Forget America, Israel is quite capable of defending itself. And if Iran annouced tommorow that they had a nuke, by tommorow afternoon you would likely see Israeli airstrikes. Remember, Israel has nukes too, and some of the best anti-missle technologies in the world. They're not defenceless, and the entire Middle East knows this. Attacking, even with conventional weapons, would be signing the death warrant for whichever regime backed the attack.
True, Israel is capable of defending itself, but that's not to say that America won't take the opportunity to do some damage to Iran on its own. Conclusive evidence that would lead to an Israeli air raid on an Iranian reactor would undoubtedly give America the excuse it needs to launch an attack.
@nuclear1, somewhat true, but should a policy of paranoia and preemptive strikes be allowed for a might be?
Sure if conclusive evidence is submitted, (unlike WMD bull****) but they (and the coalition for that matter) should act with the UN's majority agreement.
Agreed here, but I still don't have a lot of trust in the UN. It might just be me, but I thought America was perfectly capable of defending its interests in the 20th Century before the UN or the League of Nations existed (see: both world wars). In both world wars, the American government was well-aware of the threat posed by the Central Powers/Axis in both wars, but only contributed weapons and supplies. When the Lusitania and the unrestricted warfare on the seas/Pearl Harbor incidents occured, America would become militarily involved, because they now had proof that there was a genuine threat to American interests.
Still, as I pointed out before, that necessary evidence has become much more excruciatingly technical, even now down to uranium and nuclear reactors rather than a fully-armed assault on American citizens/interests, simply due to the fact that the price of waiting for an armed attack would simply be too costly where modern weapons are involved.
I still fully consider the possibility that in the years to come, Bush, and other members of the Coalition may very well be trialed for war crimes...
Somewhat true, but very little (besides the torture of Guantanamo prisoners and some prison incidents in Iraq) have occured that doesn't normally happen in war anyways--soldiers get stressed out and take out their anger on civilians, sure, but it's not as if the government has particularly ordered the soldiers to gun down the civilians themselves. This isn't like World War II where thousands of civilians died in aerial attacks on Dresden or Japanese cities were hit with atomic bombs. The collateral damage is a result simply of war. Insurgents and militants detonate bombs on crowded street corners or at police stations as well--don't think that even a majority of the civilian casualties in this war are as a result of American orders.
