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Originally Posted by Torplexed
My fear is that if we do conduct a air campaign against Iran to shut down their nuclear program, then whatever assistance they are already rendering to the trouble-makers next door in Iraq and Afghanistan will quickly become a torrent. We're gonna have to be ready to conduct a major naval operation to keep the Straits of Hormuz open to tanker traffic as well.
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Which is why, I think, the operation shouldn't be against only the nuclear program, but also generally aimed at their military infrastructure and key industry. It won't do anyone any good to take out their current WMD production capability without weakening Iran, both to make them not try anything like it in the future, and also make it less "interesting" for them to support ventures into Iraq or Afghanistan.
Obviously everything is going to come at a cost, but I think there's a real chance to keep a "clean" air war a-la Kosovo - I'm a BIG critic of that effort, but it's hard to deny that it was not a messy affair from the American perspective like Iraq is (some obvious cover-ups and excuses helped as well), and did not cause any real divisions in home politics.
I'm thinking that this'll depend on how unpopular Iran gets - if it gets irritating enough not to cause prolonged political damage at home in due time, then I bet this will be run towards the end of Bush's term sometime. There is a number of ways in which a "clean" war would help, even. :hmm: