Are you proposing that we should have a 9/12 president who should attack Iran; or that it is just logical to assume that a 9/12 president should attack Iran.

Thanks for the comment (and the close-reading!).

I'm indifferent-to-sympathetic for a war with Iran (our partnership now seeming to be off the table). But this point really is what it says it is: an attempt to take Tom's posts to their logical conclusion.

I think you're projecting here. You're indifferent on the level of consequences.

WRT to our military, I am not. I don't think we'd get the outcome desired, and that we'd look bad as a result.

I like my wins a little more certain than that.

Thanks for stopping by.

Would it be fair to say that a 9/12 President would and should view an Iran war in strategic terms (our gains, our losses, etc.) rather than in grandstrategic terms (keeping the big bang rolling)?

Steve,

In the middle east we also have Egypt and Turkey, both even less likely to help us out in times of need.

We bring a scale to any conflict that Israel is unable to.

The sino-saudi alliance, its connection to cartels, coups, 9/11 is given by eyewitness testimony here.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4762034487703351799

Thanks for the link to the conspiracy theory video. Obviously, I disagree, but it seems to be well put together.

I think you will enjoy “National Security Strategy,” the presentation Tom (who commented above) gave some time ago [1,2]. Tom's speech is bracing, and while I'm sure he also disagrees with the 9/11 truth movement, some points it raises (the US spending way more on defense than it would if its goal was homeland security, etc.) are true.

[1] http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=193938-1&tID=5&highlight=Thomas%Barnett
[2] http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/media/thebrief.htm