As for the OP: I sincerely hope Bush doesn’t make military moves toward Iran. It might be more of a prickly pear for him than Iraq, and the economic benefit he’d gain for himself and his corporate chums isn’t exactly clear. It might be more worth his while to try rebuilding his own economy.
But with cut-backs reported in virtually every sector except defence – that bet may still be on.
It’s late, I’m tired, and you are not important.
“Been done before” is as good as you can hope for, sunshine. Not going to fire up any more synapses than absolutely necessary for the likes of you. Consider yourself lucky you got some mere stock file footage from the archives.
Yes I guess I do seem to use “strawman” a bit when dealing with the likes of you. To quote your good self (in typical patronising smarmy tones): why is that?
:wally
I’m thinking it’s all you can come up with at the time. A word which has folk wondering what on earth you’re on about.
I’m glad I’m unimportant. But I still have a POV. And callin’ me “putz” ain’t exactly anatomically correct, either. But it makes me smile. 
I’m glad you’re happy. And with no sheep involved either*.
As I said, it’s late. I have work at 6am, and I’m off to bed. I’ll leave you to it. Weirdo.
*Yes, totally uncalled for. A free shot. Have at it.
No worries. Have a good day tomorrow, TLD.
Well she was trying to hail a cab, not cross the street.
What do you consider mainstream?
Not including stuff like spies, CIA, special forces sneaking across borders - stuff that every country seems to do to every other country all the time anyway. Something involving average armed forces personnel, lots of hardware, things that go bang, publicity, and CNN.
And six billion SDMB threads, of course. 
So, stuff that makes the news?
Done. The INVASION BET as I defined above. You’re on.
checks list of SDMB rules
Right.
*Don’t * bet against **Bricker ** in the political arena.
Here is an update.
Note that this is coming from the Jerusalem Post. This article could be anything from completely made-up to part of an Israeli disinformation campaign against Iran.
Still, I wouldn’t rule out some kind of a strike. Iran is getting nuttier and nuttier by the day.
Question: If you absolutely knew that if you do nothing, Israel will attack Iran, would it be better to attack first to keep Israel out of the fight? The U.S. worked really hard to keep israel out of Gulf War 1, for obvious reasons.
Why not? I never pass up easy money.
Are you talking about an actual war, or an air strike to take out Iran’s nulcear site(s)? If the latter, then let them do it. They did it to Iraq previously.
If the former, I still say no. We should attack Iran only if it’s in our interest to do so. If Israel wants to go to war, that’s their business.
I see a problem with your thoughts. If Israel hits Iran the closest revenge targets are right next door. Are they Israelis?
I mean just a strike. The thinking is that if the Iraelis do the attacking, the rest of the middle east is likely to go absolutely apeshit. It could undo a lot of progress that has taken place in the last few years. Think about how much effort the U.S. went to to prevent Israel from entering the first Gulf war. The belief was that if Israel attacked Saddam, the entire coalition would fall apart in a spasm of anti-Israeli fervor.
I’m not saying that the U.S. should attack to keep Israel from doing so, I’m just throwing it out there as a thought exercise. What would lead to the better outcome, assuming that an attack will occur one way or the other.
How bid a deal was it when Israel took out Iraq’s facility back in the 80s?
Better outcome for whom? It might be better for us if Israel does the dirty work. It’s hard to imagine that the hatred towards Israel in the M.E. could get much worse than it already is.
Those crazy Germans, what will they think of next?