Double or Nothing: Why Bush must attack Iran

[mmaestro]

By now, it should be clear to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention that the war in Iraq has been a failure of monumental proportions. Bush's coalition of the willing has failed. Today, Iraq is in flames, steps away from anarchy, and the politicians still fighting rather than forming a government have begun to state the obvious - Iraq is in

Comments

[mmaestro]

The post is my own thoughts based upon this recent post from Billmon. The image is of the detonation on March 12, 1955 of the US nuclear bomb "Hornet", a 4 kiloton explosion. The same size as would be used in a nuclear bunker buster. Despite what you might think, the depth to which the bomb is pushed before detonation does nothing to contain the explosion. Estimated casualties from such an attack on Iran's suspected nuclear bomb research site would cause 30,000 immediate deaths, which a high final estimate of approximately 3 million.

[biggingerdave]

Bollocks.
He can't attack Iran, and he won't. It's just a ploy to apply pressure.

If he does, the american army will get a massive ass-whupping. The Iranian army is prepared, well funded and cohesive, the will of the international community is not on the US side (as in Iraq). The sheer bad-will of the entire muslim and arab world will be directed against the US, and would probably start world war three at worst, and at best would unite the middle eastern states in a bloody and vengeful war against america. In this kind of war, the more fanatical people in the region would undoubtedly use any means they could to drive the americans from their soil. You thin Iraq is bad, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

In short, it's just not an option he has on the table. He's bluffing to try to make sure Iran doesn't get nukes (a long, long way off anyway). Besides, fighting a war on two fronts is madness, fighting a war on three is suicide - both strategically and economically.

[mmaestro]

See, you're making the mistake of assuming that his actions conform to common sense. I don't think that's a safe assumption. Faced with an almost total failure in Iraq, he'll try to rectify it with regime change in Iran. You're right that he doesn't have the manpower - we'll most likely be talking about air strikes, and I wouldn't put it past him to throw a nuke in there (that this is even a consideration should be enough to realise sanity has gone out the window).

You thin Iraq is bad, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

Yes. This is my concern.