I am well aware that the Iranian rulers are probably desperately frightened of the U.S. I would even agree with Der Trihs that that fear is probably the primary reason that they want to develop nuclear weapons–particularly since they have demonstrated no desire to extend their borders or conquer any of their neighbors. They have never displayed the Hussein need to conquer and expand.
However, the original point was whether a military action against Iran was inevitable and whether it was going to occur in the near future. The point to which I responded was a claim that Iran needed to be fearful in the same way that Iraq should have been fearful.
What I have noted is that the conditions are not the same, (or even very similar), and while I would not claim that there cannot be an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, a claim that we are on the brink of launching such an attack or, particluarly, going to war is overblown and Der Trihs’s analysis is seriously flawed. (An analysis that probably comes from reading The Guardian uncritically while holding an unbalanced contempt for the U.S.)
Nonsense, yourself.
Our actions against Iran fall into different categories in different eras, for different reasons, none of them based on a general “let’s hate Iran” motif. In addition, there are no organized cheerleaders in the U.S. for war of conquest against Iran as there was for years prior to our assault on Iraq.
When we overthrew their republic and installed the Shah, it was part of our entry into the Great Game between Britain and Russia, re-inforced by our current, (at that time), anachronistic phobia about “world wide Communism.”
While the Shah ruled, we were actually friendly to Iran, (if, unfortunately, more friendly to the Shah than his citizens). Most of the weapons that Iran used to fight off Iraq had been supplied by the U.S.
Once Khomeini took power after the Shah fled, we were embarrassed by the taking of the embassy and put Iran on our enemies list. Since then, the Islamic ruling Guardian Council and Assembly of Experts has promoted and sponsored Hezbollah and Hamas in fostering trouble throughout the middle east. However, we have tended to treat those threats in the same way that we treat similar groups around the world, without attacking sponsoring nations. We limit our actual “aggression” to attempts to restrict trade or isolate them politically, not with invasions.
If we were going to go after anyone, it would seem that North Korea, with its immediate threat to actual allies South Korea and Japan, would be a better target, yet there was no serious threat recorded against Korea, even when it was testing its own bombs and testing missiles across Japanese territory. Iran will more likely co-opt Iraq through its Shi’a allies in Iraq while Afghanistan will never be a close ally of ours, in any case. Attacking Iran without an overt provocation from Iran is not likely in the near future.
There is no similar organized group in the U.S. sponsoring an attack on Iran in the way that the Neo-Cons promoted an attack on Iraq and those individuals who want to attack Iran are not connected to any of the Republican leadership or presidential aspirants.