An attack on Iran would have to be air strikes, right? And air strikes won't stop the nuclear program, or even slow it down. So yes this is a little like asking which is worse (five years ago): a world with Al Qaeda or an invasion and occupation of Iraq?

You have to ask, which is worse for WHO?

It's obvious which is worse for me and mine. Iran doesn't threaten me. Why would I want war with Iran and even more Minnesota kids killed and maimed for something that doesn't threaten me?

What's worse, Iran with nukes or going to war with Iran? Contrary to events of the last few years, the question of going to war is not one of best option or not. My concept of American force was always one where we did not attack and invade a sovereign country, unleashing untold destruction on them and ourselves, unless we had no choice.

Most Americans are well-meaning considerate people who believe in spreading human rights, democracy and good will. I think we have come to be viewed differently in the world now. We are the threat. We are spreading destruction and chaos. If we're going to espouse this good vs. evil world view, we have to consider that the world may perceive us as on the latter side of that equation, and they are right from their p.o.v..

Of course, I don't mean that Americans are evil or that our government is, as an institution, but the train has been hijacked and is heading for the cliff. Because it is hard for us to view ourselves as the bad guys, it is hard to question whether we are even considering the right options, much less choosing the best one for ourselves and the world. In other words, if we weren't all righteous about our Goodness and Iran's Evil, we would not even be thinking, much less talking about attacking Iran.

But my sense of the situation is that we're going to be stuck with one of them.

Why would you think that? It's a serious question.

OK, let's suppose the only way to stop a country from acquiring "the Bomb" is to invade the country and stay there. That appears to be the neocon thinking about Iraq, after all. But then there's the possibility that nuclear weapons could be developed in Iran, or North Korea. Perhaps 15 years down the line they could be developed in Indonesia.

Either we're playing Whack-a-Mole and treating it as a serious foreign policy or we are saying we are going to be militarily aggressive towards any nation, anywhere, that might develop nuclear weaponry at some point in the future beyond our point of attack.

The former tack seems unrealistic, while the latter approach is not only unrealistic, but it's horribly immoral.

I've spent much of the past two weeks talking to a young Vietnamese couple. Very pleasant people and they say that Vietnam would be a good place for an American to visit. Remember when Vietnam was the cause du jour? How, unless we prevented "International Communism" from "getting a foothold" in Vietnam, presumably another half billion people would come under Communist rule. Strangely enough, we left the country and nothing bad happened!!!

I suggest the same would happen if we left the Iraqis and the Iranians alone. The anti-Iranian hysteria is entirely fueled by a set of people (mostly Americans) who have vested political interests in seeing the US permanently in a state of fear and permanently buying more and more weapons. This is not a path that is good for the United States.

"entirely fueled" !!!

Are there any other (partial) possible explanations for

this hysteria?

"...is entirely fueled by a set of people..."

To that it should be added how sad and ironic it would be if the military now began fighting wars mainly so that it would be guaranteed the fuel to run its war machines. (I get the image of a dog chasing its tail.)

The MIC has taken over Washington, and therefore our politics and our economy. We have been in a state of war, hot or cold, for 66 years and by way of that coming to pass what Eisenhower warned us of in the '50's has come to pass. Iran may be on today's radar screen, but unless we break the MIC hold, it's only a beginning.

I think impeaching Nixon was a bad idea. We should still be in Vietnam. Iraq wants us to stay for the next 50 years and would like to have all of its oil removed. And the right way to address any public policy issue is to set up strawmen so that you can reluctantly conclude that an illegal war of aggression is the only "sensible" option.

Punditry leads to irreversible brain damage.

It is at times like this that it appears that Bush-Cheney's only goal is to keep the world in turmoil for as long as possible.  What could possibly be wrong with them? 

I  would recommend sending their daughters as hostages to secure the peace, except that the ill will that those particular women might generate might make matters even worse.

Correct, this is all about Israel.  Israel would like to avoid the standoff that other nuclear states have so often faced.  At the moment they are supreme in their little theater.  It is no wonder that others in the theater would like to match them, which they, of course, detest.

When the US created the FIRST Atom Bomb in 1943 or 1944, the inevitable spread began.  Now we know that the US, the UK (and several of its substates), Canada, France, China, North Korea, the former Soviet Union (at least 3 or 4 of its substates), Israel, India, Pakistan, Argentina or Brazil (I forget which, or perhaps both), and perhaps other nations either have nuclear weapons or the ability to make them. 

By the time the Boomers are dead (save from a nuclear holocaust) it will be 20 or 25.  By the time the Xers are dead, it will be 50.  The cat is out of the bag.

Are we supposed to start WWIII for real to slow this down by 5 years?  Get real. 

Excuse me, but this formulation, whether an attack on Iran or Iran's going nuclear, is the usual nonsense that the Bush administration and far too much of the MSM keeps presenting to us. It contains far too many assumptions, like that attacking Iran is the only way to keep it from building nuclear weapons.

There are two different time scales: the possibility of an attack on Iran has already been floated a year or so ago. So we may assume that we are looking at something like right away.

IF (please note: IF. This means conditional, a possibility. Iran has stated its peaceful intentions for its nuclear program. We don't have to believe them, and there is evidence that they may well be considering the possibility of something like a nuclear weapons program. But nonetheless, we don't even know yet that this is the purpose of their program.) Repeating, IF Iran is working toward a nuclear weapon, it is unlikely to achieve that goal before three years, very likely later. So this is significantly in the future, leaving time for negotiations and other actions short of an attack.

So it's a dumb question.

False dilema. Why can't iran simply continue to develop the same civilian, IAEA-monitored, economically-justified nuclear program that other countries have, that the Iranians say they want, that the US encouraged Iran to develop, and is all that has thus far been found to exist in Iran?

You are absolutely correct to ask that question up front. Why is it that we see a nuclear Iran or a war with Iran as the only two outcomes here?

Perhaps we are still in a Cold War mindset. If you think about the Cuban Missile Crisis, our analytical framework at the time was that we could not allow the weapons in Cuba to become operational. We had to strike before the missiles could be fired at our cities.

That seems to be our attitude toward Iran, and even if our approach was correct in 1962 - it hinged largely on the theory that Cuba was a client state of the Kremlin - it is surely inapplicable now as Iran is apparently a client of no-one.

The essential reality of the situation is that Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon has to be seen as a rational act of self-defense. Given our decisions to (a) attack Iraq; (b) negotiate with North Korea; and (c) reject negotiations in 2003 with Iran, the path that Iran has taken since should surely be seen as quite inevitable.

We should also not ignore the trade-ups Iran is making with its decision to pursue the nuke program. It is firstly risking further isolation by playing games with the IAEA. It is engaging a program that is very costly, that is logistically both time-consuming and difficult, and thus a distraction from other things they might instead being doing.

The fact is, Iran is probably engaging in a program that many Iranian elites - and potential leaders - probably disagree with, and would certainly rather not be seeing. After all, the relatively moderate Rafsanjani presidency never seriously went down this road. But they are where they are now, it is hard to see them backing off when each side of the political divide here is nearly as hawkish as the other towards Iran.

And maybe that's why Ezra's two-option position seems sane on the face of it - but I think the problem with it is that it underestimates the leverage we still have, despite the unfolding fiasco in Iraq, to change the dynamic. And to change it very quickly. Strangely, it seems Ezra has lost faith in the ability of the most powerful nation in the world to negotiate off a platform that is reasonably favorable for us.

It seems clear to me that a long-term security guarantee to Iran would take away a huge incentive for them to develop nukes. The Saudis - and to a lesser extent Israel - might not like this, but it doesn't seem there's much they can do if we start talking to Iran with this end in mind.

There is no silver bullet here, but there are surely better options than ayatollahs-with-nukes or war. And the first step towards finding these better options is to signal to Iran that we think they exist. Because if we continue to believe otherwise, a needlessly catastrophic outcome becomes increasingly likely.

Okay then, I'll raise you Dr El Baradei earlier this year:

Even if the Iranian programme is for peaceful purposes there is no question that at the back of their minds this is a deterrent, that it has a deterrence value as it were.

Please don't confuse my argument above as an argument that Iran is close to having a nuke. It's not (El Baradei, in the linked interview, in fact declines to give a timeframe when asked this particular question). I would however put it to you that as long as Iran's program continues without full IAEA oversight, there will come a point when they can build a bomb.

Perhaps not soon, but at some point in the future.

Sounds entirely reasonable.

And if we're really serious about nuclear disarmament,
let's quit rewarding India for their illegal program,
let's punish Pakistan and Dr. Islam Nukes for transferring bomb technology with something other than billions and free arms,
let's reverse Bush's reneging on major nuclear treaties,
let's get serious about corralling loose nuke material in the former USSR,
let's get rid of our own massive stockpiles instead of upgrading them,
and on and on and on. (don't forget illegal Israel!)

Else, let's quit the disingenuous blather about Iran's program.

El-Baradei's personal opinions on what's "in the back of their minds" is hardly evidence of anything. Is Argentina or Holland's enrichment program a deterrent in the back of their minds?

And Iran's nuclear program is not only already under "full IAEA oversight" as far as its existing safeguards go, the Iranians have actually exceeded what the IAEA legally requires by for example allowing inspections where they werent' required to allow, and by suspending their enrichment program and implementing the Additional Protocol for 2 years when they have not even ratified it:

Iran has continued to facilitate access under its Safeguards Agreement as requested by the Agency, and to act as if the Additional Protocol is in force, including by providing in a timely manner the requisite declarations and access to locations.

The Iranians pulled back from voluntarily implementing the Additional Protocol after 2 years, when it because apparent that their cooperation was only rewarded by increased demands from the US/EU to permanently give up their right to enrichment.

Since then the Iranians have also repeatedly volunteered to impose even greater restrictions on their nuclear program than what the IAEA legally requires, as long as their right is recognized - only to be ignored:

Since August 2004, Iran has made eight far-reaching proposals. What's more, Iran throughout this period adopted extensive and costly confidence- building measures, including a voluntary suspension of its rightful enrichment activities for two years, to ensure the success of negotiations.

Over the course of negotiations, Iran volunteered to do the following within a balanced package:

Present the new atomic agency protocol on intrusive inspections to the Parliament for ratification, and to continue to put it in place pending ratification;

Permit the continuous on-site presence of IAEA inspectors at conversion and enrichment facilities;

Introduce legislation to permanently ban the development, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons;

Cooperate on export controls to prevent unauthorized access to nuclear material;

Refrain from reprocessing or producing plutonium;

Limit the enrichment of nuclear materials so that they are suitable for energy production but not for weaponry;

Immediately convert all enriched uranium to fuel rods, thereby precluding the possibility of further enrichment;

Limit the enrichment program to meet the contingency fuel requirements of Iran's power reactors and future light-water reactors;

Begin putting in place the least contentious aspects of the enrichment program, like research and development, in order to assure the world of our intentions;

Accept foreign partners, both public and private, in our uranium enrichment program.

Iran has recently suggested the establishment of regional consortiums on fuel-cycle development that would be jointly owned and operated by countries possessing the technology and placed under atomic agency safeguards.

Other governments, most notably the Russian Federation, have offered thoughtful possibilities for a deal. Iran has declared its eagerness to find a negotiated solution - one that would protect its rights while ensuring that its nuclear program would remain exclusively peaceful.

While it is true that Argentina and Brazil had a weapons program in the past, their current enrichment program is fully IAEA monitored, as is Iran's (in fact Iran's enrichment program is more heavily monitored.) ANd yet no one claims that we either have to bomb Argentina or accept an nuclear-armed Argentina. It is entirely possible for a country to have a full civilian nuclear program without necessarily building bombs. Lots of countries do so.

And yes you're right about the false dilema that is presented to us: either bomb Iran or Iran becomes a nuclear weapons state. That is false for Iran, as it is false for all the other countries which have a nuclear industry - Argentina, Brazil, Holland, Japan, Canada . . .