Iran.......Waiting for the first punch?

It appears that most of the Western World countries desire that Iran does not reach the abiltiy to produce nuclear weapons…for obvious reasons.

North Korea is cash poor and has the nuclear weapon.
Iran is a wealthy country and certainly could utilize its funds to purchase nuclear weapons from North Korea.

Why does the US and its allies sit back and wait for Iran to reach the potential that we fear?

Do we really believe that we can negotiate our way to prevent the first punch to be thrown?

I am prepared to get blown to smithereens with opposition to my belief that Iran must be stopped NOW militarilly before it gets the nuclear weapon…

Let me read your opinions.

Taking for granted that this is correct, who is going to do it, and how? I mean, Afghanistan and Iraq didn’t exactly go swimmingly, did they?

Short of attacking with nukes, I’m also mystified as how Iran will be “stopped”.

North Korea is doing a complicated mating dance with South Korea

They are not really a threat, but they want to look like one.

Iran is a problem. I am sure that they could get their hands on a few nuclear warheads from the ex-USSR states, but that is not really much use to them, unless they were crazy enough to try a pre-emptive strike, which would be very easy, just stick it in the hold of a commercial airliner.

There is a lot of posturing going on, and it could turn nasty.

However, except for a complete maniac, nuclear weopons are not really much use.

Has any country ever sold (or even given) a nuclear weapon to another? It seems unlikely any world leader, even in NK, would fully entrust their nuclear arms to another nation, if for no other reason then they wouldn’t want to risk retaliation for a bombing perpretrated by another state.

And the total of money/goods/aid that NK has lost due to sanctions brought on by the discovery of the weapons program must count in the billions of dollars. I doubt they’re churning out these things to sell them off, as they certainly aren’t going to recoup the money they’ve lost developing them.

And in anycase, NK only have a limited stockpile of Plutonium left over from an old reactor, so I doubt they’d sacrifice it to give to another state.

MAD and various diplomatic efforts have prevented the military use of nuclear weapons for half a century now, so it’s not like there’s no precedent.

Why NOW. Most estimates put Iran the better part of a decade from building a bomb, and as I said before, no one is going to give them one. Even if it does end up taking military action to stop them, we don’t loose anything by playing good cop for a year or two before we start blowing things up.

Err…given to another state for military use rather then disposal that is. I know several former Soviet states gave thier bombs back to Russia, and I presume S Africa gave away its nukes to be destroyed as part of the agreement ending its nuke program.

Does anyone believe that the US is able to invade Iran? Thanks to Bush’s miserable attempt to fight a war on the cheap (using National Guard troops instead of biting a political bullet and instituting a draft) the US military simply doesn’t have the capability to put boots on the ground in Iran. If you can’t back up a threat, you best not make it.

With a draft I think Bush would have been lynched by now

  • which might have been rather a ‘Good Thing’

If Iran gets close, my money is on them having a very nasty accident
Chernobyll made the USSR sit up and think (I’m sure it was an accident)

  • but if Iran had something go wrong …

Well I’m sure we could go in and blow stuff up if we had to. There’s something like 2.5 million troops in the US (active and reserve) military, and under 150,000 in Iraq (anyone know if that includes troops supporting the Iraq war in Kuwait and on navy vessels in the gulf?). But we’d probably be less able to deal with stuff in Iraq and Korea and such, a million reservists wouldn’t be happy to get called up unless it was pretty important, it might necessitate a draft, and I doubt we’d be able to pull of another long-term occupation (not that we’re really pulling off our current military occupation well). And of course a lot of the units we’d end up sending would’ve been recently serving in Iraq or Afganistan, and thus presumably suffering from lack of down time.

But I can’t imagine it would be politically feasable unless Iran becomes an obvious threat to US security, rather then developing technologies that are a precursor for weapons which they could use against the US someday if they wanted to for some reason and had away to deliver them to the US and they don’t mind getting nuked off the face of the planet in retaliation.

Our best bet with Iran is to try to foment change from within. There is a large segment of the under 30 population there that is not in love with Islamic fundamentalism and is even somewhat pro-American.

I’m sure everyone would be onboard for that approach to try to avoid war…right?

Are you sure it is the under 30’s ?

Damn - I meant to say that under 30 is the dangerous time for being taken in by fanatics

  • they are not like Westerners

From what I understand, there are a lot of people in Iran who aren’t buying into the revolution. Most of them are younger, but I’m sure quite a few of the educated population is going along to get along. I realize that some people think that the CIA is evil incarnate, but I think that quietly encouraging a counter-movement will bear fruit eventually.

The other options appear to be:

  1. Attack.

  2. Wait for them to make the first move.

  3. Appease.

Iran is years away from developing a weapon.

We obviously do, because everybody knows that if Iran used a nuke, it would be annihilated. Iran knows that, too. What they want is improved regional standing, and its leaders want a tighter grip on the country.

Unless the media are completely hiding the facts from us, I have not read that the good peace loving people of Iran have had much success in facing up to the Iranian leaders who vow annihilation of Israel with an “equal distribution of love” toward the US.

If you and/or your family lived in Israel, my belief is that you would actively give a great deal of thought to solving the “mystery” BEFORE the nuclear button is pushed.

The US has the power to win a war with any country in the world right now. Problem is we don’t fight wars to conquer and destroy everyone in a country nowdays. You have to try to go in and sort out who’s good, who’s bad, while someone’s trying to kill you the entire time.
Kind of like an overgrown piece of land. You could easily go in and destroy every tree, plant, flower, insect, animal in a day or so without getting you hands dirty.
But as soon as you have to kill the weeds but save the flowers, kill the ants but save the spiders, kill the oaks but save the elms, kill the bears but save the squirrels then it becomes a long drawn out mess that takes forever.

And you really think Iran is willing to commit national suicide ? Sure, plenty of these old religious fanatics are willing to send other people out to die for Allah or whatever, but if they, personally, were that suicidal they wouldn’t be old fanatics.

I agree. Some seem to think if Iran got a hold of a nuke the first thing they’d do is lob it over into Israel. All that would get them is swift and hammering retribution. The countries that hold nukes right now are very restrained in ever using them (U.S., Japan, etc.) but if push came to shove you know the U.S. would just anihilate a country that threw up a nuke.
Does Iran really want to become that country?

Iran will never throw the first punch. Not with a nuke, anyway. It would be suicide, for the government if not the nation. Their leaders might be crazy but they’re not that crazy.