Interesting..
As George pumps up the rhetoric, preparing the American public for an escallation of hostilities in the Middle East to include Iran, there have surfaced a plethora of reports from some very respected analysts against such action..
Now while the threat of Iran developing nuclear capabilities is a very real one, and Ahkmadenejad's threats against the State of Israel equally serious, it must be taken into account, that which we have already learned in Iraq.
That while we could easily walk in, with our overwhelming military superiority, and defeat any organized military resistance, we will never be able to contain the situation. That the good old days, when a conquored peoples merely laid down their arms and capitulated, are gone for good, and any action we effect, will be one that will tax our resources, and our patience, for decades.
And take it a step further.
Iran has been developing enriched uranium for quite a while now, and has already the technology to create a small nuclear arsenal. This simply could not be found by any invading force, in time to stop a bomb or two being constructed.
While diplomacy is simply not an option either, for indeed we are dealing with a society, or the leaders of a society, that are bent on destroying the West and all it stands for, and any improvement in relations will be a chimera, designed to buy time for the radical Islamics to refine their plans, neither is military action, unless we ourselves are willing to start tossing atomic weapons around like confetti, to destroy what infrastructure exists in the Middle East.
We could take out Tehran, we could take out Baghdad, we could make the area uninahbitable for centuries.
But, if we choose to take the moral path, and merely invade and search for the materials that certainly exist in Iran, we will have lost before we begin.
There are those in the Middle East who are not plotting the downfall of Western Culture, who are merely trying to eek out an existance in a landscape that is somewhat inhospitable and difficult. There are those who follow Islam without any thought whatsoever of violence.
But if we, as a society, decide to try and take what little they have, to destroy that which has taken them centuries to develop, we become the enemy of all.
Perhaps, at this point, it would be best for us to withdraw.. entirely.
To take our military machinery, in toto, and return to the problems that face the Western man on the street.
To let them come to us, threaten our way of life in a manner more substantial than 911, or 7/7..
And when those threats appear, chase those responsible without involving the general public of the countries that might harbour them, train them, or supply them.
Employ strategic strikes against specific targets, and leave problems the likes of establishing a Palestinian Homeland to diplomats.
After all, there was a Balfour, and while his plan took decades to implement, a similar plan for the Palistinian people would be welcomed, and the world works exponentially faster these days than it did at the turn of the last century.
Let us become 'the good guys' in the eyes of the Middle Eastern man on the street. Let the inflamatory words of the radical Imams be exposed as the misinterpretations of the Q'ran that they are..
Let us shower them with money, dispersed by international agencies, and not by the corrupt governments of the countries we would intend to improve.
Let us not give the impression we are trying to change their sense of values, their traditions, but encourage the continuation of their way of life, with the added bonus of a better standard of living.
Their way of life.
Not ours.
We are between the proverbial rock and the hard place, and frankly, there is no viable solution