maw said:
I understand passion against the war, and any war. But a persons position, opinion, belief that it's wrong shouldn't be a vehicle to slap down someones disagreement with it. I'll be right up front with it (although you already have read this, more or less, in other threads): Saddam' government was an evil blight on the world, the world commonly believed that Saddam shouldn't be protected, and the United States for reasons far more important that revenge, successfully led the effort to remove Saddam's destabilizing government from power, lawfully.
I must insist, by your own logic, that it was
certainly not
lawful by the same token for your thinking that it was not
unlawful, because
maw said:
A particular position, however strongly held, doesn't make something legal or illegal, or right or wrong. Bottom line, the Iraq conflict has not been found legal or illegal (minor but logical correction). By any authority empowered to judge it.
So let's just agree that the US was free to do it, because freedom lies in the absence of the law.
maw said:
I suppose if it demonizes Iran enough, the world won't react if a proxy (Isreal) destroys the two or three nuclear refinement facilities.
"The world" is not preventing Israel from doing this as we speak, only the Obama administration is (Netanyahu has pretty much asked permission to do something like this in subtle diplomatic form when he visited the US). And this might be a good thing because frankly, my projection models for an Israeli-Iranian conflict look bad for Israel unless Israel 1) avoids escalation (something Israel sucks at, with all due respect to their general diplomatic and military capabilities; take Lebanon and Gaza as examples); 2) uses nuclear weapons
(which sucks for everyone, really); or 3) has the US actively participate as an ally. (See for example relative army sizes
here).
Let's not forget Iran is not Iraq, nor is Iran the young country of the early 80's that was losing territory to Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War. Just look at the strengths of Iran and Iraq by the end of the First Gulf War,
here (in the sidebar), and compare to the strengths of the troops deployed in the Iraq war,
here (also in the sidebar), and tell me how Israel would muster nearly 1,000,000 troops - which Iran can do in the blink of an eye? There's also the question of technology - Iran has far more and slightly better planes than Iraq (gaining aerial superiority would certainly not be easy even with cutting-edge fighters), better/more AA batteries, and instead of SCUDs - which Iraq was hardly able to use properly in the Iraq War, they have cruise missiles and perhaps even IRBMs... now granted, these are not on par with Israeli technology, but the technology gap would be smaller than it was between Coallition Forces and Iraq, and the 3:4 troop ratio that Coalition Forces enjoyed in Iraq would be at best 2:5 in the case of Israel facing Iran.
IMHO, the best bet for getting rid of the Iranian hotheads would be to wager on their revolutionary movements (a missed opportunity in 2009) by involving intelligence agencies, aiding revolutionaries, and interdicting the use of violence against the population. In this scenario, torn from the inside, Iran's military capabilities will be diminished by the internal chaos, especially its ability to field so many troops.
Edit: Failing that, let Russia or China deal with them, but it won't be pretty
