Iran must be prevented from obtaining nuclear weapons.

1) Existential Threat"First, we did try and prevent North Korea from obtaining nuclear weapons using strict sanctions."Yeah and that didnt work.... Sanctions never work in preventing nations from obtaining nukes, and the only way the US could prevent Iran from obtaining nukes is if we invade them. We can all agree that such a war would be costly, deadly, and last years... Plus it would do horrendous damage to the US's credibility in the region and maybe push other enemies to pursue nuclear arms as well, and also possibly destabilize the MIddle East, which is really something the US doesnt need. The US is basically with picking the lesser of two evils. We can let Iran have a nuke, or we can invade them and fund another horrendously costly war that could destabilize the entire Middle East that much faster. "Another problem with my opponent’s argument is that it fails to understand the strategic importance of Iran’s spying. It is not just the simple fact that there are Iranian spies, but rather what Iran is spying on. The evidence indicates areas of strategic economic and civilian populations."I understand why it is concerning, but there are dozens of motives of why exactly they are spying on these particular areas, and even though nuclear targeting could be one of them, the fact that Iran lacks any means of landing a nuke even close to these areas could imply that other motives are afoot. The US has always been spying around cities like Tehran and heavily populated areas in Iran, hell just last year 11 CIA agents were caught doing the same thing in Iran, but it doesnt mean the US is planning on nuking these areas. There are dozens of reasons why Iran could be spying on these areas. http://www.telegraph.co.uk...2) Iran + Terrorism"Moreover, Al Qaeda has expressed the desire to use a nuclear weapon if it had access to one – but due to Pakistani restricted access (they are an ally) Al Qaeda has failed to acquire one."Thats another thing I wanted to bring up. How can terrorists steal an Iranian nuke exactly? If Iran can afford to build a nuke from scratch and maintain a strong standing army they can certainly afford to protect it with dozens of guards, tanks, and anything else they need. Al-Qaeda also is struggling to even recruit new members in some countries so it cant be concluded that Al-Qaeda has the strength to steal a nuke from a highly protected Iranian nuclear facility. "My opponent’s first justification is that Iran hasn’t given terrorist groups airplanes."The airplanes were just an example. The point was that Iran does give funds and training to terrorists, but they never give them some actual hardware they could use to cause some real damage. Therefore it can be concluded that Iran would never give up an expensive nuke to terrorists when they wont even give them anything even remotely harmful. "First, the level of Iranian nuclear security is unknown at this point. US policy cannot rule out the potential for nuclear theft by organizations like Al Qaeda.... If at any point Al Qaeda believes that its interests are better served from stealing nuclear material from an Iranian nuclear facility then there is nothing ideological preventing this from occurring. Al Qaeda would easily have the ability to leverage its hold on nuclear material as a chip against Iran."Just because we dont know the exact amount of security they have it doesnt mean that its non-existant. Given that Iran is ranked 8th in the world in active military personnel with 500,000, I think its safe to assume these nuclear facilities are well guarded too. http://en.wikipedia.org...If you dont like wikipedia, Iran was ranked 12th in the world in terms of global firepower. http://www.globalfirepower.com...http://www.globalfirepower.com...Furthermore, Al-Qaeda couldnt afford to attack one of the last countries that offers them sanctuary just for a chance to gain access to nukes, it would be suicide for them. Plus if god forbid they did manage to steal a nuke, they are still stuck in Iran, they wouldnt be able to go anywhere with it. "the other indirect harm which occurs is Iran’s nuclear umbrella which allows freedom of movement and activity for Iran and terror groups..... Hezbollah and Hamas would have a nuclear umbrella to work under while they systematically attempt to diminish Israeli and US influence in the region."The argument the Pro is making is with nuclear arms, terrorists can be bolder in their plans and not fear retaliation from the US or Israel because of Irans nuke. The thing is though, terrorist groups and other belligerent organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah arent centered in Iran. Hamas operates out of the Gaza strip in Israel and Hezbollah is centered in Lebanon. These organizations do not operate out of Iran or answer directly to Iran, so Iran is not obligated to put its existence on the line for these organizations meaning that there isnt necessarily a nuclear umbrella for terrorists to operate throughout the Middle east unopposed, they can only operate within Iran unopposed. Let me put it this way, If the US kills a terrorist in Yemen, it not Irans problem because Iran as a nation was not violated in any way, the organizations they are sympathetic to were, but Iran itself was not. In this case Iran doesnt necessarily have to threaten nuclear retaliation for actions taken in Yemen. On the other hand, if the US kills a terrorist in Iran, THEN Iran as a nation has been attacked or violated, and then Iran would threaten nuclear retaliation. "Third, if my opponent’s rational calculus argument was valid then it would imply that Iran would not currently be acquiring nuclear weapons"What calculus argument are you talking about??"Iran knows that once it reaches the blur point (where it is unknown whether Iran has the capability for a bomb or not) then they are untouchable"But we know that Iran does have such a capability. "If Iran sent over an ICBM then yes it would be pretty obvious, however a van with nuclear material inside would be much harder to track back to its beginning source. Who knows? It might have come from Pakistan or North Korea. "So why then invade only Iran to prevent them from getting nuclear weapons when terrorists have numerous other countries to get nuclear material from to use against the US? If nuclear material can come from any number of places that terrorists could aqcuire, why invade iran to eliminate just one potential source when so many others already exist?3 - Regional arms race"My opponent makes the mistake of saying it is just one person in the regime – true but it is one of the heads of the military and Saudi Arabia’s intelligence service"So what? Obama is the damn president and he said he was committed to $4 trillion in deficit reduction, but that didnt frickin work out now did it? Politicians make all kinds of claims in what a country would do in response to a situation, but there is never any guarantee that those alleged responses will indeed become government policy, and the same goes for Saudi Arabia and this one government official. "A nuclear umbrella would have been created over the Middle East and Saudi Arabia which means that any seemingly aggressive US counter-balancing could be viewed as a threat to Iran"This nuclear umbrella only exists over terrorist activity in Iran, not foreign policy decisions made by the Saudis. But if Iran feels threatened by the US presence in Saudi Arabia they would hide behind their nuke and threaten not to do anything fishy, they wouldnt use it on us or nuke the country home to Islam itself. An Iranian nuke's sole purpose would be to be used as a bargaining chip to get the US to stop messing around in the Middle Eas so much, not to be eventually used against a US city itself.