nothing better than to use the biggest megaton nukes they can to do to Iran what Iran wants to do to Israel & “wipe it off the map”.

Well, first of all, Iran and Israel are hardly morally equivalent, nor are the defenders of Israel versus the enemies.

Second, I’m not advocating the big stuff, except maybe for the purposes of spectacle someday. (That or saving this planet from an incoming asteroid, say.) “Small is beautiful” when it comes to nukes; multiple smaller nukes accomplish much more than a single large nuke.

Third, we aren’t even the “worst” offender about such things: [the winner]

The Swissair 111 memorial site I have visited, which made me think then of the Iranian airliner shoot-down a few years ago

The other memorial site

The shootdown event (Washington Post)

“I will never apologize for the United States of America, ever. I don’t care what the facts are.” — VP George Bush (A good Iranian account)

US-Iran conflict since 1953

Nancy Reagan is still alive, and I am not well-educated enough to get your hints.

Or I’m just too oblique. I’m referring to the Swissair 111 memorial located at Peggy’s Cove. During the 1980s, we shot down an Iranian airliner. Our government refused to apologize for this. A memorial as part of eventual reconciliation is not out of the question.

Well, you’re saying that; I’m not. Air strikes on missile and WMD sites and attacks against threats to Gulf transit are hardly the same as nuclear destruction of whole cities and areas, as Iran has threatened to do to Israel on a number of occasions.

and

Note that if it’s the most suitable asset for the purpose, there’s nothing wrong with the USA using tactical nuclear weapons to destroy hardened or deeply buried targets. It’s hardly the same as using a megaton-plus weapon to blast huge portions and to burn even larger portions of metropolitan areas.

I am not the one advocating the use of nukes, it’s the likes of Laura and the commenters you were so entertained by that would love nothing better than to use the biggest megaton nukes they can to do to Iran what Iran wants to do to Israel & “wipe it off the map”. How are those people any different in their insanity from the insanity in the Iranian government? Both groups want annihilation, the only difference would be the target. The bigger picture on that, though, is once you get a nuclear holocaust going, everyone with nukes will end up joining in thus bringing on Armageddon. Guess for the insane the idea of MAD is, well, mad.

Iran already is at war with us and has been since 1979.

Let’s be honest here. Hostilities between the United States and Iran didn’t start in 1979. They go back to 1953, the year our CIA worked to overthrow Prime Minister Mossadegh and replaced by the Shah of Iran (see Operation Ajax). Mossadegh wasn’t a saint, but he was democratically-elected, and neither he nor anyone in his government didn’t anything to provoke hostilities with the United States.

The U.S. backing of the Shah of Iran was one of the major causes of the 1979 Revolution and the subsequent occupation of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

It’s interesting how proponents of war with Iran conveniently leave out this bit of history.

Nancy Reagan is still alive, and I am not well-educated enough to get your hints.

That is why this is total madness. I thought that’s what we were trying to avoid.

Unfortunately, the Iranians not only pursue terrorism, but some may someday seek what should be avoided.

If Iran were sanely governed, it would no longer seek hostile but good relations with the USA, which has long offered peace to it. We even might see even small gestures which would be appreciated, such as one I can think of that would be touching if Nancy Reagan approved and attended its dedication if she were still alive. (Hint #1: Peggy’s Cove. Hint #2: “Dead on!”) Are you surprised I would envision such a thing? Do not be.

The WMD ruse was a hoax in 2003, and this could be again now. Saddam boasted about having WMD’s in much the same way Ahmadinejad is boasting . And I have no confidence that this effort wouldn’t be as bungled as the first two wars have been with Bush and Cheney in charge of it.. We would end up with all-out regional war.

BTW, I didn’t feel sorry for the Shah- he was a brutal dictator in the same way that Saddam was- but he was a dictator that was friendly to our government.

I did read somewhere that Pace was replaced because he did not want to attack Iran.

Actually, we can look toward the Dems, if anything, for wanting to complicate things, as well as to lack of support by the Republicans (avoiding Bush???).

White House sought to avoid political fight; Lukewarm support from Republicans

There’s a rumor going around that Robert Gates is the Secretary of Defense. We’d like to request official confirmation, because …

. I’m in favor of repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” but why entwine this issue and revisitation of past Iraq decisions now with withdrawal from Iraq or other current policy decisions regarding Iraq?

the Dems

“Preemptive nuking”

Note that if it’s the most suitable asset for the purpose, there’s nothing wrong with the USA using tactical nuclear weapons to destroy hardened or deeply buried targets. It’s hardly the same as using a megaton-plus weapon to blast huge portions and to burn even larger portions of metropolitan areas.

Our intel is as poor as it was in 2003 when we sought Iraq’s WMD’s.

Maybe, maybe not. Admittedly we have no evidence, do we, of improvements?

Their nuke sites are in highly populated centers which would result in massive civilian casualties.

Bushehr isn’t. Not so sure about Natanz. Obviously location in civilian areas is a game Iran would play. Who is responsible for those casualties, really? (Just as who is responsible, really, when terrorists in the Middle East hide among the innocent, use ambulances for transport, etc.? Or when military assets are hidden as was done by Hussein, in historical sites, or when terrorists use schools, hospitals, and mosques to support their operations?) The nuclear and other facilities are probably duplicated (redundant) and dispersed and we may not get them all.

Still, what should we do, nothing? Everyone bashed Israel when it bombed Osiraq in 1981 (before the reactor went hot, something other nations are not concerned about) and was relieved when Kuwait was invaded. Should we do nothing now and suffer more later? At what cost, to do something now? I don’t know “the” answer but it seems to me we should properly direct our attention at who is the party in the wrong here, Iran, and what it is doing that threatens and harms its neighbors.

You’re right there is no hard proof. But Cheney has been behind the hawkish preemptive policies that we’ve been following all along- at odds with Rice. A few months ago there was a build-up in the media that was almost exactly like the one before we invaded Iraq- remember when the Iranian officials that were captured in Iraq?

I agree we haven’t done nothing. Frankly, Iran is so dangerous it may override oil interests, as did Hussein when he invaded Kuwait (and threatened to seize the Saudi oil fields and the two seaports that were so important to transport of our military assets afterward). We have warned we would use force against Iranian terrorists in Iraq, kill them if merited. We have sent carriers to the Gulf, not in response to any current Iranian threat to shipping, but if anything in readiness if air strikes on missile and WMD or terrorist-logistics targets in Iran were to be conducted.

Chris could give you better support for that position. I am not good at links, but I have read in various sources that the Israeli lobby has had high hopes that Bush/Cheney would carry this out. Lieberman seems to be their little lapdog on the issue.

Lieberman is certainly pro-Israel (which makes him one of the more sane Democrats when it comes to foreign policy, rather than treating the Israelis as the Czechs were treated at Munich). I’m certain Israel would love to see us remove a developing existential threat as well as a threat to others in the region and to security of oil supplies, which would be the likely reason emphasized (along with the Iranian support for terrorism in Lebanon and the territories against Israel as well as against Iraq).

I believe reluctance to be “Israel’s bigger stick in the region” is why we have refrained from attacking any targets in Syria when Syria has been caught before supporting terrorism in Iraq. Either that or we are simply overwhelmed in Iraq; choose whichever explanation seems more logical to you.

Chris could give you better support for that position. I am not good at links, but I have read in various sources that the Israeli lobby has had high hopes that Bush/Cheney would carry this out. Lieberman seems to be their little lapdog on the issue.

Iran has been our enemy since the islamic revolution and the taking of our hostages in 1979. BTW we can thank your beloved Carter for that.

In a sense we can, though it shows how bad the revolutionaries were in Iran as well as how bad people in so many other nations behaved toward the Shah, Carter’s USA included. (This is in addition to failure to support the Shah when he was needed and even crack down on extremist violence in the country to prevent a revolution, or simply overlooking how bad things really were in Iran and within the ruling group.)

bureaucratic blindness

We had our embassy attacked and the hostages taken specifically in retaliation for Carter’s decision to reverse an earlier no-admission position and to admit the Shah temporarily into the USA for medical care (the Shah had cancer, and though he had a French doctor, France would not admit him).

Nobody wanted to admit the Shah after he had fled Iran; he was seen as a political liability and someone whose admission would expose the admitting nation to terrorism or cutoff of oil from Iran. (Anyone admitting the Shah was presumed, in the lunatics’ eyes, as protecting and preserving Western colonialist rule and intrigue in the Middle East and rest of the Third World.)

Though Carter advised against it, Anwar Sadat admitted the Shah to Egypt, where the Shah died eventually. Carter felt that Sadat (who had already signed a peace treaty with Israel) was placing himself in more jeopardy by admitting the Shah (something Carter originally was reluctant to do himself, and whom Carter pressed to leave the USA as soon as possible). Sadat was assassinated later.

I’d like to see him comment on something related to the Shah, someone treated horribly by the world once he was out of power and a political liability because so many nations were dependent on oil from Iran.

I’d like to see him justify the attitude of leftist France, who was willing to harbor Khomeini but refused to admit the Shah.

So let me get this straight….

The answer for taking care of insane guys like this is to be insane ourselves & nuke them before they have a chance, however far off, to maybe follow through on their rhetoric?!

Well, you’re saying that; I’m not. Air strikes on missile and WMD sites and attacks against threats to Gulf transit are hardly the same as nuclear destruction of whole cities and areas, as Iran has threatened to do to Israel on a number of occasions.

How does that not make us just like them?! Doesn’t that also make us go down in history for starting world Armageddon instead of the insane guys? Oh wait, there won’t be any history since everyone will be dead…I get it!

I left this intact not to refute any claim that we are as bad as Iran (which is false, obviously) but because there are many in Iran who feel that way, about Israel, and as some of us have tried to remind others, the arithmetic is perfect even if Israel caused many times the number of casualties that were caused to Israel by Iran and possibly other nations at the same time. As long as Israel is destroyed, it is worth the cost, in the minds of Israel’s enemies, for the result is a victory.

Bush and Cheney have been determined to do it anyway

We have no proof of that, and have evidence to the contrary, namely the reversal of the no-dialogue position (yes, it could be dishonest and merely going through the motions prior to a strike), as well as the administration’s energy industry ties in addition to the situation with Halliburton and Iran (a stronger set of reasons to rule out an insistence on war).

I suspect the Bush people believe at this time that “regime change” in Iran is too difficult, as well as that they probably fear they are unprepared for all the consequences if they were to strike Iran. OK, so I’m assuming some amount of intelligence in effect here, which may be a stretch, but Cheney, for example, is hardly a dummy, and we all know he has kept his ties with Halliburton.

I’ve discussed long ago the threat of Iran and missile attacks, and among the examples, Iran’s threats to attack oil installations elsewhere in the Gulf if Iran is attacked. Now, if we wanted to try to force Iran to reduce its misconduct, a primary thing we would want to do would be to cut off Iran’s oil revenues, which fund its terrorist and illicit WMD and missile activities. But if Iran disrupts oil from elsewhere in the Gulf, what does that do to our calculations to strike at Iran’s oil?

Then with Hormuz, along with laying mines, all that’s needed is to have one or more “accidents” lead to ships being sunk in the Strait. That’s in addition to the use of anti-ship missiles as well as Iran’s speedboat navy (fast boats that are heavily armed), all items much better than they were in the 1980s.

Presumably the Bush people are well aware of these things.