I go for a preemptive strike on all Soviet ICBM silos, remaining naval and air forces. Then for fun, test out the JSOW on the Red Army. And finally sit back and watch the PLA race into Siberia and the Islamic south explode.
Are you people serious? Launch preemptive strikes against the Russians (and do weapon tests 'for fun')? You really think that is the way to save the Homeland? If Iran launched something against the US (which Iran would never do ....it would be suicidal for a nation-state to launch nukes against the US, even for Muslims who have no problem with being suicidal. What those crazy kooks would do is not launch an ICBM, but instead give a nuclear device to a terrorist group which would then smuggle it inside the US and detonate it ...and hopeful that gives them some 'deniability' since they would say the source of the nuke was not them. Then they sit back, pray hard, and keep their fingers crossed in the hope that Uncle Sam doesn't lay the biggest smackdown this side of Armageddon on them! And when/if that happens, the nuclear device will not be Iranian but Pakistani in origin in all probability, but I digress). Let us assume your scenario pans out, and Iran manages to get an ICBM that can reach the Continental US and launches it. They will not have more than a couple, and would fall right under the aegis provided by our missile defense systms (meaning, their limited launch will be intercepted and put on hold).
What will Russia do? Nothing! The moment that Iranian missiles go up the US will have called the Russians and told them of the Iranian launch, and that the US is responding to it. The Russians will then face an immediate decision ....do nothing, or launch their nukes. There is no reason for them to launch their nukes (why would they ....as crazy as Ivan may be at times, he is not stupid). Thus we would simply intercept the Iranian missiles, have a press conference some hours later, and the next day the Russians will issue some press statement to save face.
Now, let us say we use your strategy (either DoeEyes simultaneous full-scale launch against the Russians while launching a defensive interceptor against the IRanian ICBM, or LenS full-scale pre-emptive strike out of the blue). This is what will happen:
The Russians will immediately pick it up. Even when that country was bleeding money and their military/industrial complex was rusting (both literally and figuratively), their missile forces (the ICBMs and similar) were getting money. The funds that had dried up for other military services were getting diverted to their missile forces (since that is Russia's true deterrence, particularly in the future against China). Their stuff may not be as space-age as what we have, but it works and (when it comes to the missile forces) it was well maintained (and this was before Russia started getting all that oil wealth they are currently swimming in). Now, they detect the massive launches from our lanch ICBM silos and our sub SLBM Tridents.
What do they do?
They will immediately phone in to the WhiteHouse because they think it must be some mistake (in the past there have been some errors where the Russians/Soviets thought they were being attacked, but it turned out to be somethign totally benign). Thus they will think it MUST be some mistake ....and they will lose some time in it. But that waste of time will probably be 10 minutes - 15 min max. They will definitely lose some missile sites (I believe the SLBMs will have started to impact already, and the land based US ICBMS will at that point be only around 10 min away or less after that time wastage). Then US Weaspons will most probably be aimed at the Russian silos (basically hard strikes to kill the silos, because i doubt we would simply target their cities ....according to what you both wrote you want to take out their nukes to nuke their cities).
The problem though is this ....we will not have enough time to destroy all their nukes before a good number have been launched. Also, their nukes will not be going after our silos (which at this point would be mostly empty, and anyways the Russian ICBMs never did have the accuracy ours did). They will be aimed against our cities. Now, we will try and launch our killer-interceptors, and we will get some (but their missiles will have multiple warheads, and decoys, and they will be more than the defensive missiles we have, thus a good number will get through).
Now, let us assume we have destroyed all the Russian subs (thus no Russkie SLBMs), that we destroy half of their land-based silos with our pre-epmtive strike before they launch. That still leaves half of their land based silos, and a good number of their TOPOL-M that are mobile and next to impossible to get (even in Gulf war we had a difficult time getting Saddam's mobile SCUD launchers, and that is IRaq.....Russia is the world's largest country in terms of land mass ....TOPOL-Ms could be anywhere). Now, of the land based and mobile ICBMs that launch, let us assume HALF are duds (hey ...let's make it better for us), and let us also assume that we have enough interceptors to kill HALF of the ones that are not duds and are flying towards the US as we speak (again, a major assumption since we would NOT have such a number ...but again, let us give you scenario a shot).
They would still be over a hundred missiles streaking in towards the US even after all those crazy assumptions, and these would be targeted towards our cities.
Let us give you scenario something even better ....let us assume those crazy Russians had drank too much vodka, and that half the nukes had been mistakenly replaced with cotton candy and tinker toys! That would still leave enough to take out all the major sea board cities.
Would that be worth it, even if we got to test out the JSOW?
If someone like President Reagan (who had the b@lls, the capability, and the knowledge to actually do what you are advocating) did not do it, why do you think that is? Might it be because he knew that there was really no scenario where a pre-emptive strike would have been 100% successful (as in, with NO Soviet reprisal that leads to no American city being vaporised)? Maybe he knew that even if we 'killed' them (as in, destroyed their viability as an opponent), they would still be able to 'kill' us (destroy our viability ....you get the drift). We may do it to them at a greater extent than they do it to us, but they would still do it to us.
Maybe it is because MAD actually does work ....it is not equal (again, we could lay it on them harder than they laid it to us), but it is still effective (the difference between a Mexican standoff where one person gets shot with a .22 by his opponent, and as he falls launched an RPG at his opposite. While it is true that one of them got really messed up while the other one 'only' has a small bullet hole in the noggin' from the .22, the fact is that BOTH are still dead).
Anyways, a pre-emptive strike on Russia would be effective as far as seriously reducing their ability as a nuclear power. But it would have three immediate effects:
1) Russia would still hve sufficient (actually more than sufficient) nukes left to counter-attack against our major cities
2) Say good bye to the US economy
3) China just got a major boost since we took out one of their major buffers (Russia) and Russia just pruned us as well (giving China an easier time trying to do what it is trying to do, and that is gain a place at a higher pedestal in the global way of things).