Bombing Iran
It was reported this week that senior commanders in the military warned their would be serious consequences if diplomacy with Iran failed and led to a bombing campaign or war. They were also against an idea that the war could be done on the cheap, they said economic and military ramifications need to be considered along with items such as the threat to oil supplies and long term backlash from Europe and the Middle East. The article mentioned another problem would be our soldiers in Iraq who would become immediate targets from missiles coming from Iran and attacks from Iraqi Shiites who are loyal to Iran. The Iranians are also moving facilities into urban areas, which would lead to higher civilian casualties.
Our allies in the gulf including Israel would also be targets of Iran and if Israel decided to retaliate, it could lead to a wider war in the Middle East. The current Israeli situation with the Palestinians over a kidnapped Israeli soldier is already putting pressure from the people on Middle Eastern governments to help the Palestinians. This has led Middle Eastern governments like Egypt to try and find a peaceful solution immediately before the people become more discontent and demand action.
I believe bombing Iran would not work that well unless we went in with a large ground force to secure the country and find the nuclear facilites since our intelligence about their locations is weak. Of course this would mean we are locked into another long and costly war along with more international backlash, but the good side would be the nukes are secured. Also our lack of credibility from Iraq makes it tougher for other nations to believe our claims. The leader of Iran might be crazy, but that does not mean he already has WMDs. Just a bombing campaign would also not work since US intelligence is not even sure of all the locations of Iran's nuclear program and hitting facilities in civilian areas would bring international condemnation upon us.
I know some of you may be thinking, "who cares what the other countries think?". It is important how other countries feel about us. The longer we look like the bad guy in the Middle East, the more terrorists it will bread. I know the President likes to say we fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here. That is not a valid argument since their is not a finite number of terrorists, they will continue to be more terrorists trained as we kill them in Iraq. We need to fight the root cause that leads them to be terrorists and show them that America is a beacon of hope again, not the big bad bully (which is how the currently feel). They have to not hate America and feel hopeless. A lot of suicide bombers volunteer so their families can get payouts letting the family live a decent life and they also believe they are doing the right thing. If the people become more educaetd and got jobs, it would lead to less people becoming deperate and falling for the bs that they are told. Bombing Iran does not help protray us in a positive light. It may not be our fault that they hate us, but it is in our interests to change their views
Our image in Europe is also poor, we rely on Europe for the continued strength of our military, if we did not have rights to bases in Europe, it would have been much harder to move troops into Iraq. We also want to be on Europe's good side over the continued oil prices. Russia has been bullying countries in Western Europe for favorable oil contracts and the Europians are becoming more anxious and more willing to sign oil contracts with Russia and make better deals with them. If Europe does not think of us as a true friend and security partner, they will be more inclined to side with Russia to protect their own oil supplies. This is important since right now we see how countries are not willing to side with us in the UN so they can protect their oil from Iran.
I do believe that if diplomacy fails and we did gain strong evidence of a WMD program and really fealt threatened, then we should rally the international community to go to war, and I am not talking about how we did it in Iraq. In Iraq our evidence was weak and trumped up to justify the war and we did not even give the UN a chance. Many people said the UN had 10 years and did nothing, but that is false, as we have seen after the war, the UN had been pretty successful in removing old WMDs. As the military commanders have said, it shouldn't even be considered that the bombing can be done on the cheap. We need to plan for realistic scenarios, like oil shortages and widespead violence in the Middle East, Iran is not Iraq, their military has been building up for the past 20 years while Iraq's was withering away under sanctions. Of course we can defeat it, but is the cost worth it, will be the question that our leaders have to answer. It really should be the last choice, not an option along with diplomacy.
Digg
It was reported this week that senior commanders in the military warned their would be serious consequences if diplomacy with Iran failed and led to a bombing campaign or war. They were also against an idea that the war could be done on the cheap, they said economic and military ramifications need to be considered along with items such as the threat to oil supplies and long term backlash from Europe and the Middle East. The article mentioned another problem would be our soldiers in Iraq who would become immediate targets from missiles coming from Iran and attacks from Iraqi Shiites who are loyal to Iran. The Iranians are also moving facilities into urban areas, which would lead to higher civilian casualties.
Our allies in the gulf including Israel would also be targets of Iran and if Israel decided to retaliate, it could lead to a wider war in the Middle East. The current Israeli situation with the Palestinians over a kidnapped Israeli soldier is already putting pressure from the people on Middle Eastern governments to help the Palestinians. This has led Middle Eastern governments like Egypt to try and find a peaceful solution immediately before the people become more discontent and demand action.
I believe bombing Iran would not work that well unless we went in with a large ground force to secure the country and find the nuclear facilites since our intelligence about their locations is weak. Of course this would mean we are locked into another long and costly war along with more international backlash, but the good side would be the nukes are secured. Also our lack of credibility from Iraq makes it tougher for other nations to believe our claims. The leader of Iran might be crazy, but that does not mean he already has WMDs. Just a bombing campaign would also not work since US intelligence is not even sure of all the locations of Iran's nuclear program and hitting facilities in civilian areas would bring international condemnation upon us.
I know some of you may be thinking, "who cares what the other countries think?". It is important how other countries feel about us. The longer we look like the bad guy in the Middle East, the more terrorists it will bread. I know the President likes to say we fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here. That is not a valid argument since their is not a finite number of terrorists, they will continue to be more terrorists trained as we kill them in Iraq. We need to fight the root cause that leads them to be terrorists and show them that America is a beacon of hope again, not the big bad bully (which is how the currently feel). They have to not hate America and feel hopeless. A lot of suicide bombers volunteer so their families can get payouts letting the family live a decent life and they also believe they are doing the right thing. If the people become more educaetd and got jobs, it would lead to less people becoming deperate and falling for the bs that they are told. Bombing Iran does not help protray us in a positive light. It may not be our fault that they hate us, but it is in our interests to change their views
Our image in Europe is also poor, we rely on Europe for the continued strength of our military, if we did not have rights to bases in Europe, it would have been much harder to move troops into Iraq. We also want to be on Europe's good side over the continued oil prices. Russia has been bullying countries in Western Europe for favorable oil contracts and the Europians are becoming more anxious and more willing to sign oil contracts with Russia and make better deals with them. If Europe does not think of us as a true friend and security partner, they will be more inclined to side with Russia to protect their own oil supplies. This is important since right now we see how countries are not willing to side with us in the UN so they can protect their oil from Iran.
I do believe that if diplomacy fails and we did gain strong evidence of a WMD program and really fealt threatened, then we should rally the international community to go to war, and I am not talking about how we did it in Iraq. In Iraq our evidence was weak and trumped up to justify the war and we did not even give the UN a chance. Many people said the UN had 10 years and did nothing, but that is false, as we have seen after the war, the UN had been pretty successful in removing old WMDs. As the military commanders have said, it shouldn't even be considered that the bombing can be done on the cheap. We need to plan for realistic scenarios, like oil shortages and widespead violence in the Middle East, Iran is not Iraq, their military has been building up for the past 20 years while Iraq's was withering away under sanctions. Of course we can defeat it, but is the cost worth it, will be the question that our leaders have to answer. It really should be the last choice, not an option along with diplomacy.
Digg
Our allies in the gulf including Israel would also be targets of Iran and if Israel decided to retaliate, it could lead to a wider war in the Middle East. The current Israeli situation with the Palestinians over a kidnapped Israeli soldier is already putting pressure from the people on Middle Eastern governments to help the Palestinians. This has led Middle Eastern governments like Egypt to try and find a peaceful solution immediately before the people become more discontent and demand action.
I believe bombing Iran would not work that well unless we went in with a large ground force to secure the country and find the nuclear facilites since our intelligence about their locations is weak. Of course this would mean we are locked into another long and costly war along with more international backlash, but the good side would be the nukes are secured. Also our lack of credibility from Iraq makes it tougher for other nations to believe our claims. The leader of Iran might be crazy, but that does not mean he already has WMDs. Just a bombing campaign would also not work since US intelligence is not even sure of all the locations of Iran's nuclear program and hitting facilities in civilian areas would bring international condemnation upon us.
I know some of you may be thinking, "who cares what the other countries think?". It is important how other countries feel about us. The longer we look like the bad guy in the Middle East, the more terrorists it will bread. I know the President likes to say we fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here. That is not a valid argument since their is not a finite number of terrorists, they will continue to be more terrorists trained as we kill them in Iraq. We need to fight the root cause that leads them to be terrorists and show them that America is a beacon of hope again, not the big bad bully (which is how the currently feel). They have to not hate America and feel hopeless. A lot of suicide bombers volunteer so their families can get payouts letting the family live a decent life and they also believe they are doing the right thing. If the people become more educaetd and got jobs, it would lead to less people becoming deperate and falling for the bs that they are told. Bombing Iran does not help protray us in a positive light. It may not be our fault that they hate us, but it is in our interests to change their views
Our image in Europe is also poor, we rely on Europe for the continued strength of our military, if we did not have rights to bases in Europe, it would have been much harder to move troops into Iraq. We also want to be on Europe's good side over the continued oil prices. Russia has been bullying countries in Western Europe for favorable oil contracts and the Europians are becoming more anxious and more willing to sign oil contracts with Russia and make better deals with them. If Europe does not think of us as a true friend and security partner, they will be more inclined to side with Russia to protect their own oil supplies. This is important since right now we see how countries are not willing to side with us in the UN so they can protect their oil from Iran.
I do believe that if diplomacy fails and we did gain strong evidence of a WMD program and really fealt threatened, then we should rally the international community to go to war, and I am not talking about how we did it in Iraq. In Iraq our evidence was weak and trumped up to justify the war and we did not even give the UN a chance. Many people said the UN had 10 years and did nothing, but that is false, as we have seen after the war, the UN had been pretty successful in removing old WMDs. As the military commanders have said, it shouldn't even be considered that the bombing can be done on the cheap. We need to plan for realistic scenarios, like oil shortages and widespead violence in the Middle East, Iran is not Iraq, their military has been building up for the past 20 years while Iraq's was withering away under sanctions. Of course we can defeat it, but is the cost worth it, will be the question that our leaders have to answer. It really should be the last choice, not an option along with diplomacy.
Digg
posted by Amar Shah at 6:13 PM
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