Slow Down the Tehran Bandwagon

So Iran now...like no one saw this coming;

The Bush administration is haunted by the history of intelligence blunders about Saddam Hussein’s supposed weapons of mass destruction as the United States tries to document that Iran is providing lethal help to Iraqi fighters.
After weeks of preparation and revisions, U.S. officials are preparing to detail evidence supporting administration’s claims of Iran’s meddlesome and deadly activities. A briefing was scheduled Sunday in Baghdad.

After the intel debacle with Iraq, I wonder how many people actually trust this administration when it comes to it's "intelligence"

Just this week, we heard this;

As the Bush administration began assembling its case for war, analysts across
the U.S. intelligence community were disturbed by the report of a secretive
Pentagon team that concluded Iraq had significant ties to Al Qaeda.Analysts from
the CIA and other agencies "disagreed with more than 50%" of 26 findings the
Pentagon team laid out in a controversial paper, according to testimony Friday
from Thomas F. Gimble, acting inspector general of the Pentagon.

So how are we supposed to trust intelligence told to us by the Boy Who Cried Weapons of Mass Destruction.

That's not to say the case for a battle with Iran wouldn't be easier to make and would be a lie, but you can perfectly understand it if there is mass skepticism this time. The leader has led us off a cliff once and while he may not do it again...we can't be too sure.

Let's remember, however, before we put ourselves into our nationalistic "we can kick everyone's ass" attitude that we love so much that Iran is NOT Iraq or Afghanistan. Iran is a country, larger than France, that has not been weakened by decades of civil war and/or international sanctions. It is home to 70 million people, Iran has a rather strong and large standing military, one of the largest in the region. Now, I'm not saying they're going to defeat us, because they surely wouldn't, but we'd be fighting power we haven't fought in a while. American troops would not likely reach Tehran for months upon months. If we decide war in Iran is necessary, we'd better be damn sure it's worth doing.

The arguments are pretty clear; Iran supports terrorists in Iraq; Iran supports terrorists in Lebanon and the Palestinian areas; Iran's oppressive theocratic regime gives strength to Islamic fundamentalism; Iran will build nukes and use to them to hold Israel and it's Sunni neighbors hostage.

A war may not necessarily solve all those problems. For example, to invade Iran would be to partially redeploy from Iraq, as those troops would be needed. (Indeed, an invasion would require at least three times the size used for Iraq, possibly 900,000 American troops). So what's not to say Iran's Shiite extremists won't find a new home in now less-fortified Iraq...or worse, what's not to say they decide to take off to Lebanon, overthrow the government and now sit happily on Israel's border preparing an all out war there? What's not to say the fall of a theocratic regime, or more specifically of a third Islamic government at the hands of the United States, won't breed even more extremism from other countries fearing they're next. Could this be the trigger than brings down Pakistan's government and replaces it with an Islamic theocracy with it's hands on Pakistan's nukes?

When the time comes, and it will, these are issues we must think about before we jump on the Iran war bandwagon. What is happening now in Iraq would've been predicted, if only we had listen to those warning us four years ago...but we were all too busy marching in our ultra-nationalist America Love It or Leave It parade. Let's not make that mistake again.

War may be necessary, but before we send our friends and family to die thousands of miles away, let's make sure we have fully thought through what we're doing.