The US has a right to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

I have two contentions: the notion that it is not the job of the United States to be the world police, or to even defend the defenseless is wrong. Second, Iran does have launching capabilities that threaten much more than their fellow jihadists. To address your argument that the United States has no right to police the world, I must respond by invoking the very cheesy, yet all too true, line from the movie "Spider man". "With great power comes great responsibility." The United States has the most powerful military force on the planet. With that power, the right and duty of the United States to protect itself and the rest of the world from perceived threats is given. If the United States perceives that Iran is enriching Uranium in order to obtain a nuclear weapon, then it has a right to stop them. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, a branch of the United Nations, Iran has been caught many times violating the Nuclear Non proliferation Treaty. In June of 2003, the Director of the IAEA stated that Iran had not met the requirements of the Nuclear Non proliferation Treaty. In August of 2003 a report by the IAEA stated that "Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) were found in an Iranian nuclear facility." Again, an IAEA report in November of 2003 indicated that Iran was still not meeting the minimum requirements of the treaty. Now, the NNPT states that countries can pursue the enrichment of uranium for civil purposes. This is what Iran has claimed, they resumed this pursuit in secret. Why would they do this? Because they are pursuing the bomb. It is clear that Iran has no innocent intentions in its nuclear programs. If they do, then why are they so secretive in pursuing enriched uranium? They have admitted to separating out highly enriched uranium as early as 1998 in order to pursue alternative nuclear uses i.e. a bomb. To address the statement, "some backwater Arab nation with no launch capabilities..." Iran absolutely has launch capabilities. According to multiple sources, to include Newsweek magazine, Fox News, CNN, NBC, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, the National Intelligence Estimate, the UN, and many more, Iran has a wide variety of launch capabilities. Their most popular choice would most likely be the Shahab 4 missile of which it has hundreds. THese missiles have a range of more than 1200 miles. Just to give an illustration, if launched from the Tehran (there are many more launch sites that are closer to the border thus maximizing the range of the missiles) they could reach targets that include: any Israeli city, Ankara the capitol of Turkey, any target in Iraq (if you will remember Iran and Iraq within the past 20 years ended decades of violence between them), any city in the now free and democratic country of Afghanistan, Kuwait, and the United States military bases in Bahrain and Turkey. Remember, this is just when launched from one site, there are many more sites to choose from. If you consider this a major war, what would you consider WW2? This is not a major war. This is a hunt for terrorism. Don't forget that a recent news source ran a story about military deaths. It stated that more US military casualties took place during the period leading up to Iraq and Afghanistan than have taken place in Iraq and Afghanistan. India and Pakistan didn't sign the NNPT, and they have had nuclear weapons for sometime now, yet they have not killed each other. Tensions between them have greatly diminished, and they are practicing restraint. That is why they can have nuclear weapons. To end, I will ask a simple question. If you were walking down a street and happened across an innocent old lady getting mugged, would you not feel that you have the right and the duty to intervene? Of course you would. This can be applied to the international community. The United States is the most powerful country in the world. Because of that, we have both the right and the duty to police it. That is not to say that other responsible countries such as Britain, France, Russia, etc. don't have a right and a duty as well. But the United States definitely does.