DON'T Do it!

Submitted by Peter Herz (United States), Feb 5, 2010 at 22:55

I must respectfully disagree with any proposal to go to war with Iran. Let Iran stew in its own juices for the next century or so. Let's respect their desire to have nothing to do with us until they're so sick of the mullahs that they surprise us all by converting en masse to Christianity

My guess is that war with them would only unite them around their odious government, just as Japan's invasion of factious China rallied the Chinese around a considerably less odious government. Such a war would be unwinnable unless we are prepared to act like Hulelku Khan or Temur Lenk.

And, at this point, should they use their budding nuclear arsenal on us, let's retaliate by using our oversized nuclear arsenal to turn them into the world's largest wilderness. There doesn't seem to be anything else to do with a country whose only alternatives are the Mad Mullahs and the Mojaheddin-e-Khalq.

While we're at it, the civil war in Lebanon and the Iraq-Iran war--to say nothing of 5,000 years of recorded history (including "rightly guided Caliphs who died at assassins' hands)--the Middle East is volatile and dangerous with or without Israel in it. The ultimate pointlessness of our misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan further underscore that it isn't up to Uncle Same to save those countries from themselves.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".