sorry about that...wrong on the pop of Iran...thought it wa smaller...maybe the coffee isnt working this morning...still, I stick to my point...logistically it's a better fight.
I agree with you about this: if it is indeed Iranian weaponry being used against us, then open war is preferable to this shadowy shot in the dark business. The world won't help us, except perhaps for the stalwart few, and even they are in a rough position. It's a law of history that weaker countries band together against the stronger, and that's what's happening to us now (witness the alliance of Old Europe with the Islamofascists, Russia with Syria, etc.).
The problem is that our enemies need not defeat us on the battlefield. We Americans are an impatient lot, sometimes a virtue and sometimes a vice. In war it is a vice. No one wants to see the flower of their nation return in flag-drapped coffins, but it is the cruel reality of what war is. If the American people are this squeamish over 1800 US deaths in Iraq, I can't imagine how they would react to significantly more. It used to be that losing 1800 in a single battle was considered light casualties, let alone a war (obviously, the wounded in action figure raises the casuality level significantly, but it is still shockingly low for a 2 year operation).
Our enemies know how to exploit our strengths, and turn them into weaknesses. Freedom of speech has become the armor of the fifth column. Our faith in the decency of humanity is shaken by the acts of barbarism perpetrated on both soldier and civilian. I firmly believe that every civilization crumbles as a result of its core beliefs--Nazi Germany through war, the Soviet Union through economics, the USA through our liberties. It won't happen in the immediate future, but the our greatest achievement, the Bill of Rights, will be the instrument of our downfall.
Iran is bigger in population and land area and they have more advanced weaponry and they are more homogeneous and they are more fundamentalist, and they are more experienced in guerrilla tactics and they have a perfect demographic size of young males suitable for defending the homeland, but check out the logistics-- those "logistics" really weigh heavily in the direction of us whipping these joker's asses.