(Phantom's 99th Percent) Intervention in Iran

C1 - Iran is not an existential threat.My opponent and I seem to agree on a vital point: the past is the past, and the past of the Iranian government is unimportant. What is important is the modern political climate of Iran. As such, any and all claims of their violence should be taken seriously. The claim my opponent provides is that of a terrorist attempt, followed by the information of a Mr. Silber. Firstly, I'll attempt to show this is false. Then, I shall show that Iran has no threat to us in its current state.The evidence for this revolves around the 2011 incident, when America criticised, according to my opponent's source, Iran's leaders and their army. The problem with this is that the claim was dropped very quickly. Why? There was simply no evidence for it! Lack of evidence, and reliance on conjecture astounded many. Alireza Nader, Rand Foundation's commentator on Iran, says it's ludicrous to believe Iran "would put all of Iran's objectives and strategies at risk" by such an action. "This plot ... departs from all known Iranian policies and procedures" according to Iran specialist Gary Sick, and Shahimi, Tehran commentator, says Iran, when "deeply worried about the fate of its strategic partner in Syria ... tensions with Turkey are increasing ... and a fierce power struggle is under way within Iran, it is essentially impossible to believe that the IRI [Islamic Republic of Iran] would act in such a way as to open a major new front against itself."[1] Simply put, "Senior U.S. officials struggled to explain why the Quds Force would attempt such a delicate plot in such an unskilled style"[2]. Further, Iran deny involvement repeatedly. There's not only no reason why this case is truly Iran's fault, but why Iran senior government would do this.I touched upon how Iran is suffering from threats, domestic and foreign. "Iran has sought to influence the mostly Shi'a-dominated protest movement as Turkey has come out in support of the Sunni al-Khalifa monarchy with whom it hopes to pursue closer economic ties"[3]. Further, the Ottoman-Safavid rivalry exists: this is just one way tension is being released: "tensions between these two regional heavyweights are increasing and predict they will continue to do so, with who-knows-what endpoint."[4]. Iran has threats from both Turkey and Syria, which are more pressing than any ideology. Secondly, Iran has multiple domestic problems: the country is under political turmoil. The Shi'ite regime is in a non-Shi'ite country now, which itself is creating more and more turmoil. Further, the country only recently called the appointed President up to the democratically elected Parliament to make him justify his actions[5]. This step is one that's obviously in the right direction. Yet an attack would most likely revive any feelings of patriotic support for an unpopular, inefficient regime. Even those in opposition to Iran's leadership fear an attack on the country's nuclear facilities which would rekindle a revolutionary Islamist patriotism that the Iraq-Iran war showed us existed. It would validate years of paranoia and propaganda, increasing the Revolutionary Guard's hold on politics and the economy. War would just cause more problems.C2 - TerrorismThis point's simple: Hezbollah are Lebanese, not Iranian. Invading Iran to stop Hezbollah from attacking America doesn't make sense. Further, it will not end well to invade a country to play a giant game of hide-and-seek in the desert again after another terrorist organisation. It doesn't work, as history has shown. These groups grow new leaders in hours, and it takes astronomical costs to pay for it. And finally, the war justified on this point is simply blind to facts. War costs lives: thousands of them, and that would be on the American lives taken alone. The lives of civilians would be many times higher. Hezbollah has been responsible for a few dozen deaths. What'll cause more deaths?C3/4 - The Nuclear ThreatThere are three things I want to refer to with the nuclear threat of Iran. Firstly, Iran will be years and years away from building a nuclear warhead. Gnl. Kovachi, Israel's director of military intelligence, says "if Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gave a go-ahead, it would take roughly a year for Iran to make a crude device to fire a warhead and another year or two to put forth a nuclear warhead that would work on a ballistic missile."[6] Nevertheless, General Kovachi is a man who is politically invested in this issue, and he would like to promote a sensationalist scare factor into his numbers. American analysts who would be less politically invested state that it would take longer. Moreover, it would take over 2 years at least - more reasonably 5 years for Iran to create a nuclear warhead. Secondly, Iran's engaged with many treaties and pressures to not make nuclear warheads. Peter Jenkins, former ambassador to the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) states that "there's no evidence [Iran] is developing nuclear weapons" and "all the evidence is that Iran's leaders are rational"[7]. Iran has signed the NPT, agreed to additional stipulations many times. It is reasonable to assert that, with these treaties in place, including random spot-checks on nuclear facilities being allowed, Iran won't be attempting to make the warheads soon.Thirdly, Iran wouldn't rationally progress to build nuclear warheads. UK, USA and France have all stated warnings against Iran if it builds any weapons of mass destruction, or gets uranium capable of building them (Iran needs 90% enriched uranium to fire nuclear weapons, not 19.75%)[6]. No other Arab nation wants Iran to have an advantage over them. The nuclear weapons would simply antagonise the other nations, and the Iranian government knows this. My opponent needs to give a reason why the Iranian government would either rationally go after nuclear weapons which would kill them, or show, through precedence of their actions, that they are likely to wage war with Israel should the opportunity arises. C4 is a turn: Iran wouldn't develop nuclear weapons, nor begin trying to, because of the threat every neighbour, near or far, would pose. Thus, invasion for nuclear weapons is irrational at best.Now I'll pose some of my own arguments against war.EconomicsWhat would a war cost? The war with Iraq, which was less powerful in terms of military[8], cost around a trillion dollars. Imagine the cost of a war with Iran, with the twelth best military[8], so far away? It'd be astronomical. Second, the oil spike would be devastating[9]. The oil scares in recent decades would pale in comparison. And in a recession, you need all the stability you can get. PoliticsOf course, the USA would have to be the leader in the invasion of Iran. The resolution is not about NATO, nor any other nation, in this coalition: it is either USA or Israel. Netanyahu specifically has stated he wants America to wage war with Iran: the USA would have a leading role by nature. This would cause a massive spending being required by America. And politics is about the government of the day, essentially, remaining powerful and in power. So, does an Iran War help Iran? Firstly, the economic reasons alone would deter any politician. As Keynes said, politicians "are usually the slaves of some defunct economist"[10]. If Obama administration puts the USA into a recession over this war, then he'll be out of power without doubt. Further, war will mean he has betrayed (arguably further) his liberal voter base. The war, in essence, would stop the government from remaining in power, and thus would be something the government of the USA would want to avoid.1 - http://tinyurl.com.........2 - http://tinyurl.com.........3 - http://tinyurl.com.........4 - http://tinyurl.com.........5 - tinyurl.com/6wgrwah6 - The Economist, 25th February 2012, Attacking Iran7 - http://tinyurl.com.........8 - http://www.globalfirepower.com......9 -http://tinyurl.com......10 - Political Ideologies, A. Heywood