The United States invades Iran was cute and witty! A truly good satire, but a little off key... Regardless of whether you may be a Conservative or a Liberal, let's think about this scenario: Iran has had several long range, geo-political aspirations now, for a couple of decades, and they've publically declared at least two of them. The first one is that they wish to save the Persian Gulf - Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia - because it is their belief that these countries have all become too Westernized and therefore must be brought back to the true fundamental perspectives of the Koran, through unification. The second mission they profess, is the complete anialation and irradication of the nation of Israel. Now, given the portent of these two rather earth-moving endeavors, I do believe that Israel is not going to allow Iran to further manifest their desire for a nuclear arsenal. Nor do I believe that Iran is going to back down from their wish for nuclear aggrandizement; they have at least 24 known sites. Therefore, there will be a significant military action there, soon. Israel will attempt to stop Iran pro-actively, because Iran is not going to cease it's nuclear proliferation. Now, looking at an even bigger picture, no matter what, strategically and internationally the U.S. will be held responsible for anything Israel does militarily. And in the local, tactical theatre, Iran will have no better motivation and rational for unifying the Gulf nations, than by being attacked by Israel, and the U.S. Iran's Russian made T-90 tanks and Mig-29 fighter bombers will then cross it's border, and become the true liberating army of Iraq. Allah knows, there certainly are a great deal of Shiite partisans already in place... In closing, I would like to go back to a true bi-partisan venue here. I want to share my shallow, right wing opignion: When this does happen - and it will - I think that due to our de facto guilt by association clause with Israel, we ought to go ahead and get on their band wagon. They certainly do exemplify the credo Leadership by example! Why should we just continue to allow these infections to fester and spread?! We did it with North Korea and now they're safe and untouchable - South Korea is their hostage. The same happened with Pakistan, and in spite of all the sanctions, they became a nuclear power. And Iran has taken notes. They know the deal! Why should we not go ahead and bomb Iran's nuclear sites in cooperation with Israel? Unfortunately, I think we ought to take care of North Korea as well. These all represent accidents waiting to happen. It is not going to get better, until we make it better. And regardless of respecting the sanctity of other cultures and religions, Democracy is the only entity that allows for freedom. Quite the paradox.

I doubt Bush would do this before the election (not that he has much time left anyway) but I would support an invasion of Iran in the near future. BUT (and this is for all you left wingers out there) only when we have completed our objective in Iraq or at the very least have enough funds and troops to properly win an invasion there. Iran and North Korea are, as of yet, the top two threats to global security and something has to be done about them before they start threatning us.

I don't think this is going to happen anytime soon, but I think it could happen if Bush is re-elected.

Iran is imploding already. We don't need to invade it, it will soon be the primary hotbed of political unrest in the Middle East as several internal revolutionary movements will continue to effect their political structure and the Mullahs will either cede authority peacefully, or will resist, causing a violent revolution. Try not to wonder which side the US will support, but this is domestic issue for Iran right now.

Unless if there are some major geo-political movements in the region, I don't believe that we're going to invade Iran. Karl Rove, the most powerful advisor in the Bush Administration, has a new policy, namely no new wars in '04. Our forces are extremely overstretched and people are beginning to become war weary. Interventionism in the Middle East is finally being questioned and rightfully so may I add. Invading Iran isn't going to be a piece of cake, we have enough trouble with Iraq as is. Iran is a big country that would be more difficult to secure than either Iraq or Afghanistan. Unlike Iraq, the the military isn't demoralized and unlike Afghanistan, they aren't disorganized. Iran will put up a fight to defend their land. We have a better shot at encouraging reformist elements within the government. Invading Iran would provoke even more terrorism in a year when Bush's chances for re-election weighs largely on his performance as a war president as he likes to say. I don't think we're going to be invading any new countries anytime soon, Bush and the neo-conservatives are putting on a strident tone, but inside the machinery it's acknowledged that imposing Jeffersonian democracy on another group of people isn't going to fix all the problems in the Middle East. At least one hopes that lessons have been learned.

This is never going to happen. About a year ago, I had a bad feeling about it, but no more. For one thing we can't--we simply don't have the force available--we're scraping the barrel-bottom as it is just to have enough people to go around in Iraq, and any lessening of force there is likely to be catastrophic (actually I see potential catastrophe there several ways, but that is another topic). Iran is BIG, the geography is difficult, and militarily it would be a lot tougher; in addition, as abichara notes, there is a lot of war-weariness here, FINALLY, --if only it had occurred sooner. Look at a map, look at the critical roads crossing mountain passes, and try to imagine how utterly difficult it would be to capture, reinforce, and supply a force in Teheran, not to mention the other big towns and economically valuable regions in the country. No way; an attack on Iran would be unbelievable stupidity. The population of Iran is young, restless and if we give them a few years they can shake off the regime by themselves.