Iran must be prevented from obtaining nuclear weapons.

1) Existential threat"The argument now is that a war would be costly. Seeing as though this is the last round, and he did not give any actual justifications for such a claim, his argument becomes moot. "It was part of a different argument which is why I couldnt go very deep into it in the first place but if you wanted sources to show that a war with Iran would be costly, then here. . http://www.aljazeera.com...http://www.cbsnews.com...http://www.huffingtonpost.com... "Our military action is not to depose of a regime, it is to knock out nuclear facilities. Thus comparing it to Iraq of Afghanistan is a false comparison. "If we knock out their nuclear facilities, it would be an act of war committed by the US against Iran, they would then retaliate by declaring war against the US (and probably Israel) and then all hell would break loose. Iran wouldnt just let us bomb the facilities they have sunk billions of dollars into and not retaliate. "My opponent assumes escalation, but I would argue that, as implied by my opponent’s reasoning, the regime would not escalate the conflict because that would force higher retaliatory actions by the US and Israel. " That was referring to Iran starting a war by using the nuke. In this scenario the US has attacked a rogue nation with a large military that is without a nuke. This is a completely different scenario and an act of war like this would cause Iran to retaliate against us. "As mentioned before, the main short term fear is a low-grade transportable device, not the use of an ICBM. "So wait, now the whole reason we are to commit a blatant act of war against Iran is to prevent the nuclear material from being stolen or given to terrorists who would then smuggle it into the US and detonate it for them? The same thing could happen to any number of other nuclear countries! Why do they get to be spared while Iran must be attacked? 2) Iran + Terrorism"Al Qaeda is lacking recruitment. He provides no evidence so at this point don’t accept it"Ask and you shall receive. http://www.guardian.co.uk... "Al Qaeda has many sanctuaries: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Mali and Somalia. "And notice how that first one is also a nuclear nation, but we suddenly arent planning on attacking their nuclear facilities now are we? " Again, he lacks prior knowledge of the nuclear smuggling chain and that thefts have occurred in the past. "Not once have terrorists ever stolen or built a nuclear weapon, not once. . http://www.nuclearterror.org... "In essence the world right now is dangerous yes, but my opponent’s world is much more dangerous. It is giving Al Qaeda another option to pursue nuclear theft"Al-Qaeda has had the option to pursue nuclear theft ever since Soviet Russia disintegrated and ever since Pakistan became a nuclear nation. If Al-Qaeda wanted nukes or nuclear material they have numerous other options outside Iran that have existed for decades now. Iran is not giving them THE option to get nuclear material, its is merely ANOTHER option. Theres a huge difference. "This is called a dirty bomb. Even though it might not have the impact of an actual nuclear warhead, the traces of radioactive material seep into the environment covering a large radius. This is much more dangerous in urban centers, like NY or DC"Dirty bombs can be created from material found just about anywhere in the world, not only from highly guarded Iranian nuclear facilities. " Iran facilitates the sale and transfer of arms to Hezbollah and Hamas in Iran or Iranian allies like Syria. Disruption of these types of actions become much more difficult when Iran has both nuclear material and midrange missiles. "Not necessarily, because we are not attacking Iran directly, which means that if they attacked the US for interfering with Hamas or somebody else, then it would be Iran initiating the act of war against the US, not the other way around. A nuclear Iran doesnt make Iran more inclined to attack the US, the nuke is used as the ultimate deterrent against the US or Israel to attack Iran directly. "Essentially the calculus assumes that Iran prioritizes regime survival as top priority. If this is true, and my opponent’s argument relies on it then Iran shouldn’t be proliferating because the very risk of US escalation threatens regime survival"If they use the nuke to attack somebody else, THEN they are dooming themselves. The act of building the nuke itself and using it only to deter an outside attack does not risk their destruction, it reinforces the survival of the regime. "Moreover, the economic harm created by our sanctions have spurred economic protests and green movements throughout Iran – again a threat to regime survival"The Iranian regime has survived decades despite economic sanctions levied against them. Iran can survive turmoil from within much better then they could survive an attack from the US. "But since his question wasn’t an argument, you can count it as a concessions since he cannot respond to it in the last round"Dont penalize me for not being able to respond to your arguments just because you formatted it in a ridiculous way that it was impossible to even know what your argument was in the first place. "My opponent argues on the blur point that Iran has that capability. At this point it does not, which is why action now must be taken"Thats funny, you yourself said that Iran DOES have the capability. "A strawman argument against intervention is that Iran is incapable at this time to create a functioning warhead and ballistic missile needed to strike Israel. I will refute the capability fact later" - Round 2You yourself claimed that Iran does have nuclear capability, so then by your own logic the time to take action against Iran has already passed since they do have the capability for nuclear missiles, which you stated in round 2. Dammit im almost out of characters, let me summarize my points. Reasons we should not invade Iran (that I gave prior to this round):1) There are many other nations just as unstable as Iran who have nukes and nuclear material that Al-Qaeda could steal from. Iran isnt the only option Al-Qaeda has, so to invade them and nobody else would only eliminate one minor option Al-Qaeda has to get nuclear material2) The likelihood that Al-Qaeda could steal a nuke from a country with one of the most powerful military's in the world (Iran) is slim to none3) If the US attacked Iran, the conflict would surely escalate into all out war and would be disastrous to US credibility in the region and to the US economy4) Iran doesnt even have the capability to even attack the US directly with a nuke, the only threat is that terrorists might steal nuclear material from Iran, smuggle it in the US, and then use it as a dirty bomb. Why wage a costly billion dollar war against Iran when Al-Qaeda can get this material from literally anywhere else?5) Iran is using this nuke to defend themselves from US aggression because they hate us and the US has had a long history of meddling in Iranian affairs for our own interests and not theirs.