@TuringEquivalent,
Unless you expect the neo-cons to take the White House and the Senate in November, a war (at their insistence) with Iran is unlikely to occur.
Maybe Obama and the Democrats will start one.
There are reports that Obama has cut a deal with Israel wherein if Israel refrains from attacking Iran, the US will do so, once certain agreed upon nuclear lines have been crossed.
I don't buy this as being true, but you never know. It's not like Obama has bent over backwards to justify his Nobel Peace Prize.
I think sanctions can certainly be considered an act of aggression if not quite an act of war. National sanctions directed at another nation are not limited to the sanctioning nation simply not engaging in commerce with the target country. Part of any sanction regime is overt or covert coercion of other nations who choose to engage in commerce with the target nation.
It's one thing for one nation to declare it will not trade with another, but it is something else when the sanctioning nation uses its economic and military power to coerce other nations to join in.
Yes, sanctions tend to have the most immediate and direct impact on the people of the sanctioned nation, as opposed to the ruling regime, but sometimes the people need this sort of scolding...Germans during the Third Reich come to mind.
If, however, the majority (because it will never be the totality) of the sanctioned nation's people suffer economically, isn't that preferable to them suffering militarily?
Wars, most often, are waged between regimes with the people (to one degree or another) getting caught up as incidental participants. If there is a reason for one regime (or one nation) to feel threatened by another the logical, and arguably moral, solution is not to wipe out the population of the threatening nation but to take out the regime in charge. Unfortunately war can't accomplish this goal without leading to the deaths of civilians outside of the regime.
Since the Left in America gets its collective panties in a twist whenever the subject of strategic assassination come up, it's tough for the US to go down that more reasonable route.
According to the anti-war left, we can't assassinate, we shouldn't go to war and it's a lousy idea to impose economic sanctions. Presumably this leaves us with the option of surrendering.
Obviously the purpose of sanctions is not to directly injure the members of the regimes with which we have a problem. Clearly, the Iranian theocrats will never experience the sanction imposed hardships the Iranian citizens must endure, any more than the ruling Afrikanners experienced the acute effect of sanctions during South Africa's apartheid period.
The idea, of course, is to create an economic situation wherein complying with the oppressive regime is a worse choice than suffering from sanctions.
In such a case, the average Iranian, as was the case with the average South African, is taking it in the neck for the chance of a regime change.
Sort of sucks for them, but what is the alternative?
Unlike Iran, South Africa had no hegemonic goals, and yet liberals around the world were all in favor of sanctions as a means to defeat apartheid.
It's less a question of which makes sense and which does not as it is of being consistent.
A majority of the South African population was suffering as a result of their regime's policies. The same is true in regards to Iran, and yet so many people see the two situations differently.
Oppression is oppression and, at least as far as I'm concerned, it’s not of a worse degree if based on race as opposed to religion, ideology or hunger for power.
The protesters who died in the streets of Tehran last year are no less tragic figures than the protestors who died during South African apartheid.
Leaving Iran completely alone is obviously an option. Ron Paul certainly advocates it.
Is that something that appeals to you?
