According to the Pakistan daily news, Bush will take the sites out before his term ends.

http://www.rawstory.com

H'mmmm. Here's Ws decision function: Send over 2 B2s and set back Iran's nuclear ambitions for decades; or engage in uncertain and difficult diplomacy. What do you think he'll do?

"As someone who works in the global financial markets, I can state confidently that military action against Iran will have profound financial consequences for any American who relies on more than a log cabin, a bicycle, and barter."

And naturally, that fact will dissuade Bush from doing anything rash. LOL

Sometimes you got to wonder, who is snookering whom? Bush and his adminstration isn't to bright, being completely enamored by their own infalibility. Iran's very public nuclear plans practically invite attack. They must know this so why are they doing it?
Iranian land forces are not trivial ( http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/w orld/iran/army.htm ). Iran has a long hatred of the US, a strong interest in Iraq, very short supply lines... We, OTOH, have an exhausted force in the middle of a civil war clustered around the Sunni triangle half a world away. While we are cetainly capable of beating Iran, would we have the will if they held 30,000+ POWs?

Because Iran's policies are similar to those of Germany in the 30s: do everything you can to militarize and use all the world's outrage to distract your public.

Iran is bad.

Face it: we attacked the wrong country.

"...military action against Iran will have profound financial consequences for any American who relies on more than a log cabin, a bicycle, and barter."

That's what will be refered to as "sacrifices we all make to win the war on terra (tm)"

I'd add the following to "...a log cabin, a bicycle and barter...": an American passport.

It is truly in reading the aftermath of the Irak debacle, and the strategic pickle the US finds itself in right now because of it, that the utter cravenness of the Democratic leadership, the leadership that underwrote Dubya's war nearly to a man (and many of whom still continue to fool themselves on the issue), is best underscored in my mind.

Many of you have heard about the massive conventional bomb test scheduled for the Nevada Test Site on June 2.  This test is clearly directed to make a point to Iran.  This is scarey stuff.

Wes Clark has been saying the same thing for a while. Every time he's asked if we could attack Iran, he always responds "Sure! But then what?"

Clark has been pushing for a dialogue with Iran all year.

Of course we know, whatever Bush does....he'll f*ck it up.

We're doomed.

Both Bu$hCo and the Iranian leadership play off of each other's belligerent attitude for political purposes. The Bu$h admin. knows it has few military options at this juncture having squandered it's resources in Iraq. The Iranians know this as well and feel safe taunting Bu$h and company. Will anything happen? I doubt it. During the Cold War this kind of saber rattling was done by both sides for their own political purposes at home. Bu$h has BIG problems politically as does the Iranian hardliner so getting everyone focused on the "external" threat real or imagined is the age old formula used by weak leaders against their own political opposition.

What Juan Cole says about Kerry's plan:

...

The problem with Kerry's and Greif's exit plans is that they are only that-- exit plans. It isn't hard to get a US exit. We just pull up stakes and go home. What is hard is not to leave chaos behind us, of a sort that will throw the whole Oil Gulf region into war....

Juan Cole

Juan Cole is both right and wrong.  He's right: leaving will leave behind a disaster.  However, he's wrong because this is not a reasonable criticism of the plan.  Every course of action at this point leaves behind a disaster, it's up to us to responsibly choose the smallest disaster, which exit probably is.  (Note to future Adminstrations: when your policy lands you in a situation where you have to find the smallest disaster, it's a bad policy.)

At first, I thought all this talk about Iran was merely sabre rattling.  Even to an Administration as mendacious and incompetent as this one, I always thought it obvious on its face that an Iranian attack would make us pine for the days of spending $100B and a few thousand lives per year.

But I'm slowly coming to think that they actually mean it.  And I can't imagine what would stop them if they do.

I have said this on MYDD for as long as Iran has been an issue.  THERE WILL BE NO WAR WITH IRAN OR MILITARY STRIKES AGAINST IRAN.  How do I know?

1.  The US does not have the military capacity.  It is difficult to sustain the occupation of Iraq without instituting  a draft.  Iran is far larger, with a more capable and dedicated military than Iraq, and is not having its airspace controlled by US no-fly zones.  Nor will they disarm before any invasions (as did Hussein in 2003.)

2.  The international community will not tolerate it.  Just losing Venezuelan oil, alone, would cripple the US, and since Chavez has said that any US action would result in immediate embargo, there can be no invasion of Iran, without simultaneous invasion of Venezuela.  

3.  Bush does not care about threats.  The invasion of Iraq was not about neutralizing threats.  It was about an easy, winnable war with little cost to the US, and with the support, at least tacitly, of the international community.  Plus a lot of no-bid contracts.  Any actions against Iran will result in an ACTUAL WAR, and considering how badly the make-believe war has gone, the chicken-hawk cabal that passes for a government in this country will not start a real war.  

There are a lot of other reasons why the US CAN NOT AND WILL NOT START A WAR WITH IRAN, but I dont have the patience to go through them right now.  

Iran can do anything they want, include openly finance and support an Iraqi insurgency and build a nuclear weapon.  Bush has left this country so compromised and vulnerable that there is not a godamned thing we can do about it.  

So lets stop pretending war with Iran is even a possibility.  It isnt.  

So, the next logical question of course is... what can be done to discourage/prevent the president from launching a strike within Iran?

"In other words, if we attack Iran like we did Iraq, Iran will get nuclear weapons."

Oh Gawd, this is bullshit.  What planet are you on dude?  The invasion of Iraq was not a success and will NEVER be simply because there were no WMDs.  And nation/democracy building are not going to work on a people who are not FULLY behind it.

Quite the contrary, where an opening act like Iraq would have been successful would have been on Iran.  Fuck the democracy building, we'd have just gone in to take out all the nuclear facilities.  It would take YEARS for them to try and rebuild and then we would be able to try and block other countries from selling them parts and know-how.  Yes, not likely, but we could try and convince them.

It's arguments like these that makes lefty Dems on defense issues unelectable.  People give me shit about supporting the ostensibly "unelectable' Hillary Clinton everyday.  But you can take THIS to the bank:  no huge dove will be elected EVER in the United States.  Ever.  Even if 9/11 hadn't happened.

Another mid-term election, another war.

We're not dealing with very bright people, or very imaginative people. All they are going to think of is 'It worked last time'.

Listen to Wes Clarks concern about the possibility of military action before the summer.

I don't have it recorded. But I've personally heard it twice. That's why he's beating the drum for personal highlevel meeting with Iraq right now.

is that too many think Iraq=Iran.  That's VERY intellectually and politically unsophisticated.

What may turn out to be Armageddon is the tragic mistake of actually invading the wrong fucking country and destroying the WILL to attack the really important one.  George W. Bush's boy who cried wolf act on Iraq (just to enrich buddies) may perhaps be what precipitates a future nuclear confrontation.

This reality if you're liberal, democrat, repug, conservative, or even not involved in politics at all.  Sad.

Let's see; it's now April 5. Those new Russian anti-aircraft systems are probably in place in Iraq. If that is so... We can probably just forget about what "2 B2s" could do.

Of course, with the folks who are in charge of this madhouse...

Relax folks: the mullahs ALREADY have the bomb -- and have done everything possible to announce it, except pop one off.

As for Wes Clark, he's getting intel from his old network in the Pentagon.

The mullahs shot down the European diplomatic effort back in January.

China is the reason that record crude inventories in America, Japan and elsewhere have not abated OPEC prices. She's the one big player who's in the hot seat. She's short: less than 100 days on hand.

She torpedoed the UNSC resolution, making it absolutely anodyne. She is frantically increasing crude imports in the teeth of impending events. If she were to lose access to the Gulf, she'd have to go hat in hand to Japan and America: unthinkable.

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The black ops have already begun. Iran is screaming about ours. Of course, she is operating her commandos all over Iraq... and they're getting caught. They do sing like canaries.

Why did all of the former Sec of Def and Sec of State meet in January? Iraq was the proffered reason. What if the confab was really about Iran?

Why did Rice and Straw just visit Baghdad? That's a pretty impressive sales call.

Why have the bulk of forward American forces retired to Iraqi barracks?

Why are the minor coalition partners lining up to leave?

Why are the Iranians running their missile batteries at DefCon2... for months?

Why does Iran parade new military wares that are not battle ready?

Simply put: most of your conjectures are moot. The game's afoot. When and how it pops wide open depends upon secret intelligences and a serious gut check for the parties involved.