Religion is Evil!

Or isolate them and pursue other overt options short of invading. How about building visible deterrent and anti-ballistic missile systems targeting Iran's offensive capabilities?What if Iran simply backs out of the treaty? That is after all what the US has done on a few occasions when the government has found treaty provisions inconvenient to follow?How did we respond when Pakistan, India, and North Korea obtained nuclear weapons? What action would other countries be justified in taking in response to the execution of Humberto Leal Garcia in violation of the Vienna Convention?

Let's not confuse every defensive system with the absurdity that is SDI. There are systems that have some effectiveness against crude technology weapon. Nothing 100% effective, true, but such systems can work well enough to make a first strike a relatively poor option, for countries with only a few missiles. Why the condescension? Do I have a reputation for idiocy that arrived in this discussion before I did?Countries who are developing nuclear weapons have generally also developed missile capability at the same time. We should expect Iran to do the same thing. More name calling? Labeling them as the 'Nookler' axis of evil? Sanctions?I'm suggesting that when countries develop offensive weapons, be they pointy sticks, or nuclear weapons, that other countries don't suddenly acquire a moral imperative to invade them. It appears to me that Iran is correct about that. They might well take the NK approach of stalling and pretending to bargain for as much as they can get, and then deploying weapons anyway.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

No I'm not stuck on that point. But you did ask about it in your response which implied that I was an idiot for even mentioning anti-missiles. I can scarcely be blamed for responding further.
For the record, yes, I do know the difference between a nuke and a missile. Whereas killing Iran's nuclear scientists is unlikely to have such a result? I'm not convinced. That's fine. I agree with you on that point. But reasonable people might disagree that such an explanation is enough to justify an assassination policy. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : Removed snippiness. Crashfrog has already apologized.

Except that recognizing the sovereignty of countries on this issue isn't really our policy. We do expect our government t mouth off about human rights issues, and intellectual property laws, and due process in other countries. Sometimes we even invade countries in part because of how they treat their own people.

No, but we are contemplating taking action against Canada in response to their not including sufficiently rigorous anti-circumvention provisions in their copyright statutes.