The Most Feasible Option Remains Military Action
The option of doing nothing is not a real one, since it means a chaotic result in the Middle East – endangering the moderate; (pro-American Arab states) and causes an eruption of wars which will force the US to intervene militarily, with worse results.
Another option is to initiate an anti-Iranian pact headed by the US and Israel including all its neighboring Arab-Islamic states, while warning other states not to align with Iran. This seems to be the preferred option among the international community, except perhaps by Russia.
In my opinion, it is not realistic and cannot be accomplished. The era of international security regimes is over, and this option means a destabilized Middle East. It can be pursued on a limited basis, only if the military option is not considered realistic by the US.
So, the most feasible option remains a military action. Under military actions, there are also many options. One that is considered realistic is raiding and shelling Iran’s nuclear sites. In my opinion this would be a mistake. Not only because it is not effectively possible, but such an act would only delay the project for a few years.
Still another option is to assist the political opposition in Iran to topple the Islamic regime and take hold of its political system. It is true, that contrary to other Arab regimes, the Iranian opposition is relatively strong, effective, feasible, and has popular basis among the masses. However, is it realistic to anticipate that it can accomplish this goal? It appears highly unlikely.
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OMG really, I can't breath. You're hilarious! A pact between the USA, Israel and "all its neighboring Arab-Islamic states". That's a good one.
oh, hold on. You're actually serious about that aren't you? OK, I'm not sure exactly where you've been hanging out for the last 60 or so years but Israel and their Arab-Islamic neighbors aren't exactly on the best of terms. I think you might have a hard time convincing the rest of those Arab-Islamic states to join up with Israel to fight another Arab-Islamic state.
For your final point, exactly what military do you plan on sending to Iran? Oh, right, you've been out of touch for the last 60 years. In the last 8 years we've sent all of our military into Afghanistan (who attacked us) and Iraq (who . . . well . . .attacked us, hold on, no they didn't . . .WMD, no, that's not it . . . freedom, no wait . . . oh well, I'm sure we had a good reason). They're a little busy trying to clean up those messes. We haven't even been able to win a war in Afghanistan or Iraq who have virtually no military to speak of. We're certainly not going to be able to put up a good show against the strongest military in the Middle East.
Got any other clever ideas? Here's one. Want to stop Iran for good? Want to know the 1 way that we can strip Iran of all of its power? Really, there's a relatively easy way. STOP USING OIL! Get rid of your SUV. Use public transit. Drive less. Move closer to work. It doesn't take very much effort on the part of the US to drop the price of oil like a rock. A year or two ago the US dropped their driving by 5% total and the price of oil went from record highs to low to average prices. 5% that's nothing! Want to stop Iran? Cut off their funding. Want to cut off their funding? Stop buying oil. Done.
As much as the many Arab states who neighbor Israel hate that country, they are even more afraid of Iran. Also, Iran is a Persian country, not an Arab one. Though they are both Moslem, Iran is Shi'a, and most of the Arab nations are Sunni. They do not exactly get along. Do not oversimplify the dynamics of the region. They are complex. I'm not saying that the US should get involved, or that creating the state of Israel was a good idea, but if I were in Israel's shoes, I would be trying to get my Arab neighbors to get in a pissing war with Iran. I would advise against the US or Israel actually telling them to do so, however. That would probably only insure that they refused to do it. Let it happen of its own accord.
Iran is not Arab. It is also not the same brand of Islam. Their neighbors aren't especially fond of them and do fear them. However, If Israel wants to get the rest of the Middle East on their side they're going to have to stop actively stealing land and killing Palestinians. As long as Iran is targeting Israel with their rhetoric (even if they're more likely to target Saudi Arabia with their nukes) the rest of the Middle East will likely side with them before Israel.
Please note that just because I said Israel is stealing land and killing Palestinians (both unquestionable facts), among other horrific war crimes, this is not to say that Palestine is innocent. There is no innocent side in that fight and both nations have done terrible things over the years.
There is no question that Israel has killed Palestinians, such is the nature of war , but stealing land? I'm going to have to ask for evidence on that one. Also, the matter is not so simple as to just "stop killing Palestinians." When a country is attacked, they are justified in defending themselves, and when the attack is coming from across the border in the form of rocket fire, then you really have no choice but to attack the enemy, and in so doing, you will inadvertently kill civilians. The US killed civilians in Afghanistan as well, and was certainly justified in their invasion after the attacks of September 11.
Palestine is not innocent, not by a long shot. The Palestinian leadership and Palestinian terrorist orgs have caused much death and destruction. However, as long as Israel continues to kill innocents along with combatants they're going to have a hard time getting anyone in the Middle East on their side. I'm not saying it's fair, but it's the way it is.
Are you serious? You need evidence they're stealing land? Let's just ignore all the land they already stole (all of Israel) and talk about the
"Legal" settlements & their expansion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settlement
illegal settlements:
http://www.google.com/search?q=illegal +settlements+ israel &ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
The wall that they're building on Palestinian land, through peoples fields:
http://www.vtjp.org/background/wallgraphics.htm
What would you call it if Canada or Mexico were doing those things to the USA? I imagine you'd call them a good reason to fight back.
First of all, Israel did not steal the original territory it occupied after WWII, the Allies did, and gave it to Israel. Second off, Israel took vast swaths of land in counterattacks after being attacked by its neighbors. Such is the nature of war . They then gave a large amount of it back, only keeping tactically important positions that they felf were critical to their defence. By any standard of warmaking other than the new "World Police" attitude taken on by the US, capturing territory and incorporating it into your sovereign state is very normal. Giving it back is the exception. Israel has bent over backwards to accomodate their Arab neighbors, doing everything short of laying down their weapons and allowing themselves to be exterminated. The US even captured a large chunk of Mexico in the US-Mexican war. Would you consider New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, and California to be "stolen?"
OK, so you're saying that Israel didn't steal the land themselves, they just accepted stolen property. If I'm not mistaken that's still illegal .
If your neighbor builds a concrete wall through the middle of your yard claiming that half as his territory what would you call that? If he built a house in your yard and ringed it with barbed wire and shot at you if you got too close, what would you call that?
Maybe you just don't like the non- military term of "steal". If you prefer occupation I'm happy to use that but in the end when settlers come into your country build a house and claim the land as theirs it all pretty much boils down to the same thing and whether you think it's their right as the guy with the bigger guns (or maybe because god gave it to them a few thousand years ago) it's still taking land from other people and it's not getting anyone any closer to peace.
When you say stealing, it implies that they are just kicking individual Palestinians off of their land and giving it to Israelis, similar to what the South African government is doing to the Boers. I don't think you could say that it's stealing for one reason: They didn't initiate the attack. They were attacked, and took territory in the counterattack. It would be like if your neighbor started taking pot shots at you from his backyard, so you went over there and took him out and then kept the yard. The really interesting part is, Israel took the whole house , and then gave all of it back except for the parts of the yard the shots were coming from.
Using your reasoning, Israel should give back all the land it captured in the Six Day War in 1967 when Israeli troops attacked first across the Suez Canal. The world screwed up 60 years ago when it failed to honor the UN plan to establish 2 states - Israel and Palestine. One state should not have been established without the other. Sixty years later we have people being born without citizenship (in Palestine). We have 5 million Palestinian refuges in over 50 camps. A democracy doesn't occupy another country (recognized by over 100 nations) for 60 years. A democracy doesn't erect a wall on it's entire border. A democracy doesn't control everything that enters another county. A democracy affords equal rights to all people living within it's geographic borders.
Drill for oil here. The US has immense oil reserves, and refuses to drill for it because it is trapped in a Cold War mindset and determined to be the last one with oil left. If the US drills, the price of oil sinks like a rock, and the US makes a dump-truck load of money in the process. It has become pretty clear that we are not going to run out of oil. We will develop alternative fuel sources or the air will kill us all long before that happens.
Actually, we are 100% guaranteed to run out of oil . By definition it is a non-renewable resource. There is no question whatsoever that we will absolutely run out of oil. What is questionable is when we will run out. I suppose I should be clear, we may never completely expend every drop of oil in the earths crust but we will eventually find the supply to be so low and so hard to get at that it will be economically unreasonable to drill and buy it.
So what we're really discussing here is " peak oil ".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil
At some point we will undoubtedly find that the amount of oil we can extract at a reasonable price starts dropping rather quickly. This will happen regardless of whether the USA drills. Our drilling will only push the date out a bit. Everyone who knows anything about oil knows that this is a fact, the question isn't if, it's when.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File :PU200611_Fig1.png
For current known oil reserves, that's including ANWR, most realistic estimates put Peak Oil in the next 25-50 years with the most optimistic saying 100 years. Why would we continue to base our economy on this? Why would we not instead dedicate resources to getting ourselves off of our dependence on oil?
As oil prices go up after we hit peak oil Iran and the rest of the Middle East will get more powerful and more wealthy, not less. The nation that weans itself from oil first will have a vast advantage over the rest of the world. If we could wean ourselves off of oil and still have large reserves on our territory that we could sell when the price skyrockets even better. Why would we not do that? Just so you don't have to make a few tiny changes to your lifestyle? So you don't have to sacrifice your precious SUV?
Theoretically, we will eventually run out of oil , because it is not a renewable resource. In practice, however, the problem of pollution will create a demand for alternative fuel sources that will replace oil long before it has been completely expended, or even mostly expended. There is plenty of oil, don't worry your little head about it running out just yet.
Perhaps those of us not residing in the Holy Land should leave it to God to figure out?
It seems less than prudent for the US to get further embroiled in the Middle East, particularly in the form of further extending our forces unilaterally, when the UN is having so much trouble even getting Isreal to clean up its own human-rights violations backyard, and Isreal remains the only nuclear power in the middle east posturing for an attack.