I’m actually fairly familiar with the weapons in the U.S. arsenal. I’m also somewhat familiar with the recent “construction projects” that the Iranians have undertaken. Neither the U.S. nor the Israelis can take these out with conventional weapons, despite what some in the U.S. Air Force would like us to believe of their capabilities. We could try a series of decapitation strikes, but power is Iran is quite a bit more distributed than in Iraq, and our chances of success, I fear, are quite low (recall we tried to get Saddam a couple of times, but failed). BTW, the Israelis have basically the same capabilities as the U.S. for attacking hardened facilities: they’re in the process of purchasing 130 “bunker-buster” bombs from the U.S. Unfortunately, these weapons won’t “bust” the facilities that the Iranians have recently built.

Iran is a big problem, but I don’t see the U.S. has having many options for dealing with it. I’m sure that many of us hope that the mullahs will be removed by “the people” at some point, but it’s not clear to me that this will bring about wonderful results [though it likely could not get much worse], for as others have noted, these folk have been subjected to intense propaganda about Israel and the Jews for decades. Sometimes I think one course of action would simply be to bribe the Russians: they seem quite susceptible to such.

Anyway, Coisty, how do the “Trotskyist neocons” fit in here, or should I say “hook-nosed cosmopolitan Trotskyist neocon wire-pullers”?

The Iranian president is only articulating what the bulk of the governments in the region want and it is the only logical opinion one can reach if you are taught from gradeschool that Jews use muslim blood in their religous ceremonies and that Jews are a lower form of life. yes. yes, I know that the Koran has different attitudes towards people of “the Book” and that there are moderate muslims all over the world do not share those thoughts but if you look at what many of the Governments in the region teach their children and what they spout on their government controlled media and entertainment shows the “wiping out” of Israel is not really a shocking sentiment. many of the muslim governments in the region do a wonderful job of sounding magnamous in their English statements to the world and bloodthirsty in their thoughts to their own people. There are even some who realize that the war against Israel is self defeating. But they are in the minority in the region. I am sure that some of the governments are pissed about what the Iranian president said but only because it was bad PR, not because they are shocked and appalled.

And what will Russia have gained? They will have gotten rid of most of the governments in the Middle East so they can come on down for “humanitarian reasons” to provide aid to the survivors and end up dominating the region, and in the short term the price of oil would skyrocket, which would be of benefit to a major oil exporting country such as Russia.

Who knows?

As president, I have no doubts he has taken substantive action. It’s closer to conspiracy to commit genocide. Or just a simple declaration of war.

Not that this would actually succeed, of course, but the mere attempt would be good medecine.

But why don’t you put your money where your mouth is? Tell me what would happen in your perfect world if we hadn’t gone into Iraq. Are you actually suggesting Iran wouldn’t be pursuing their nuclear ambitions with the same vigor as they have been all along (and pre-Iraq war)? Okay, so then what? They have the bomb and make threats and Saddam Hussein is still in power in Iraq. What would your plan be and how is this horrifying situation remotely better than the one that exists now, where a democracy is taking shape in Iraq? And finally, your supposition about what an intelligent Iranian leader would do is uninformed on so many levels I don’t know where to begin.

Did you send that message from Iraq or is your tour of duty over?

People don’t normally join the US and UK armed forces to engage in social engineering in the Islamic world. They usually join to protect their own country. Tragically the 2000 American and 100 or so British lives vomited out in Iraq will make those two nations less supportive of military actions that, unlike Iraq, might actually be required.

One of the tragedies of the Iraq war is that the Iranians may be in a stronger position than previously. A Shia-dominated government in a country with so much internal opposition may move closer to the mad mullahs in Tehran.

Incidentally, we should probably be grateful for Ahmadinejad’s candour. A more intelligent Iranian leader would take a low profile and send out the diplomats whilst getting on with the job of getting those nukes ready. This lunatic has has scored an own goal.

George Purcell: On declaring Israel under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, I say from your mouth to G-d’s ears. Unfortunately, if, for many Americans, the loss of 2000 soldiers’ is too high a cost for the liberty of tens of millions of muslims and a the potential for a positive sea change in the direction of the entire region, imagine how abhorent it would be to them to throw all of the US’ military weight behind a warning to Iran intended solely to prevent the destruction of that troublesome little Israel and a couple hundred thousand Jews.

It says so much about what the Muslim leaders of the world really care for the plight of their Palestinian brethren (not too mention the truth about the purported inestimably important to the Muslim world of “Al-Quds”) that they’d be willing to nuke the living daylights out of the area just to annihilate Jews.