http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/marchapril_2012/features/we_can_live_with_a_nuclear_ira035772.php
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/envoy/daily-show-jon-stewart-takes-iran-war-drums-210908399.html
Isn't it funny that we only freak out about Iran's nuclear program during election years (McCain's "bomb, bomb, bomb... bomb, bomb Iran" and now the 3 GOP stooges talking tough)? The difference now is that Obama and others have convinced the UN to issue the toughest round of sanctions ever against Iran, but they are only a few months old. Yes Iran has made progress on its program since 2008 (though still years away from a functional bomb, and a primitive one at that), but their regime is weakened economically and due to heavier internal protests against their legitimacy. We and our proxies have also whacked some Iranian scientists and corrupted their computer systems, setting their program back a while.
During the recent AIPAC conference, Israeli leader Netanyahu was a broken record: "Imagine an Iranian ICBM heading towards a US city." Well Iran doesn't have ICBMs, and won't for several years at least. If they're lucky, their crappy rockets may reach London. "We are you and you are us... To Iran, the US is the 'great Satan' and Israel is the 'little Satan'... This is a regime that has vowed to wipe Israel off the map." If we are you and you are us, then why do you keep building illegal settlements when our leaders tell you not to? Why do you keep taking our money and giving us nothing in return but diplomatic headaches?
Yes, it's true that Iranian bluster has threatened to destroy Israel, and maybe America too. They clearly aren't friendly. But the Soviet Union (the 2nd strongest military empire the world has ever seen, with tens of thousands of nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert) threatened to bury the West too, and did they ever come close? Did they ever even try? The same stereotypes and accusations were levied against them for decades: the Soviets are irrational, bloodthirsty, fanatical, can't be reasoned with, hate what we stand for, and hell-bent on world war. But in the end they chose to holster their nukes EVERY SINGLE TIME, even when war seemed inevitable in Cuba and as their regime collapsed (supposedly when they had nothing to lose). And some would argue that the Soviets have more of a penchant for suicidal behavior than the Iranians, considering Stalin's purges and whatnot. So is Iran somehow worse than the Evil Empire, despite being much smaller, poorer, and weaker? Yes they are a theocracy with too much centralized, abusive power, and have done some "crazy" things in the past. But in general, their regime has a rational track record (i.e. they are not suicidal). Launching a tiny nuke against Israel (with no guarantee of it "wiping them off the map") would be suicide. Finito. Why would a regime whose only petty desire is to retain power (by hook or by crook) suddenly decide to self-destruct? That is, unless they were prodded and provoked by warmongering opponents.
The hawks' rhetoric is illogical, and I doubt that they even believe it 100%. If Iran is truly the crazy monster than the Israelis and GOP portray, then it would be irrational for us to NOT attack them. If it's only a matter of time, and a total certainty, that they nuclearlize their "global terrorism", then why have we sat on our hands all these years? What are we waiting for!?! Shouldn't we take them out like we did to Saddam and Qaddafi? Our leaders should be FIRED for being so negligent, even hardliners Bush and Netanyahu! So I guess the truth of the matter is that Iran is not such a threat. Former CIA veteran Paul Pillar thinks so in his recent article, and so do the current and former heads of Mossad (the Israeli spy agency entrusted with protecting their tiny nation against all threats before they materialize). All nuclear nations use their warheads primarly as deterrent and bargaining leverage, and only the US has launched them against others in malice. But that was to ostensibly END a war (and signal to the Soviets that East Asia was ours), not start one.
Say that all of what I said is wrong, and we have no choice but to pre-emptively strike. Iranian air defenses are strong, so we would either absorb heavy losses, or need to resort to cruise missiles and even tactical nukes. But those weapons may not be effective against facilities buried under a lot of rock. So how do we penetrate - a ground invasion? We've seen how fanatically Iranians defended their homeland against Iraq, and we know America now has a lower tolerance to sacrifice our sons and daughters overseas vs. a non-imminent danger. And all that would definitely trigger Jihad 3.0 and oil to spike to at least $150/barrel (which would in turn cause fragile recovering markets to plunge into another global recession). Our attack would paradoxically lead to the bloodshed and misery that we supposedly want to prevent by striking Iran! So if it is unfeasible to stop Iran from getting nukes by force, what choice do we have but to "talk and talk" as Gingrich mocked? Talking does not automatically mean appeasement and defeat. But all that macho, ideological crap doesn't matter if we have no other choice. If you don't have a good hand to play, why go all-in with your cash? We can either fight a bloody war with no guarantee of success, nuke Iran pre-emptively to global outcry and Muslim rage, or talk (with the caveat of a remote risk that Iran will betray us and nuke Israel later). Which one of those is least painful? Yes the situation stinks and everyone wishes that Iran would just be more peaceful and give up their nukes. But a lot of people around the world wish that the US and Israel would do the same, and we refuse almost every time.
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