. Its intention is to invite an Israeli reaction, preferably a bloody and telegenic ground assault.

(2) Hezbollah heavily rearmed with Iranian rockets transshipped through Syria and preparing for the next round of fighting with Israel. The third Lebanon war, now inevitable, awaits only Tehran's order.

(3) Syria, Iran's only Arab client state, building up forces across the Golan Heights frontier with Israel. And on Wednesday, yet another anti-Syrian member of Lebanon's parliament was killed in a massive car bombing.

(4) The al-Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard training and equipping Shiite extremist militias in the use of the deadliest IEDs and rocketry against American and Iraqi troops. Iran is similarly helping the Taliban attack NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Why is Iran doing this? Because it has its eye on a single prize: the bomb. It needs a bit more time, knowing that once it goes nuclear, it becomes the regional superpower and Persian Gulf hegemon.

Comments

[Micah]

Can War With Iran Be Avoided?

Why sure! Let's treat A-jad to lunch @ "21", offer him a private tour of Ground Zero, and invite him to speak @ Columbia University!

Then he'll reconsider his positions on human rights, Israel, Iran's role in Iraq, and we can all be FRIENDZ!!

[dumbblonde]

Can war be avoided? No. There WILL be war. The only question at this point is whether it will be war on *our* terms, or theirs. The longer we wait, the more the advantage shifts from our favor to theirs.

[Tom]

Can war be avoided? No. There WILL be war. The only question at this point is whether it will be war on *our* terms, or theirs. The longer we wait, the more the advantage shifts from our favor to theirs.

Posted by: dumbblonde

Of course, there will be war. We invaded a soverign nation and tore the ME to pieces with Bush's dismal approach to oil grabbing. If your country was invaded based on lies and greed, wouldn't you get a little perturbed? Sure you would. Geez, folks. bush wacked a hornets nest and you wonder why the planet doesn't like us? Home schooling didn't serve you too well.

[Purple Avenger]

"wonder why the planet doesn't like us?"

If they don't like us, why do they keep coming here?

[Techie]

I'm sorry, Tom. I must have missed when we invaded Iran. You know, the country we're talking about in the thread?

[templar knight]

When Tom gets worked up, he conveniently forgets facts in order to make a greater point, kinda like Dan Rather and Mary Mapes. Fake, but accurate.

[southdakotaboy]

This war might be the bloodiest and bigest since WWII. It has all the elements. If it happens we need to fight it like we fought the Nazies, no holds barred. I say we pull out all the stops and take care of things once and for all. These people in the ME think it is A-Ok to talk about killing off an entire group of people (Jews). Lets show them that that crap dosen't fly.

[Tom Grey - Liberty Dad]

The war with Iran is on hold, waiting for two things:
1) A leader willing to accept the need to fight, and
2) the training of the Iranian Liberation Army

AKA the Iraqi Army -- including Shia and Sunni.

The leader will likely be an Iraqi who starts blaming all the Iraqi chaos on Iran, and unifies Iraq against Iran.

Iraqis trained, equipped, and air-supported by the US would, really, murder the Iranians.

For every IED the US should be giving Iraqi-Sunni generals (?aren't there some?) a non-nuke cruise missile. Iraq needs to defend itself.

[seekeronos]

We should have kept the Baathist power structure in place, minus Saddam and the top command structure.

Then made the remaining Baathists a deal they couldn't refused, and fed them into the meatgrinder against A'jad's Iran.

Looking past that critical misjudgment, we need to get Maliki on board with "the way things are going to be" now, or summarily depose him and his government, and find some ex-Baathists who know how to keep the tribalistic nonsense under wraps, as well as reducing the surplus of Quds operatives and Iraqi Shiites who think making a deal with the devil A'jad to be the best idea.

And discretely alerting certain embassies and foreign missions of our new policy of "a WMD attack or massive conventional attack on Israel = an attack on the USA... which shall result in the reduction of the rogue government to oblivion or obedience to the USA: their choice..." might

[seekeronos]

...might do the trick.

[Brett]

Hey everybody, Tom speaks for the planet!

Public opinion, Tom, including world opinion, is frequently dead wrong. I imagine you know that well enough to resist the idea of putting your liberties to a worldwide democratic vote.