Iran is certainly a greater security threat to the US than Iraq ever could have been. Conquest in the Middle East (in the sense of acquiring control over large amounts of territory and holding it for significant amounts of time) just isn't in the cards for the US, not without a draft and other political commitments which are extremely unlikely to happen. If we need to take out Iran's nuclear program by force (a moot point: consider the recent success with North Korea), it seems clear that it will require something more like a surgical strike than a full-fledged invasion.
But that would require excellent intelligence and rapid deployment forces, and those services have been handled very crudely by the current administration. I'm sorry if that sounds like mere rhetoric; from where I sit it seems like something that hawks and doves might be willing to agree on.
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Date: 2007-07-22 11:58 pm (UTC)But that would require excellent intelligence and rapid deployment forces, and those services have been handled very crudely by the current administration. I'm sorry if that sounds like mere rhetoric; from where I sit it seems like something that hawks and doves might be willing to agree on.