I will ignore moral issues, such as whether its morally right to attack states on which you have no solid information they plan to attack you. I will also ignore how likely it is for terrorist to get nuclear weapons (or signficant WMD capacity). We disagree so fundamentally on those topics there is little point discussing them.

But lets assume there is a threat. How can it best be neutralized. The administration position has been essentially an entirely military one to date. We either invade a country or we bomb its nuclear program out of existence. There are several practical problems with this.

1) If a nation really wants a nuclear program it can bury it where our bombers can't get at, deep underground. The US is unlikely to use large nuclear devices and its not clear that you could destroy such even if they did. Most feel the smaller nuclear systems would not work. Unless the US has absolute proof that it would be attacked, any use of nuclear devices will destroy our alliances abroad entirely and that would have a very real cost. So a nuclear strategy won't be employed under normal situations, like say Iraq or Iran in the last few years.

2) The nation in question can keep rebuilding the program however often its destroyed. This is particulraly true when it has only a very limited nuclear program to start with. Such are relatively easy to rebuild because there is much less to rebuild (its also true that you can not destroy what does not exist meaning preemptive strikes are of limited value). If the US keeps attacking other states it will face serious economic and political retaliation and the possibility of another nuclear power supporting the state in question getting warheads.

3) For many third world countries, especially Islamic ones, getting attacked by the US is the best publicity the government could receive. It will rally the public around them in defiance of the US and destroy domestic pro-Western supporters in the country. What happened to Khomeni after Saddam attacked him (for the US many Iranians felt) in 1979 is an excellent example of that, it would be much worse however if we did it given how poorly we are viewed abroad. If you want to destroy a reform movement or any public support for the US attacking Third World governments is the way to do it.

4) Essentially you can only permamently destroy a nuclear threat by military occupation. But we have fared poorly in Iraq which was the easiest test case and it would be even harder in Iran particularly since we would still be fighting in Iraq with a signficant portion of our army.


A second option would be convert forces. US special forces probably could not penetrate deeply enough to cripple a program for long. This might be useful for individual weapons, but it would be a long shot and even so they could be rebuilt. A way to work on different options only.


A third option is the one the Bush administration say its supports. Creating democratic governance and generating reform in the Third World. The problem is that 1) the US has in fact not supported democratic government generally in the Third World and is not moving that way 2) reforms have not worked very well to date even in Iraq (certainly for our reputation) and there is little evidence that reforms in one country spread to other countries at all 3) the military effort to drive reform in Iraq has generated a vast backlash specifically in the mass public we are trying to win over - against us and against reformers i n their countries 4)there is no reason to assume that democracies would support the US even were they established. Anti-Israeli sentiment would still drive Arabic countries agaisnt us and our own operations have created signficant problems as well. We are not very popular in the Arab world, thus elections are being won by people such as the Arab Brotherhood or Hamas that hate our guts.

A nuclear defensive system wont be much help if they even get to work (so far far after 20 years of trying they are not even to first base). They have such few systems that smuggling would be as useful a tool as a launch - and they dont remotely have missiles that can or are likely to reach us - even those few states that have nuclear devices.

In short none of the solutions tried have or are likely to work. What would work best is a campaign of peacefull support for reform combined with communication and economic help to address the poverty that help drive Islamic terrorism. Maybe, but the problem is we have harmed our reputation abroad so badly over the last few years that it may take a signficant amount of time to be able to pursue it. It would be combined I am sure with less showy violence - the Bush administation seems to go out of its way to commit hostile acts with the greatest visibility and rhetorical noise they can, a terrible way to run a political based war.

We will have to wait for Bush to leave in any cases for peaceful solutions to be considered if they can still work at all. In the end the situation will end up much like our last confrontation with Russia and China, who at the time scared us silly. We learned to live with it, eventually their societies changed and the problem evaporated. As soon as the administration leaves, much of the hysteria will leave with it.

__________________
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away

I quite honestly don't think theres much anyone can do about Iran. They are not cooperating with the inspections process, so sanctions would be the logical response. Sanctions are opposed by Russia and China, so it would be hard to impliment them with any degree of success.

The next option would be the wait and see approach, letting intelligence agencies do their job, seeing if an threat materializes. At this point, perhaps 3-6 years from now, the intelligence can be put fourth to the UN, and a state, such as Iran, will have make a decision.

If the state chooses continued defiance, and concrete intel exists regarding WMD development, the Security council can vote to authorize the use of force on Iran and the desired military action can be taken. We know Iran's facilities are deep underground, so some heavy equipment would be brought in to deal with that situation, while the regime's institutions would be bombed. By no means is an occupation or "nation-building" mission necessary. Also, given Iranians want nuclear technology and support their leader, it would be far from recommended for troops to stay in Iran longer than a month.

If the security council does not think a state is a threat then the US should accept the decision, and not go on a unilateral rampage through the country. As we know, there was no such vote regarding Iraq, as it was quite obvious France would have vetoed it.

If there is no intel that the state is developing nukes, then there should be no response. The state is either not building any, or keeping them very secret. If the end result is some country builds a nuke, then there would be no choice but to back down and let them join the club. If the country goes and nukes someone, they would be asking for a war anyways, and most countries wouldn't do that. Watching two neighbours be bombed and occupied, Iran would want a nuke for self-defense, which is why any country wants nukes.

I understand that at some point down the road, war may be necessary, but its amazing how so many right-wingers on this board are almost taunting Bush to bomb Iran this week.

__________________
"The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. " — John Stuart Mill

does not really have a basis to authorize a war because a threat to the US exist.

But I agree there are no really good option.

__________________
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away

greatest material leverage the world could wield against Iran is withholding the purchase of their oil. With Iraq oil wealth underutilized and growing global demand, that does not seem to be an option. The Hoover Institute has an interesting proposal: wasn't it you, noetsi, that provided that link in another thread?

Isolationism....but Democrats obstruct.