So against my better judgement, I’m watching the Sunday morning talk shows, and I keep hearing a repeating theme that somehow Ron Paul’s stance on Iran is dangerous.  Don’t get me wrong I’m not happy about Iran getting a nuclear weapon, but I realize stopping it just isn’t realistic.

I keep hearing republicans say we have to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, at any cost…  Santorum was on Meet the Press this morning preaching this same line, we’ll start a war to prevent Iran from getting nukes.  So lets look at exactly what that involves and tell me who has the real dangerous policy towards Iran.

There is the argument that we can stop Iran’s nuke program via an air attack, and while this sounds feasible at first glance it’s not a solution to the problem.  First, Iran has a state of the art air defense system, incuding SA-10 top of the line Russian surface to air missiles which are effective against stealth aircraft – you can read more about Iran’s air defenses here - http://geimint.blogspot.com/2007/09/iranian-sam-network.html

So what does this really mean?  We can take out their air defenses, but it will take months not days to prosecute an air war against their nuclear program.  Even after those weeks of risking American lives and planes, at the end the best we can hope for is a delay of 18 to 24 months in their nuclear program, then we’ll be right back where we started.

So, we have to put troops on the ground to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, but this isn’t goat herders in Afghanistan or straving Iraqi’s who had most of their military destroyed 10 years before.  We’re talking about a country that has a real military, and a will to fight.  We’ll have to put 350,000 to 400,000 troops into their country, and best case we’re talking months and months to destroy their entire ability to create nukes.  Once we’re done then comes the question about rebuilding their country and the nightmare we’ve already seen when trying to do nation building…  

Except what happens for the months we’re attacking Iran trying to delay their nuke program?  Oil tankers in the gulf are dodging shore based missiles and sea mines as oil prices spike.  What happens in south america?  How do we keep Russia and China from getting involved in a shooting war?  Then you have Iran tossing missiles at Isreal, hoping that we can keep them from getting involved, or more concerning tossing dirty bomb style missiles or worse into Europe and at our troops in the region.  Then what do we see here in the US, there are Irainian backed terror cells operating in the states, what happens if they’re turned loose?  What happens to our economy through this entire mess?

Don’t get me wrong, we could win the war, but at what cost?

Lets face it, we’re not going to start a ground war in Iran, anybody telling you we’re going to stop Iran at all costs, is lieing to you…  Or that somehow the danger from doing nothing is somehow greater than the danger of invading Iran…  are just telling you what you want to hear.  At the end of the day, nobody running for President in the republican party is going to do what it takes to stop Iran from getting nukes, it’s all just a game…

So, which is really the more dangerous foreign policy here?