Thank you for your reply.
Absolutely, the best defense needs to be assembled. The leadership of Iran clearly hates us, and likely has all sorts of ideas. I wouldn’t recommend that we ignore Iran.
It is the fear pr0n that accompanies every story tied to Iran that I find tiresome.
Again, we suffered for 444 days and lost good people in the bombing in Lebanon. Both of those attacks should have been cause for swift and brutal self-defense. Why Reagan didn’t bomb them to smithereens (Carter’s ineffectiveness needn’t be pondered) is puzzling. But that was then.
And sure, I have no doubt that Iran’s leaders are constantly scheming.
But Iran can’t hit Maine at 7,000 miles away. The countries Iran can hit seem to have no intent to address them - except for Israel. So why is this our problem to fix? We cheered on Trump’s “no more world policeman” stance prior to Iran. We should go back to basics.
As for Iran’s human rights abuses, if we took action against every such nation we’d never fix our own problems. Further, if we adopted a policy of military intervention based in a nation’s internal matters, we effectively OK some other nation attacking America over some perceived “human rights abuse” here, like the private ownership of firearms, free speech, and religious freedom.
You posed a VERY detailed list of Iran’s attacks a little while ago. https://freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/4370612/posts?page=17#17. I’m not trying to dismiss your list, and frankly I haven’t scrutinized it. You’re a noble FReeper and I’ll take it as goodness.
But I’ve seen lots of attacks ascribed to Iran by other FReepers that, upon investigation, are really from someone else and Iran just takes credit for it to pump themselves up.
I don’t want to underestimate Iran. But I don’t think Iran is this Massive Threat that SOME people - not necessarily you - present.
If I was Emperor, we’d be arming the Iranian citizens and facilitating them going full Ceaușescu on their leaders. That would create lasting change.
"...Again, we suffered for 444 days and lost good people in the bombing in Lebanon. Both of those attacks should have been cause for swift and brutal self-defense. Why Reagan didn’t bomb them to smithereens (Carter’s ineffectiveness needn’t be pondered) is puzzling. But that was then..."
This was something I struggled with for many years. Decades. I have finally concluded that, even with Reagan in charge just over a year after it happened, we simply lacked two things:
We lacked the equipment and capabilities needed to carry out an attack on Iran without significant loss of life...a different calculus that we face today where we DO have the equipment and capability.
Secondly, we lacked the nerve to do it. And I retrospect, after much thought, I am at peace with that. We simply didn't have the national resolve to move on Iran, even if citizens like you and I would have favored it, even with loss of life.
I was only a few months out of the military at that point, but even if I had been in, I still would have advocated. But I understand the national dynamic better now.
Iran may not be able to hit Maine with ballistic weapons, but they sure can hit Western Europe. They would not go that route anyway-they would bring in a bomb on a containership and destroy a large city with harbor facilities. (That is just my opinion, and I could be wrong. I just do not think they would launch missiles at us, even as they chant DEATH TO AMERICA in Iran.
I do keep in mind that we can determine exactly where the fissile material came from-every country with weapon-grade fissile material can be minutely identified by the residue of an explosion. We would be able to tell exactly who created that fissile material, as each country's refining process leaves a DISTINCT radioactive fingerprint. That is a fact. So If Iran thought they could give a weapon to some other proxy of theirs like the narco-terrorrists or what have you, and they set it off, we would know nearly immediately where that fissile material originated from.
I believe the Iranian leadership is insane-insane with power and religious fervor. So I in no way trust them to have that knowledge they would not escape blame as a deterrent.
To be clear-an Iran without nuclear weapons is a destabilizing threat, not a massive threat.
But an Iran WITH a nuclear weapon is not only a destablizing threat, but also a massive one as well.
I have gotten to the point where I don't have much patience with those who cannot understand this in the same way I do, but that does not free me from the intellectual requirement that I keep in mind not only that other people may be right on this kind of thing, but that also, I may be wrong. I have spent decades pondering it and thinking about it, but I do keep in mind that I can be wrong about it. In that light, I will try to keep things civil if I can.
But I also keep in mind that in war, the enemy has a say in things no matter the plans you develop to defeat them.