REB said:

>Actually, I don't think President Bush would nuke Iran if they
>were responsible for nuking New York City. We would invade,
>take out their leaders with conventional means, and hopefully
>bring the younger, progressive, generation to power.

The Iranian mullahs would say the Israelis nuked New York and terrorist confession was a CIA fabrication. Our own people from the hard-left would probably echo those comments. If the United States invaded Iran, our military would be faced with hundreds of thousands of religious fanatics prepared to use human wave suicide tactics. Conquering Iran would be difficult and occupying the country without grevious loss of America life would be almost impossible. I fear we would initially have to employ "Roman style" tactics, e.g. "you must submit to unconditional surrender or your capital city will be destoryed in 48 hours". Even if the central government surrendered, I'm sure the local towns and villages would offer Falluja style resistance. For that situation, we'd have to invoke Nazi style tactics, e.g. "your city will submit to peaceful occupation or it will be carpet bombed and the ruins napalmed". I'm not sure this situation is more "moral" than simply nuking the whole place in one pop. I find it difficult to imagine that our system of democratic government with our liberal infotainment media could co-exist with these sorts of events. This is a nightmare that can happen if the Iraqi thing is not resolved effectively.

Gary