The Iranian Nukes...My Conundrum

[Slick]

{I originally posted this in the Armchair General Magazine forum. http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forum...ad.php?t=39551 }

I’ve been pondering this dilemma since late December and reading the various articles, news, and blogs. I have no answers and I’m not offering any, but I’ve had a startling thought that I just had to share.

I’m an avid reader of late 20th Century military history. I don’t proclaim to be anything close to an acknowledge source on anything in particular. But, I do think that the United States has had three “Great Generations�; Generations that took daring risks and heroic stands to preserve this country and all the greatness that it stands for in freedom and democracy.

These are the American Revolution (1776), Civil War (1861), and World War II (1941). The risks that these generations faced were what I feel was the only time in American history that the existence of the country was truly at risk and war had to be waged for its survival. If you’ll notice, the date ranges from the debatable starting points of these conflicts is between 80-85 years. If we applied 80 years from 1941 you get the year 2021.

Today, I read an article about the likelihood of Iran actual developing a working, deployable nuclear weapon. The author of the article is making his point that the media needs to “seriously question� these “trumped up charges� that Iran is trying to acquire nukes. I’m not agreeing with the premise of this article at all and others can debate it. I personally found its basis (or bias) rather disturbing: “The world (and Bush) have gone mad, and only the media can save the world from a nuclear attack on Iran.�

But, I read this paragraph and it fell closely in line with my Great Generations theory:

Will Press Put Out Fire on Iran?, By Greg Mitchell

…Nuclear analysts, they noted, "called the claims exaggerated. They said nothing had changed to alter current estimates of when Iran might be able to make a single nuclear weapon, assuming that is its ultimate goal. The United States government has put that at 5 to 10 years, and some analysts have said it could come as late as 2020."

Full article here: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/ea...s_display.jsp?

Maybe history will show that 9/11 was to 2020 as World War I was to World War II.

This also dovetails nicely with the presidential election cycle: 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020. It’s odd how the beginning of that decade keeps popping up.

Let the picking apart of my conundrum begin…