Iran... the bomb... preemptive strikes...

Beerina said:
Free nations are legitimate. Dictatorships are not. They are just large scale hostage situations, ethically.
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Yet the country we are talking about is nowhere near as much a dictatorship as you seem to think. There are elections and there are at least two parties which have differing policies. Granted there are limits on what parties can do and there is an overarching religious control. But this was voted in by the people of the country at the time. You and I might not agree with it, but compared to most of its neighbours Iran is fairly democratic. The current leadership thanks a significant part of its popularity exactly because they defy what is seen as unwarranted meddling by others in their affairs

Beerina said:
Insofar as things like the UN exist, it's free nations trying to make peace by bundling in dictatorships to rules.
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Yet veto right in the UN is undemocratically given to five nations, two of which are not exactly free.

Beerina said:
I have no problem, in theory, with invading and ending dictatorships. Do you?
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No, provided it actually *helps* the people in said country. Afghanistan and Iraq are excellent examples of how not to free people imo. The countries are in ruin and what economy is running is in the hands of criminals or forgeiners, yet the common people are no better or worse off than before

Beerina said:
We don't, usually, for practical reasons. But ethically we have every right to do so, just as the police have the "right" to end any hostage situation.
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But this comes from your ethics. A nation following the true word of god can feel it has the ethical right to invade a nation to bring the good word. Or the right social system, using the 'but they did it' analogy. Russia uses the war on terror in checeny (sp). China uses it to repress muslim seperatists. Turkey uses it against the Kurds.

Beerina said:
Free people always have the right to free non-free people. My desire to be free and your desire to lord over me are not two equally arbitrary, and therefore equally valid, viewpoints.
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Muslims always have the right and duty to convert non-muslims. Christians always have the right and duty to convert non-christians. Communists always have the right to bring freedom from capitalism
You and I might not agree with the above, but precedent is what rules international politics, and such arguments WILL be used to start wars


Beerina said:
List them and we can discuss each.
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China
North Korea
Saudi Arabia
White Russia
Libia
Most african nations
All middle eastern nations (including israel)
Most carribean nations

Beerina said:
We've seen what Russia did in the past with Germany. How well did that work out?

And if you view Russia as a paragon of freedom, were the Russian quasi-nationals in the other areas suffering from a lack of freedom?
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In the georgian enclaves recently forcefully split off from that country? Russia feels so and used military force to free them. If freeing nationals becomes ethically acceptable, how long till Russia decides to 'free' the russians in white russia? (a horrible dictatorship). Or the Ukraine? (which has significant political problems of its own at the moment). After all, Russia is a capitalist democracy now right? So they'd ethically have that right



Beerina said:
As mentioned above re: practicalities, the wisdom of individual decisions is a separate issue.


I do not defend this. I note these things were in a context of communism rising, something that, on retrospect, was not quite the threat people thought it was. (This was before much of the famed "hundreds of century-long experiments involving billions of test subjects" had come close to completing.)

I do not defend this. In the larger picture, "invade-and-free" would be a difficult challenge, would it not? Yet they will continue to sell their oil.

And, just like the drug violence in northern Mexico, where the Mexican government is essentially a failed state (i.e. cannot impose its will there, leaving lawlessness of warlords) so, too, are many dictatorships of the mid east such a "prize" to be dictator of due to oil money.

How are many of the non-oil dictatorships in Africa doing without us caring? No better? Just as bad?


Go figure. Which is worse for the locals: One dictator who owns the oil in a country, or a bunch of warlords ala "blood diamonds"?
Neither are free. Neither are good.
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But is it any better for those people that the revenue of their oil now goes as profits to oil companies in the countries that helped free them? Or any of their other natural products? Now they are free and *still* they don't see the money being made from their country. Yet suddenly, because its OUR oil companies making the money, or OUR coffee being cheap its ethically right?

I disagree with you there. Because of me (and you and everyone else in the west) most of the world has to live in poverty. There is no other way to keep our standard of living given the current technology. Maybe this will change, but right now that's how it is. I like it that way, but I do realize it is not ethical.
And if we suddenly say 'our high ethics are the reason we can invade other countries and make them do our will' I fear this will severely backfire.

Iran is not a threat to the west. It never will be. It doesnt have the resources, the manpower or the technology. Worst case it will hurt one of our allies or damage a city in europe somewhere, after which it will be wiped off the map with nuclear fire.
But invade it and the government becomes a martyr, that would just fuel resentment against the west and cause far more damage to us in the long run.



Beerina said:
I agree with this -- my point was that only free countries have the ethical right to do something about non-free countries. Not that what they did was necessarily ethical.
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And my point is that once free countries give themselves that right other nations will use that precedent to give themselves similar rights to do horrible things. To paraphrase terry pratchett, in my opinion it would be like using a lion to keep the wolves away from the sheep. It works, but
 
Weak Kitten said:
And no one would thank us even if we did. I'm tired and I think a lot of Americans are tired, we just don't see the point of a military response to foreign problems any more.
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US military actions abroad are reactions to domestic supply problems, not foreign problems.
 
Praktik said:
Are we willing to wait until the first evidence of Iran's intentions is a mushroom cloud over manhattan??
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How many mushrooms clouds can you country do?

Can I qualify the intentions of your country by the number of possible mushroom clouds?

Interesting questions...

:eusa_think:
 
Praktik said:
Are we willing to wait until the first evidence of Iran's intentions is a mushroom cloud over manhattan??
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Are you willing to wait until the first evidence of Sweden's intentions is a mushroom cloud over manhattan?
 
Praktik said:
Are we willing to wait until the first evidence of Iran's intentions is a mushroom cloud over manhattan??
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Nukes doesn't equal long-range ballistic missiles. Iran may be trying to get the former, but as far as I know they don't have any way to get it to Manhattan easily or quickly.

Also note that even if they did have long range missiles, we do have some ways to shoot down such things.

Finally, if they were that stupid, almost literally the entire world would call them the aggressor and a UN coalition would smash them back into the Stone Age. I'd much rather have them try and fail to get a nuke to the US in some fashion, because that will leave evidence we can use. It risks that we won't be successful in stopping them, yes, but we can reduce that risk by improving our security. We don't have to destroy Iran to reduce that risk.

Praktik said:
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
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Vigilance is one thing. Paranoia and over-aggressiveness is another. The latter won't help us keep our freedom.
 
Well I guess you're fine putting your trust into an Apocalyptic Suicide Cult. To us non-marxists here in the free world such an idea is inconceivable.
 
the first post was just for fun.

Then someone didnt see the sarcasm.

And i've been trolling you with Skeptic/mhaze type lines ever since. I guess people thought my sig was as it is cause I actually believe John Hinderaker, though I think the amount of people that wouldn't guffaw at that quote to be a tiny, tiny minority. ;)

Moral of the story: don't assume people know your posting history..;)
 
For the record: a pre-emptive strike on Iran is among the most foolish, dangerous policy ideas going around out there right now - far more dangerous than keeping the status quo.
 
Praktik said:
the first post was just for fun.

Then someone didnt see the sarcasm.

And i've been trolling you with Skeptic/mhaze type lines ever since. I guess people thought my sig was as it is cause I actually believe John Hinderaker, though I think the amount of people that wouldn't guffaw at that quote to be a tiny, tiny minority. ;)

Moral of the story: don't assume people know your posting history..;)
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I suspected something was wrong; that didn't seem like you.

I was having too much fun coming up with responses to really care though.
 
http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/02/19/zakaria.contain.iran/index.html

Zakaria: The problems with the military option remain what they've always been, and it's a little alarming to see the way in which people are gravitating toward a military option, out of a sort of frustration that there isn't some magical solution here.

The military option is certainly not a magical solution. It's a very risky strategy with many potentially large, unintended consequences. A military strike would be a pre-emptive invasion of another country by the United States. It would not have any sanction in international law.

It would not be supported by the vast majority of the world, and it would only delay rather than destroy the Iranian program.

I've talked to many military experts, and we do not seem to have the ability to completely destroy a program like this, partly because nuclear technology is after all not some cutting-edge technology. This is 60-year old technology, and there are lots of people in Iran who are trained scientists.

It would also strengthen the hard-line elements within the regime, would weaken the Green Movement because they would have to come out in support of the regime, and against what would be a foreign attack on Iranian soil.

It would inflame the Middle East and make tensions rise everywhere, including the two places where the U.S. has a huge stake and tens of thousands of troops -- Afghanistan and Iraq -- and it would put the moderate Arabs on the defense. It would have the effect of radicalizing the region.

And those are pretty much the known consequences. ... Then, there's always in the business of war, the unknown consequences. What would Iran's reaction be? ... What kind of militia operations could it fund in Iraq and Afghanistan that would directly kill Americans?
 
Thank you sir, may I have another? ;)

Mischief knows no age!

Interesting thoughts on how a preemptive strike might play out here and here.

Has anyone come across any war-games or serious analyses showing advantage for the US after an attack on Iran?
 
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