Kowboy:

If a peaceful solution cannot be reached however, I would rather see a preemptive military action to stop this from happening rather than waiting for it to get to 8000 degrees in the shade where I live.

That assumes Iran has designs on nuking wherever it is you live. Maybe they do. Maybe they don’t. I do think that our aggressive stance sure does encourage Iran, and other regimes like them, to acquire nuclear weapons. (For example, we give Pakistan more or less a complete pass because they are a nuclear power.)

A nuclear Iran is a problem, I don’t deny it. However, I’m convinced it’s not a problem we can bomb our way out of. I’m really convinced that escalating to a 3-front war–Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran–is political, military and societal suicide. What potential we have for internal reforms in Iran immediately go sour once we start turning Tehran into rubble.

Oh yeah, Hollowpoint: since you think I’m a “troofer” nutjob–untrue, but it’s not like I can convince you of that–you’re welcome to ignore my posts from now on.

rho on July 13, 2007 at 1:31 PM

Rho, what evidence do you have (other than the words of Iran’s madman president) that their quest for nuclear weapons is a result of our foreign policy?

None. But if we can dismiss the words of the “madman president”, I guess there’s no evidence that they want to wipe Israel off the map, or that Iran seeks to reign nuclear fire over Poughkeepsie.

Unless you’re prepared to prove that Iran seeks nuclear weapons for offensive purposes, your demand for proof of defensive purposes is laughable.

rho on July 13, 2007 at 1:44 PM

Yeah, right- you just agreed with Crank Paul that the US is in danger of an attack manufacutred by the government in an effort to justify war with Iran. Sorry duder, but that’s 100% Grade A crazy troofer talk. There’s no place for people like you (or Ron Paul) in rational discussion.

No, I agreed with Ron Paul that weak or flimsy reasons may be used as a justification for invading Iran. The Gulf of Tonkin, as I understand it, wasn’t manufactured, but it was used as a justification that, ex post facto, was pretty feeble.

rho on July 13, 2007 at 1:50 PM

The Russian joke was funny, BTW. Unprovable. But funny.

Equally true, and equally unprovable, is that if Ron Pal were President in the 80s, bin Laden and the Taliban would not have been in control of Afghanistan and therefore 9/11 would not have happened. “What-ifs” are amusing games to play, but they are just games.

rho on July 13, 2007 at 2:05 PM

Yes, they’re almost as much fun as sticking your head in the sand and pretending the past 200 years of world history never happened.

I’m quite a fan of the past 200 years of world history. Especially the last 50 years or so. We’ve had an strong interventionist foreign policy for the past 50 years, and this is where we’ve arrived. We’ve been actively engaged in the Bush doctrine for six years, and al Queda is as strong or stronger than on 9/11. And now everybody’s hot to turn Iran into the unparalleled success that Iraq has become.

I’m sorry, but who’s got their head in the sand here again?

rho on July 13, 2007 at 2:13 PM

As for it being militarily feasable to go into Iran, the Air Force and the Navy would be doing 90% of the work, and I guarantee they’re not “fatigued”.

Have we ever secured a battlefield without troops on the ground? To my recollection, Nintento-warfare has a dismal success rate.

rho on July 13, 2007 at 2:17 PM

Going back 50 years is pretty short-sighted. Even for a Ron Paul supporter. Misses a whole lot of “foreign intervention” on our part.

Here again you’re either ignorant or deliberately misrepresent non-interventionism. You can get your war, if you want and need it. Declare war; pick a target; establish goals; fight and win it. That’s not what we’ve got now. Ron Paul even offered a motion to declare war on Iraq, and Henry Hyde dismissed it as “archaic”. Nobody wanted to take responsibility, except Bush, and Congress was happy to accept the dodge. And now we’ve got political problems.

You can get all the war you want, just follow the Constitution.

rho on July 13, 2007 at 2:23 PM

Also, what evidence do you have that Al Qaeda is “as strong or stronger” than on 9/11? You’re not…making assumptions…are you?

Here.

rho on July 13, 2007 at 2:28 PM

If the Iranian press had the freedoms ours does they’d make Bush-bashing look like a love fest. How much Nintendo-warfare have you seen to be able to judge its success rate?

Not much. Bosnia. Sudan. Iraq in 1991.

Their population is overwhelmingly pro-western.

I agree. That might end once we turn their cities to rubble. Or cripple their economy by shutting down their energy production. No matter our good intentions, it’s as likely as not that they come out of it pissed at us. I didn’t like Clinton–doesn’t mean I’d be thankful if the Canadians forced him out of office by making my life miserable.

rho on July 13, 2007 at 2:33 PM

You are assuming that the religious lunatics running Iran give a flying fu#k about MAD, they don’t, in fact they believe that triggering the apocalypses will force the 12th Imman to appear and conquer the world for Allah. Since they know that Israel has their “Sampson complex” they know that a nuclear exchange with Israel will trigger a much larger nuclear exchange.

That’s as much wild-eyed agitprop as the Gulf of Tonkin stuff. So spare me the faux-outrage, guys.

rho on July 13, 2007 at 2:35 PM

Yes, nothing proves your case like excerpts leaked from a classified report prepared by self-interested bureaucrats.

Ah. Well, that’s a compelling argument. It sounds “truthy” to me!

rho on July 13, 2007 at 2:50 PM

As a conservative, I believe people and countries are responsible for their own actions and attributing their bad behavior to our foreign policy is misguided at best.

If you think I’m excusing them, you’re simply wrong. As a conservative, why do you trust in the federal government to handle foreign policy any better than it handles crime, poverty or education?

No it’s not. The Constitution lays out very specific ways in which it may be amended, judges making them up from the bench is not one of them.

Judicial review is as firmly established as your flexible war-making powers.

That’s just patently not true. I know you are big on originalism so consider the Quasi-War with France during the administration of John Adams and the Barbary war under Jefferson

I don’t deny it. The question I’d like you to ask yourself, though, is whether it’s a good idea to allow Congress to abdicate their war-making responsibilities. Formal declarations of war are, undeniably, the wars which are quite widely supported. Authorizations of force are, undeniably, the wars which are routinely criticized and partisan.

This fascination has prompted wild stories to circulate.

Such as Ahmadinejad plans to set things in motion by nuking Israel. I think Jesus is coming back, too. I’m not eager to precipitate his return.

rho on July 13, 2007 at 3:15 PM