But perhaps they'd support a cruise-missile and stealth bomber campaign at complete destabilization of a country.

How about a giant magnifying glass out of the top of the space shuttle? You could instantly turn the bad guys into little piles of ashes and wouldn't have to worry about expensive bombs and laser guided equipment. Hell, any 7 year old kid could do it and we could pay him in M&M's and Mountain Dew.

Fear not. We have more than enough power at our disposal to attack Iran. DOD proved it by mobilizing ALL its carrier groups a few months ago. If we can still get them underway for maneuvers and fully staffed with pilots and the like (and we did), we can send them over to the Gulf of Oman and play havoc with Tehran.

There is no way the American people will be for an invasion of Iran, even though we probably need to.

AS far as dropping weapons, nice idea in theory, but the Congress would just never go for it, and we all know what happens when we try and do those things covertly.

Iran is bad. Real bad. It would take a PR campaign with TV commercials actually showing young girls hanging in the square for having had sex and the results of torture of anyone not following Islam. THEN, MAYBE, the American people would go for it.

Not sure about this... but what would military-minded people think about just air-dropping in crates of guns, grenades, and radios into a country we don't like very much, and which rules by force?

And we could train the locals in the art of manufacturing improvised explosive devices. We could smuggle explosives across the border too!

The only way you incite popular discontent beyond the current low boil is to make the people fear our reaction to the mullahs transgressions.

My suggestion is to take any Iranians found in Iraq making trouble and load them into a Stealth bomber and drop them in central Tehran from about 2000 feet. I think that gets the message across on a lot of levels, don't you?

"There is no way the American people will be for an invasion of Iran, even though we probably need to."

Um, no offense to us all, but last I checked the "American people" don't get a vote on that. Neither does the press. And Congress only sets a war's budget.

If the President decides, then the decision is made, come what may til Jan. 2009. One hopes the mullahs are clear on that.

Hoping for the best, but not counting on it,
tex

"Better to just reduce a country to a state of absolute anarchy and let the locals figure things out for themselves."

That didn't turn out well in Cambodia.

I think you underestimate the public appetite, even the ability to stomach, another war (okay, an extension of the current war) this year, next year or next decade.

That's not to say some cloak-and-dagger shit isn't called for - and I'm sure it's already started.

"If the President decides, then the decision is made, come what may til Jan. 2009."

Yes and no. As you note, the Congress controls a war's budget. Set the budget at zero (1975, anyone?) and you stop, or prevent, the war.

Anyone seriously proposing an invasion of Iran, or even bombardment intended not solely for disarmament purposes a la Desert Fox, but for psychological effect, is smoking crack. It's just not gonna happen.

(watch me be proved wrong in the future, I'm sure ...)

"That didn't turn out well in Cambodia."

Reducing their government to a sate of anarchy, that is.

Hasn't worked in Canada either.

"That didn't turn out well in Cambodia."

Reducing their government to a state of anarchy, that is.

Hasn't worked in Canada either.

we sort of did that in Afghanstan in the '80s along with sending in CIA guys to train them. It helped kick the Soviets out, but then we know what happened to Afghanistan afterwards. The difference now is (hopefully) we won't let a basket case of a country metastasize into Terroristan again.

“Bombing all of their government offices, army barracks, tanks, and police stations”

The financial cost of such action won't be much for you, but what about its moral cost or human cost?

How much more should Iranian nation suffer from US oppression?? The Iranian nation has not forgiven your support of Saddam Hussain during 8 years of imposed war on Iran. We did not forget the financial support of Arab countries and American and European military aids, how USA gave several loans to Saddam Hussain, giving him the opportunity to buy more arms from the west. We did not forget the unforgivable silence of human rights orgs while Saddam was testing different effects of his chemical weapons on civilians. We did not forget how US and German firms gave raw materials of the chemical bombs to him.

We did not forget how your country and UK expelled Great Reza Shah Pahlavi. We did not forget the illegal re-installation of Mohammad Reza Shah in 1953 by CIA.

And now after passing all these sad pages of history of US brutal behavior towards Iranian nation, you want to tear up Iran?!

Now that by removing Saddam, The US president corrected the mistakes, that Reagan Administration made, and the region is moving towards stability and democracy, what can destabilize Iran, or as you said "reducing her to a state of absolute anarchy", give you except grave insecurity in the whole Middle East?!

If "your" American public do not know how to have a constructive approach towards Iran, I do not blame them but I expect them not to be this much destructive.

May Ahura Mazda protect Iran, Iranian nation, from rancor, from foes, from falsehood, and from drought

Piss off Stormy. Once you lay just a little bit of the responsibility for Iran's current predicament on the Iranians, then you might have a point. Iran is a festering cesspool with genocidal leaders who are slowly destroying the country.

Iran was our enemy when Saddam invaded Iran. We do not weep for our enemies when they experience hardship. Just at we did not concern ourselves too much with the treatment of the German prisoners of war taken at Stalingrad by the Soviets.

Once Iraq has been dealt with, if Iran does not play nice, it will get dealt with.

More parinoid amounst the iranian nut cases weird anything to blame the infedels

We dropped two-dollar stamped-metal single shot handguns in Axis occupied territories during WWII. (Search: liberator 45. ACP.) By all means we should drop them into Iran by the millions. The idea is that people who find them can use them to kill an Axis/Iranian soldier and take his more powerful weapons. No increase in danger to U.S. troops when we enter because the bad guys already have much more effective arms.

Set the budget at zero (1975, anyone?) and you stop, or prevent, the war.

Yes, $zero winds things down. But would a Republican Congress starve our troops, even as those troops supervise reconstruction in Tehran? Doesn't seem likely.

Or does anyone here think war with the mullahs would drag on interminably, due to trench-warfare standoffs, or timidity, or... other?

In Vietnam a hard-charging Communist superpower kept the war going by proxy -- ineffectively, but they kept it going. My question is: If the mullahs fall -- and a lot of Iranians would love to see them fall very, very flat -- what superpower then sends in the proxy?

I mean, who's left?

? [...tumbleweeds...] ?

God bless America. :-)
tex