[Dark Skies]

This article certainly isn't perfect, but the author raises some interesting issues that, IMO, are worth considering. And I think the author is correct...war with Iran is unavoidable (Ahmadinejad and the mullahs have seen to that).

[Gordongekko909]

War now, or a nuclear Iran later. Hmm.

[P.O.E.]

I know I'm going to take flak for this, but from the beginning I wished President Bush had gone after Iran first.

I'm aware of all the arguments and rationale, but that's just the way I felt.

[joesnuffy]

War to free the muddle east of 'terrorism' but leave our own borders wide open so they can pretty much set up for their next strike any where they want???

[bill1952]

Lets roll

[samtheman]

While the Iranian leadership prepares to burn us all, the US Senate fiddles with hearings on the legality of wiretaps.

[gaijin]

How could we POSSIBLY do a proper job on Iran w/o using tactical NUKES? Those facilities are DUG IN.

This sounds like a VERY tough nut to crack...

This is SERIOUS.

[happyathome]

"...the decision to let the Europeans play nuclear footsie with the mullahs in Iran for more than two years was a terrible blunder. Pacifist evasion is what the world has come to expect from continental Europe, but the decision by Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, to become an enabler to their procrastinations was of a different order of strategic error"

So there it is. Europeans blaming the US for alowing Europeans to be Europeans. Can't say I'm surprised.

Separately, have you ever read an article that uses the prefix "un" so many times?

[RightWhale]

It is argued that the decision to invade the wrong country has made our situation intolerably worse.

The decision to invade Iraq was forced by necessity, as will be seen. Iran at that time was not the immediate threat but just a swirling cesspool of incoherent political thought out of which monsters emerge now and then. If Iran is now an immediate threat rather than just an oozing breeding ground, it will be dealt with. A bombing campaign with no ground invasion may suffice to reduce Iran once more to fangless malignity and if the Persians can then recover their country from the invaders, so much the better, but it isn't a done deal.

[Faraday]

"Unthinkable"..."Unimaginable" These Europeons are incapable of defending themselves, much less anything else. If it wasn't for Israel, I'd say let Teheran have the bomb. "The left says this...The right says that." What a pathetic parody of civilization Europe has become.

[Taxbilly]

Assassination is your friend.

[StAnDeliver]

Decap Iranian C&C. That's all. Just do it.

[Supernatural]

Push has come to shove.

[Dallas59]

Not all of Iraq is uncivilized. We need a base of operations. Iraq is perfect. The majority Iraqis hold no love for Iran. This may have been Bushes plan all along. Maybe.

[stevem]

Military strikes, even limited, targeted and accurate ones, will have devastating consequences for the region.

I can't figure out why Europoeans don't make the obvious comparison, except European public schools may not be better than US public schools...in the lump, that is. How would the folks in England feel if Adolf Hitler had waited until his heavy water efforts had been completed, or even the Me262 before the Battle of Britain began. That battle would have been over in about 15 minutes and German would be the official language spoken in London these days.

I guess in war I'm starting to appreciate the thoughts of US Grant. You can be magnanimous in victory, but before that happens you had better win, and win so the bad guys can't look back and ask: What if? There can't be any "what ifs," or the war really isn't over.

[silverleaf]

So Condi was an "enabler" for letting the UN and Europeans take the lead in diplomacy with Iran (whom they have been busily wheeling and dealing with for the past 25 years as the US attempted to maintain unilateral sanctions.

But the same talking heads in Europe scorn George Bush as a "cowboy" for not letting the UN handle Iraq with diplomacy.

Fine. Let Britain France and Gemany declare war on Iran and ask the US to join in a coalition. Our response will not likely resemble theirs of 2003.

[Cicero]

On the left the hands are being wrung over Iraq. It is argued that the decision to invade the wrong country has made our situation intolerably worse. Iran was always the bigger threat.

This may be true in England, but I haven't heard a peep out of the Democrats to this effect. Many of them are saying that the Iraq war was the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time, but they sure as hell aren't saying what the right war would have been.

We have come down this road to this point because a) the Euros have turned into effete cowards, and b) the mass media and the Democrat fifth column have done everything humanly possible to undermine President Bush on the issue of war.

I don't think we took on the wrong country first. But I do think we have delayed several years too long to take on the next countries on the list: Syria and Iraq. That was self-evidently the list from the very first. And if not for the Demoncrats, we would already be much further down that list.

There's still time, but not a whole lot, especially with Israel now seemingly paralyzed.

[Supernatural]

Push has come to shove.

[carl in alaska]

Great article and very sobering.

[mtbopfuyn]

Before we go to war with anyone, our borders must be secured. If not, they'll bring the war to our doorsteps.

[Asclepius]

How many wars on how many fronts can we prosecute before the Chinese decide to invade Taiwan because they see how over-extended we are?--if war or some sort of conflict is inevitable, I hope we pursue the issue with more far subtlety than force, e.g. assassinations, PSYOPS, intrigues organized with dissidents or other civil society actors, cyber- and net-war operations, raiding-swarming-pulsing tactics, sustained infrastructure disruptions (water, electricity, transportation networks).

Anyway, whatever. But can we really occupy all the realestate from Turkey to Pakistan? Do we really want to?