The folly of refusing to sign a nonaggression pact in return for stopping Iran's nuclear enrichment and future possible bomb-making is that the US cannot effectively project forces into Iran in any event. We are fighting the Iraq war with repeated call-ups of the National Guard and reserves, which were not designed for this use. The US Army, perforce, is almost broken. Now the Taliban is challenging our forces anew in Afghanistan, Our Fearless Leader is about to militarize the US-Mexican border with--surprise!--more National Guardsmen, and the next Gulf Coast hurricane season is almost upon us--a certain, future drain on guard and reserve resources.

If we really want an Islamic bomb to worry about, look to Pakistan. Our dirty little secret here is that the Musharraf regime HAS a bomb, and is barely managing to stay one step ahead of increasingly powerful fundamentalist opponents (who are enraged about the American invasion of Iraq) and would inherit the "Islamic Bomb" if Musharraf falls. Of the two nations, Pakistan and Iran, Pakistan is likely to present the most immediate Islamic nuclear threat to the US, and Bush & Co. stumbles along, refusing to talk to Tehran, ignoring the causes of the Pakistan danger, acting like a person stumbling along with a brown paper bag over its head.

Les AuCoin, former member of the House Defense Appropriations Committee

Click URL below for THE AuCOIN BLOG:

If we refuse to offer any guarantees that we won't attack them, doesn't that just give them more incentive to develop weopons that will cause us to at least hesitate to attack. And why can't we give them such a guarantee anyway. Isn't having attacked another country a charge that we have levelled at regimes we don't like?

Dave -- Presumably the security guarantees would be good only *if* Iran disarmed. Obviously if the U.S. promised not to attack and then Iran developed weapons anyway, all bets would be off.