That world is a damn sight less terrifying than one in which Iran actually gets nukes.

Flash memo to Pollack: The fact you cannot imagine something does not mean it cannot happen.

Kevin P’s scenario above leaps to mind (well done, Kevin). Just out of curiosity, did Pollack find the Godfather movies baffling?

If you wish to lower your confidence in CIA analysts a little further check out this review of Hubris, a recent book on U.S. terrorism policy written by Michael Scheuer, former chief of the CIA Al-Queda analysis unit at http://www.jcpa.org/brief/brief4-4.htm. The review was written by Jeff Helmreich.

For the record, all Americans are fortunate that the CIA has also managed to recruit and retain some very talented and hard working analysts.

Iran is my elephant in the debate — what is the chance that Iran gets nukes in the next 4 years?

I have long been saying: Kerry – 50%. Bush – 10%.

But actually, both are much less, and maybe Iíve even known this — since Israel will go to war to stop the mullahs. Israel will, at least, attempt a serious bombing campaign to disrupt Iranian progress. Iíd guess they would actually go after the mullahs directly, but Iím not sure of this. They can only occupy by using quite brutal methods ñ although the US Army could step in and assist.

I donít even want to think of this. I canít stop myself of thinking about this.

A vote for Kerry is a vote for war, war between Israel and Iran.

The only ways to stop Iran from getting nukes are 1) an ultimatum that Iran accepts, or 2) an ultimatum that Iran rejects, which is followed by military action. (3) non-stop Iran ñ gets a nuke (in next 4 years) — this Pollack bozo seems to say it’s OK.

So Kerry would never pull this trigger. Which Iran knows. Which means no (1), no ultimatum that Iran accepts. And Israel, too, knows that Kerry wonít back up an ultimatum with action if itís not followed; and knows that Iran knows; so knows that Iran wonít disarm.

And, therefore, itís either Israeli military action, or else let Iran get nukes.

I donít believe Israel will let Iran get nukes.

A vote for Kerry is a vote to send Sharon after Iran. Perhaps with a short detour in Syria?

I’m terrified of such a world. Go Bush. Please win.

Yes we can, but we may not be America when the dust settles. Defense against small cells willing to die to kill many of us will mean a surveillance society and much less privacy and a much more intrusive government.

This doubling, trebling, perhaps 10x increase in law-enforcement, informers, rebuilding infrastructure for “security” (against the insane) and acquiring all this security equipment will be a large tax on our productivity. It’s easy to imagine that these costs could make our products and people non-competitive in the world market. Falling from first to second or third behind China and India.

The best defense is a punitive offense. It is also cheaper than defense (where we can’t protect everything, and everything we do protect can’t be protected perfectly all the time). The reason I don’t worry about my neighbor setting up a mortar in their backyard is because we have had enough “punishment” of non-social behavior that odds are very small that a person with these tendencies would not be picked up for other reasons. Now we need the same in other societies (since globalization has made everyone my neighbor we have no choice, unless we want to live one-half as well as we do today). Aka making the world safe for american toursism.

This is the essence of this administration’s national security strategy’s(pdf) rational for pre-emption. It also was Thomas Jefferson’s foreign policy after he realized we (as a newborn nation) could not survive unfriendly nations and peoples at our borders. See Gaddis.

Then how is it that all of our military and nuclear might today hasn’t stopped their funding, sheltering and helping with the transit of suicide bombers and terrorists who kill children in schools?

It appears the Iran theocracy has about as much control as the Saudi’s ability to control their population funding and enlistment in jihad. Then again, decades ago, we (in the U.S.) weren’t able to shut down IRA funding and now it’s a struggle to identify and shut charities that are cover for the jihadists.

It’d be best (i.e. worth dying for) to see that they don’t even have the chance. Either we pay today, or our children will pay 10x tomorrow.

Pollack (and the Brookings institute) have sure been a disappointment. Their work has less-and-less-basis in fact (and more an appeal to the heart, with a “wouldn’t it be nice” if the world worked this way..”

Instead, they could sponsor conventional, 9/11 style attacks…. again and again and again. If they have nukes, what do we do about it?

Besides, they didn¬¥t exactly help with containing Saddam at a time when the US presumably had not yet “damaged our ability to generate international support”. As for Russia, it is part of the problem. I fail to see the value of this kind of support.

If you must have it, I ask, what is the plan to generate more international support? With a nuclear Iran and Iraq sinking into UN-administered chaos, we may soon have US troops back in Saudi Arabia. And then Kerry will sell out Israel.

Now, if the Dems think that Bush ought to lose his job, why the hell should they think that Pollack deserves a job, since he was just as wrong as Bush, and with far less excuse! Not only is he supposed to be better at this stuff, but Pollack made his ENTIRE case on WMD, mostly on Nukes, which appears to be (per the Duelfer report) the least well preserved of Saddam’s WMD programs, unlike the chem and bio which was still around, just not on a production scale, and the means of delivery (missiles) which were proceeding apace and already exceeded the UN-mandated range limits by a factor of 2.

If the Dems weren’t a bunch of lying, conniving, say-anything weasels they would take guys like Pollack to the woodshed, since it was the neo-libs that helped sell the war to those poor, ignorant, deceived and misled Democrats like Kerry and Edwards. I’m sure that without Pollack they would never have been tricked by the retarded/devious/brilliant Bush!