You are serious? You are using this as an example of the irrationality and inherent instability of the Iranian regime?

....wouldn't the Iranians be idiots for not being at war with him on their border?-- nick

My fault, I wasn't clear. Iran used suicide charges by poorly armed men. Ahmadinejhad himself was in charge of sending a corps of children into minefields to clear the way for Iranian troops. If they are that careless with the lives of their own people, what care have they for Israelis? The answer is, none at all.

LBS -- Shooter you are right . . .
I don't think anyone would vote for the Iranian Government. The point is does that mean we should bomb (perhaps with nuclear weapons) the Iranian people. Shooter, these are people.
Can we unite around one issue: that innocents should not be killed? (I believe this was a central tenant of the Geneva Convention.) Certainly innocents should not be deliberately targeted?

First, let me say thanks for the nicely worded overture. It shines like a diamond in the coal sack of most commenters here. To answer your question directly, no innocents should die. In a perfect world there would be no fighting at all. But alas, this is not a perfect world.

The good news (relatively speaking) is that we have the capability of bombing selectively, which was demonstrated in the Iraq campaign. Civilians were not bombed. Glenn obliquely confirms that by pointing out that others wished civilians had been targeted in order to reduce resistance. Bill Clinton bombed Bosnia for a month solid with a surprisingly small number of casualties. Consider also that most civilian casualties in Iraq are from locals, not us. In Iran's case our problem is with leadership and technology, not the people themselves. I doubt that "collateral damage" would be devastating.

I understand that the death of one innocent is one too many, but we are in a situation where Iran's leadership is threatening the innocents of Israel. Those innocents are being threatened for the crime of existing. Are those innocents worth considering? Of course. So here we are in a situation where one can believe the Iranians or not. If the Iranians are bluffing, no one gets hurt. If they aren't, Israel and all the innocents within may be vaporised. The question is... are you willing to take the chance that Iran is bluffing? If you're right great. If you're wrong, vast carnage. Right now Iran is the aggressor, they have stated what they want. Closing one's eyes won't make it go away. Doing nothing encourages the aggressor. It's your call, what do you do?

Let's start from there and figure this out: given we agree that people should not be killed, how can we as American Citizens stop this? I'd like to her your perspective on that. We have to work together. A request: please don't argue back. Let's assume you and I disagree about politics, Middle East policy, etc. Let's assume also that we both agree that terrorists target civilians and this is a terrible thing. Can we work from where we do agree and come to some kind of productive result that will impact the policy of our own nation?

I understand. I have only two ideas... (1) Isolationism. Pull all the troops from everywhere, and let the rest of the world fight it out amongst themselves while we emulate Switzerland. (2) We suffer from a severe lack of hard information about Iran. Give Bush 'carte blanche' to recruit, bribe, interrogate, tap, infiltrate, whatever, to get a better picture of Iran's real capabilities and a better picture of the Mullahocracy and it's workings. Nobody can bluff when you know the cards they're holding.

Each has problems, but they aren't bombing.
P.S. -- One more, Glenn should verbally kick the backside of the MSM to get into Iran and broadcast like their lives depended on it. It's hard to demonize an opponent one becomes more familiar with. Saddam's rigid control just made it easier to invade.

sysprog -- Like a typical neocon, Dick Cheney got his facts wrong in 1991. As actual nuclear expert Joseph Cirincione explains at the above Carnegie link:
The raid had not, despite Cheney's praise, made "our job much easier" but had complicated an already difficult problem. Hussein dispersed and hardened his secret new facilities and protected them with air defenses. In the 1991 war, 43 days of coalition bombing failed to destroy the program, which ended only when U.N. disarmament teams methodically destroyed the equipment on the ground.

Excuse me, where in there is the guarantee that Saddam WOULD NOT have a bomb if the Israeli's, then we, had not attacked Iraq? Can you make that claim? If not then the ultimate goal of being SURE Saddam didn't have the bomb was successful.