(Phantom's 99th Percent) Intervention in Iran

C1: Iranian Threat Stephen critiques my source, but seeing as STRATFOR is one of the leading global intelligence firms I wouldn’t jump to the conclusion the author isn’t an expert. His bio indicates he was a member of the State Department, on numeous anti-terror investigations and is a VP of STRATFOR. Stephen pretty much disregards the substance of the STRATFOR evidence and asserts that there is no credible link. This ignores all the substance of the evidence that various other cases, not including the only example Stephen counters, demonstrates that Iran has attempted assassinations on U.S. soil. This kicks his argument that Iran wouldn’t attempt a poorly planned assassination. The Kahl evidence is irrelevant since my advocacy would destroy Iran’s facilities before they can achieve their nuclear deterrent, and if they try to continue then we strike again. At some point Iran will get the message that it is not in their interests to try and gain a nuke. Stephen: In fact, one may rationally speculate, if war sparks between Syria and Iran..." I don’t know if Stephen made a mistake or not, but Iran and Syria is Iran’s only close ally in the region; there won’t be a war between them. Stephen misunderstands the Turkey argument since it doesn’t presuppose Iran and nuclear weapons since the evidence indicates Turkey is in a political and economic mess now, which means Turkey is really no threat to Iran. Stephen also misunderstands the timeframe of the turn I made. The turn indicates that regional rivalry between Turkey and Iran (if there was one) would give both countries an incentive to out-arm the other for regional influence. This means that there is clear reasoning why Iran would want nuclear weapons, which is to increase its regional hegemony and to prevent Turkish influence from spreading in the region. On the Green Movement, my opponent’s own evidence talk about how the more radical factions of the movement are dead (ones calling for immediate democracy) but the overall sentiment isn’t dead. The problem with Stephen’s analysis is that nowhere does he actually prove a rally-around-the-flag mentality, nor does show that this “sentiment” will have any affect in the near future. Stephen violates the rules (losing the conduct vote) by responding (albeit weakly) to the AEI and Silber evidence, which he dropped in the first round. Saying the evidence is weak is still a response against the evidence, but he should have made it in the first round. But the rules are rules, drops are concessions so even if he thinks the evidence is weak he has conceded it. On this contention just the dropped-conceded evidence should be enough to demonstrate that Iran is an existential threat: reconnaissance units from Iran have been mapping out critical points in the U.S. like NYC and DC. C2 – Terrorism Stephen’s turn is irrelevant since it presupposes Iran has nukes, which is what my advocacy is preventing! Stephen makes the argument that concede is only on clash points and not statements. I don’t know what type of debate he has done, but this is completely untrue. Any evidence which is ignored is considered dropped. If an overview argument does not answer the direct claims of the evidence it is dropped – they are referred as independent pieces of offense. But moreover, Hezbollah and al Qaeda aren’t even remotely close! Al Qaeda refers to the pan-Islamic movement that seeks to banish all Western influence from the Middle East and Central Asia and was the attacker on 9/1.1 Hezbollah is bad, but not that bad. The Al Qaeda argument is an independent reason to vote Pro because as indicated by the evidence Iran is giving sanctuary to Al Qaeda (just like Afghanistan before 9/11) and Al Qaeda as indicated by the evidence has openly stated it wants to acquire nukes and would use them against the West. Whereas Pakistan is an ally by financial means, Iran is nowhere an ally to the U.S. The threat of a sanctuary state, a non-ally to the U.S. gaining nuclear weapons is unacceptable and the risk is too great. He never mentions the arguments against Hezbollah so that can be extended which indicates an existential risk to Israel (remember the resolution also indicates Israel). C4 – Nuclear threat This argument is a series of disappointments: he drops all threat of Iran as a government, and moves it to claims of Iran as hosting terrorists with nuclear capacities. My threat analysis was never of a direct nuclear war with Iran, I don’t know where he got that from. Sorry my argument disappoints :P But do you know what is disappointing, his analysis. He tries to make the argument that Iran would need to nuclearize and then transport that across borders. First, this ignores the argument that Iran only needs a few months to create a nuclear bomb (and if you want more evidence for this, refer to his source #2 last round – it says the same thing) but secondly, Iran itself doesn’t need to transport it far: Al Qaeda is safe in Iran (which you dropped). Stephen: “Further, Iran gaining nuclear weapons will, again, spark war with all the countries in its borders… creating a turn against his argument.” It seems he ignored/dropped my last argument that: “Stephen tries to argue that Iran knows that its neighbors won't want them to obtain a nuclear weapon. If this were true Iran would have stopped already. Just the risk of proliferation accesses the risk of a development of a nuclear weapon.” Countries are not going to wait and see if Iran gets a nuke – if time goes too far without an action the risk of proliferation will spark an arms race. This analysis has gone dropped. C5 – Economics The oil prices rise with war, not arms races. My opponent is again throwing conjecture unsupported by fact, and thus I cannot refute the justification, but simply claim my opponent is being non-factual. The argument for military action still has massive costs. My opponent can play this down as much as he wants, but facts are facts: Iran in a war is a larger power than Iraq by a large margin. Iran's the 12th most powerful nation on earth[4], three times more powerful than Iraq. Think about this: three times the power of Iraq, with no political instability if the war goes ahead. The cost'd be astronomical. First, on war costs, this is simply untrue. Stephen tries to paint a scenario where Iran and the U.S. go fullout on war but this is false for two reasons: (1) a war threatens regime survival and (2) the resolution advocates for direct action, not full scale invasion. The only potential argument he has is that Iran has a large military and geostrategic advantage. The military argument is irrelevant since his own sources indicate that in technology the U.S. would dominate cause all Iran’s military equipment is as old as the Iran-Iraq war and they haven’t been modernizing. The geostrategic argument is nullified because the U.S. surrounds them on land (Afghanistan and Iraq) and has a large portion of the navy in the Gulf. But on economics he has still yet to give an impact, which at this point is too late. Risk of a nuclear strike outweighs on life and also precludes the link since a nuclear strike would also lead to military action on a much larger scale. C6 – Politics I don’t know if Stephen is aware but a change in Presidents does not end a military conflict. For example, Afghanistan was still going on with Bush and Obama. Stephen doesn’t gain any offense off this contention. Voting It is clear at this point that Iran is a threat to both the U.S. and Israel which is apparant in its actions on U.S. soil including reconasance and past assassination attempts (even if you think the most recent was not of Iran's doing) the evidence indicates other past assassination attempts. It is clear that Iran is harboring Al Qaeda who has sworn to use nukes and has attacked the U.S. on 9/11. It is clear that Iran's actions will foster retalitory action from its neighbors which heightens the instability and volaility of the region.