First, given American overt hostility and her armies on both my flanks, if I were president of Iran, I (and any rational statesman) would be arming myself to the teeth. This would, again, for the most rational of policy reasons, include a nuclear option to keep the folks with the B-52s guessing. Since Iran is no threat to the United States (it could, in principle, close down the oil exports for a short time, but this would hurt Iran more than it would hurt us and could be dealt with by our military in short order), any attack on that country without a clear act of war on the part of Iran would be illegal and unethical.

And for our favorite coward on these boards, consider: if Iran has a serious and effective nuclear program (they may, they may not--even the neocons put them 5-10 years away from even their first Hiroshima-type bomb), and if they can keep paying for it with what will soon be falling oil revenue (their reserves are not robust), and if they develop multi-billion dollar delivery systems, and if the current President of Iran lives to be about 85, and is still the president of Iran, and if he has total control over the Iranian military (which he does not under thier Rube Goldberg constitution), then I'd be moderately concerned that Iran might launch a suicidal attack against a few American cities before being wiped out. Peeing in your pants today over an Iranian nuclear attack is just the worst kind of fear-mongering hysterics--get a grip man!

I'm not sure that Bush and Cheney have enough support from the power interests and elites to cancel the next election, or even try. And a great deal depends on when and how the economy melts down as the finacial and housing sectors come under greater pressure and the dollar spirals inexorably down in value against the euro, pound, and yen. Instead of the "lash out" scenario, we may be facing a Buchanan situation, where the President simply fiddles while the nation burns. Bush could spend his last six months in office with an imploding economy, a dangerous flu epidemic, and a stalled war, caught like a deer in the headlights and eager to get out of Washington and leave the mess to the next guy (or gal).

From a military historian's perspective, you get to understand that these numbers can be reported/manipulated in several ways. Do you include in-country accidents; do you include people killed or injured in training exercises in or near Iraq; do you count people treated at aide stations or must they be evacuated to a major hospital in order to be "wounded"; do you count self-inflicted wounds or suicides (especailly those of people who are preparing to deploy but haven't yet left the States--these people are hurt or killed because of the war but not in it, ditto men who come back and attempt/commit suicide). So, it is hard to know what the numbers actually are, but you can be sure that if the Pentagon can find a way to reduce the number they have to report, they will.

a poster asks, and the answer is I can only speculate. I think it is acceptance, as Glenn notes, of being "serious" and "grounded" and "realistic", rather than marked as somebody "out of the mainstream" or "naive" or "not living in the real world." The powerful always remember who served their interests--being wrong is nowhere near as bad as being disloyal to the Power Elite. The public doesn't know you or remember who was right and who was wrong--the people with the money and the clout always remember who was for them and who was against them. One of the Vietnam War's biggest apologists, Sam Huntington, spent his active career at Harvard and today enjoys a fat, well-remunerated sinecure at the Center for Advanced Studies at Princeton (Einstein's old haunt). One of the war's most brilliant citics, Gabriel Kolko, wound up at the University fo Toronto. Their endeth the lesson.

You cannot attack people because you are afraid of them. You cannot launch a war that is guaranteed to kill people because you have a yellow streak a mile wide, which, I'm sad to say, describes about half of the population today of the home of the brave. Even if we take Bush's ridiculous low-ball estimate, that the war has cost 30,000 Iraqi civilians their lives, the whole thing is a vicious crime. I'd guess the number is at least five times that high, given the fighting, the collapse of the national infrastructure, and the flight of most Iraqi doctors to points elswhere. All these "manly-men" Republicans ought to grow a pair and stop demanding that we start killing people every time they get the vapors over some other countries supposed military capacity. It's the coward who sucker-punches a weaker opponent.

I use two analogies when discussing this issue, depending on whom I'm talking to. To conservatives I know, I say this: how likely is an all-out thermonuclear war? Not very, they say. So, I reply, would you junk all your strategic missiles and decommission the subs armed with Trident ICBM's--wouldn't that save billions in taxpayer money? Not worth it, they reply, because you need to guarantee your safety. The same, of course, is true of global climate change. Yes, it will cost alot, but pouring tons of carbon into the atmosphere is damn likely to make things worse. Just in case, it would be better to help insure against a disaster by doing something now (same as nuclear deterrence doesn't preclude a nuclear exchange, but it lessens the likelihood significantly).

My other argument is homeowners insurance. Most people's houses do not go up in flames, but it doesn't hurt to be prepared for that possibility and spend something now to be safe later. We may not avoid nuclear war; we may not prevent our house from catching fire. But is that any excuse for doing nothing about both concerns?