Even a few of the posters here who are strongly against the Iraq war agree that preemptive military action might have been one possible acceptable course of action if Saddam had, in fact, been proven to be a short time away from deploying functional nuclear weapons. The level of proof is, of course, a whole new discussion. I don't see that Iran is any different, or for that matter, North Korea.

This does not mean, of course, that military action is the only possible course of action, or even the best one.

"If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave any thing in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world"

- Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani
Tehran, December 2003