Obama The Iran Deal We Should Have Done

We will still have all the recourse at our disposal if they develop one in 10 years or if they develop one next year. Isn't 10 years a lot better scenario? A lot can happen in 10 years. Likely there will be a new agreement in place before then. Possibly there will be a new regime in Tehran by then. The Republicans offer no alternate plan. The simply say let the Iranians build a bomb and then we will go to war over it. That is a losing proposition that learns nothing from the lessons of Iraq. 1-Don't go to war over imaginary fears. 2-Don't start a war you can't sustain. 3-Don't go to war without your allies and the support of the American people. 4-Have an end plan before you start. To stop Iran militarily would take the invasion and occupation of another middle eastern country with a hostile population resulting in endless insurgency and guerrilla warfare.

The hollow religious rhetoric from a self-proclaimed Holy man in a third world country is not something we need to fear. Talk is cheap. He is playing to an internal audience. Iran hasn't won a war in centuries, they lost a million men in the war they lost last with Iraq. They can't buy new weaponry and must use obsolete equipment. They have little established, experienced military leadership. They are desperately trying to appear tough. It is propaganda, don't fall for it.

Iran has already armed Hezbollah and to the teeth and Israel can handle them fine with the $2 billion year we give them in defense aid. Why are we giving the Israelis all that cheddar if they can't handle the threat by themselves? They can. Iran has a lot of thing to do with that money concerning their own restless population. If they spend any abroad it is likely going to support Assad, because when Syria falls, Lebanon and Hezbollah is toast anyway. Israel has a couple of hundred nuclear weapons and the means and skill to deliver them. Deterrence has always worked.

It may be. We couldn't stop China, Israel, India, North Korea, or Pakistan from developing nuclear weapons. It just wasn't worth going to war over since none of them can really threaten us. On the other hand, South Africa actually developed and tested a weapon and later dropped their program. South Korea, Brazil, Argentina, Sweden, Taiwan and Libya also abandoned active nuclear weapons programs under pressure. What it takes is international pressure from all the worlds great military and economic powers and we have that right now with Iran if the Republicans don't fuck it up.

It's worth giving diplomacy a try. It just might work and save us an endless war and a devastated economy. If it doesn't we still have all of our economic power and military power that can be brought to bear. And allies, if we don't alienate them with senseless chest-beating and saber-ratling right now. They will follow us to war if all other possibilities have been exhausted. They will not if we insist on war up front.

 

We don't have to trust them. It's not built on trust, but on verification. If they cheat the sanction go back and we still have military options.