WaPo 2/11/12: "Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu criticized economic sanctions against Iran as ineffective and warned that any military strike against the country’s nuclear facilities would inflame the region while doing little to curb Iran’s ambitions..."

“I am telling you, a military strike is a disaster,” Davutoglu told a gathering at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. “It should not be an option.”

I wish more Americans knew that:

1. Iran has signed the NPT which grants them in paragraph IV the "inalienable right" to develop nuclear technology for power generation and medical imaging isotopes. It is an easy google, see for yourself. Iran is not going to surrender their legal rights under the treaty.

2. Iran's nuclear generation and enrichment facilities are currently under the constant inspection of the IAEA including the Qom facility. This inspection includes 24/7 video surveillance.

3. There is no allegation by the IAEA that ANY enriched uranium has been diverted from its surveillance.

4. There is no allegation that Iran has enriched any uranium beyond the 20% required for medical imaging isotopes, whereas enrichment to around 95% is required for any weaponization purposes, or that there is any violation of their NPT treaty obligations.

5. "Might", "could", and "maybe" are not good reasons for another war that would certainly result in vast chaos from Lebanon to Pakistan militarily and politically.

6. Iran with no nuclear weapons is zero military threat against nuclear superpower Israel.

7. Israel has not signed the NPT and is in possession of hundreds of nuclear warheads. More importantly, it possesses the most advanced delivery systems in the world including nuclear powered ballistic missile firing submarines. A nation with zero nuclear weapons does not attack one with hundreds.

8. Even if (a hypothetical) Iran did some day acquire a nuclear weapon (to secure itself from vicarious nuclear attack) it could never use it against Israel because of the intertwined nature of the Palestinian and Israeli populations. Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in world Islam is in Jerusalem and they would never risk its destruction.

9. A war initiated by Israel would spread to our interests in about half an hour. Prices for petroleum would certainly skyrocket to who knows what level, collapsing our fragile economy like a house of cards. Same for the whole world's economy for the same reasons.

10. So if we really want all the hugely negative consequences, just raise your hands now. If not, this had better be prevented or it will be the capper that puts us in the crapper for good.

(PS: none of this is an apology for the Mullah dominated Iranian regime. It well deserves to vanish from the pages of time)

It's better to do this while they have no nukes.

Iran will be much worse than Pakistan or North Korea. Iran is the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, and nuclear weapons will make them even bolder.

Better deal with them now, than later.

This is much closer to North Korea than Pakistan.

Pakistan was never as open and obvious about their nuclear efforts. Its why nobody knew about it or could stop it until it was too late and they had their big test.

North Korea on the other hand deliberately played up its potential for nuclear weapons, if not their actuality. Their big test turned out to be a failure. Their bluff was called.

For North Korea a nuclear standoff meant extorting cash from neighbors. For

Iran it means creating more popular support at home. An attempt by the regime to stave off their eventual demographic disintegration.

They are taking their actions right out of Kim Jong Il's playbook. Provocative military exercises, harsh rhetoric, openly bragging about nuclear development, being non-cooperative with international concerns, trying to goad a response.

This whole thing is going to play out for a while for several reasons:
1. The US knows Iran is bluffing by now, but it also doesn't want to create a real provocation or appear too aloof.
2. Israel also knows its a bluff, is powerless to do anything about it, and is taking political advantage of the paranoid atmosphere created
3. The Arab states are still in the background here, despite being the real parties of interest in the state of Iran's nuclear development
4. For Iran, it is far cheaper to manufacture an international incident than nuclear weapons.

It's better to do this while they have no nukes.

Iran will be much worse than Pakistan or North Korea. Iran is the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, and nuclear weapons google reklam will make them even bolder.

It doesn't matter what USA policymakers think will be the "optimal strategy", because that ability to "strategize" will be taken out of their hands by Israel when it launches its attack upon Iran.

Q: And why will Israel attack?
A: Because That's What They Do.

They have - reluctantly - restrained themselves so far, but their addiction to war is much too strong for them to resist temptation for very much longer.

They'll attack, and soon, and it will matter not one whit wether doing so makes any strategic sense, precisely because the urge to attack is stimulus/response.

What does Vegas think? Remember, it's hard to beat the house.

It looks like Obama is going to start a trade war with other countries. If he taxes companies that have some overseas operations more, and the other taxes he wants to impose on companies, the companies will just move their entire headquarters to a country that is more acceptable with lower costs. Also, the companies here will not be able to compete with cheaper products and portable storage containers coming out of other countries. And if he starts hammering China, well there you go.

He is actually doing the opposite of what should be done to encourage companies to manufacture in the U.S.

And if he actually is able to put a 30% tax minimum on anyone making over $1 million, well, watch for even a bigger recession. Talk about discouraging the middle class and upper middle class from trying to achieve the upper income ranks. Plus the over $1 million earners will either find other ways of hiding their money or just not work so hard. Plus a lot of these people making over $1 million are the small to medium size sub s corporation that hire people and have the sub s corp go thru their personal taxes. People will get laid off for sure.

Obama does just the opposite of everything to get the country going again. He is either really stupid or he wants the country to be destroyed.

Not only can one not predict the future, one cannot assess the past with complete accuracy. The lessons of a particular event are generally not ascertainable with any objectivity until long after the event has passed. Not only is it true that the cause before the effect differs from the cause after the effect, it is also true that the effect itself changes after 50 years.

Arguments from individual events can deceive; analyses of numerous events more readily instruct. Whatever might be necessary with respect to Persia must be based on what one deems to be Persian threats to other countries, not what we deem the "real" desires & needs of Persian citizens to be. Differences in culture preclude objective assessments of these interests.

False flag operations are more the stuff of wild conspiracy theories and spy fiction than actual operations. The overwhelming majority of the actual ones get sniffed out as phony pretty much from the outset. It is not exactly a winning tactic. It is great fodder for paranoids, the naive and those with an agenda.

The problem with your premise is Iran doesn't even bother to cover up its hands in most of its foreign terrorist operations. They don't care who knows what they do.

That being said, if the current news concerning Iran's announcement of increased uranium enrichment isn't a sign they are trying to goad a reaction from the world, then you really are naive.

I refer to this "countries in the region [with] their own nuclear weapons" in Messrs Gavin and Steinkamp's "If the United States chose not to bomb Iran, would countries in the region eschew their own nuclear weapons and work with the United States to balance against and contain a nuclear Iran?"

These "countries" seem to be Israel and nobody else.

How can we take seriously anything from Messrs Gavin and Steinkamp -- or anybody else -- that requires this pussyfooting about what their topic?

Launching a nuclear missile from Iran would be Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), thus despite all of the rhetoric, a preemptive nuclear attack would be counter productive to the regimes main goal, survival.

Is not at least 50% of Iran under age 21? I think so and if we/Israel attacks we will drive them right into extreme nationalism. Stupid.

Lest the world forget, and especially the leaders of China, the U.S. acted to prevent a Soviet nuclear strike against China's budding nuclear facilities in the 1970's. After the Sino-Soviet military clashes along the border, the USSR mobilized one million Russian troops, armed with nuclear weapons along the entire Sino-Soviet frontier. They were keen to take out China's nuclear facilities with a surgical strike, but the U.S. would neither join them or support such an action because it would have drastically changed the balance of power in Moscow's favor. Whatever geo-political-strategic conflicts China may have with the U.S., I hope the leaders of Beijing remember how the U.S. basically saved China from Soviet nuclear devastation and by doing so, allowed China to develop into the nation-state it is today. For that, China should be ever grateful to Washington.

Its funny, all the coverage I see of Iran has all these images that would lead you to believe its some wartorn country. Probably made worse with all the sensationalist media going on, but so many people dont realise its a beautiful country. Im luckily in the position to travel a lot as a Parkour Photographer and I would absolutely love to visit the country. Tehran looks like a very culturally diverse place full of beauty, and its a shame that its all glossed over in the media.

Its funny, all the coverage I see of Iran has all these images that would lead you to believe its some wartorn country. Probably made worse with all the sensationalist media going on, but so many people dont realise its a beautiful country. Im luckily in the position to travel a lot as a Parkour Photographer and I would absolutely love to visit the country. Tehran looks like a very culturally diverse place full of beauty, and its a shame that its all glossed over in the media.