Lannan13's DDO Madness Tourney: The US Should Invade Iran

Very Well, reasons why the US should not invade Iran 1) This country does not need to finance another war at a time when the economy is still barely pulling itself back together 2) This country does not need to finance another war at a time when taxes are at record lows while spending is at an all time high 3) An invasion of Iran would further push the Middle East sentiment against the US to a new high 4) The invasion of Iran would cause thousands of deaths to US troops 5) The resistance against the US would be monstrous compared to previous opposition seen in Afghanistan or Iraq 6) Such a war could last a very long time, possibly a decade, before peace is established. 7) The war could potentially destabilize the oil market 8) The situation could still potentially resolve itself - 1 - The war could hamper the economic recovery The US economy is in a precarious dilemma as we go into 2012, and a third war in the Middle East would surely not help the economy recovery continue unhampered. In fact against an enemy such as Iran, a war could put economic recovery on hold for longer than the war itself. http://www.dailyinterlake.com... http://www.courierpress.com... How exactly would a war harm the economy? its a combination of massive spending increases without the funding to pay off such expenses, the broken window fallacy rules out any benefits of job creation as a direct result of the war which would be lost when the war ends, and the instability of nations around the region would negatively impact international relations and trade are just a few negative side effects such a war would have. These things wont just affect the US either, it will affect many nations across the world. http://www.washingtonsblog.com... - 2 - National Debt A war against Iran would be massive in cost, and the US would be happy to justify such expenses to the public and start spending away, but the US has a nice long history of not being able to offset such massive spending by being unable to bring in enough funding to pay off such expenses. It happened with Afghanistan and Iraq, it will happen again with Iran. A war with Iran will massively increase the national debt over time, and such an effect will only be disastrous for the credibility of the US in later years, the US already got financially downgraded for being unable to stop spending following the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, an Iranian war would only further exacerbate the credit crisis the US has. - 3 - Middle East anger towards the US would increase People in the Middle East hate America for a lot of reasons.... Two wars, undying support towards a country that has been targeted by condemnation by the UN, nation building, a war against terrorism that claims the lives of civilians, a blind eye towards human rights violations, and past intervention gone horribly wrong are just a few reasons why people hate the US..... A war to support a regime change against Iran would surely infuriate more resentment towards the US primarily within the Middle East but also in other areas hostile towards the US. http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com... - 4 - Casualties in fighting Iran Iran is ranked 8th overall in terms of active troops in the world, and they have a much more modernized military then Saddam's Iraq or the Taliban's Afghanistan did when they first clashed with the US 10 years ago. Casualties the US suffered in those wars were combined at about 6,000.... A War against Iran would see similar numbers in casualties for US troops, and the number of civilian casualties would be 10 times higher, at the minimum. - 5 - Resistance Resistance in Iraq lasted 8 years even after Bush tried to sell to us the slogan "Mission Accomplished". In Afghanistan there is still resistance against US occupation, so much that it mandated a surge in troops deployed by 30,000. Iran would be much worse though because one of the few things that Iranians hate more than their oppressive leaders are the Israelis and the US...... Meaning that any form of occupation and nation building by the US would be met with universal resistance within Iran against the US. Such extensive resistance would mean that a war in Iran would be long, costly, lethal, and it is quite possible that progress in restoring peace would be observed painfully slowly. - 6 - Length of the War The amount of resistance and the military power of Iran is prevalent enough to conclude that a war against Iran would be very long, and the time needed to see peace be restored to the region would last even longer as the war dragged on. The length of the war would not end when the regime is overthrown, the war would only end when the US decided it would leave since resistance and attacks against the military would never cease, much like how to this day in Afghanistan and Iraq there are always suicide bombings and attacks against civilians or US troops themselves. A war in Iran would be very long, the economic effects it would cause would last even longer, and the time needed for peace to be restored would be even longer than that. - 7 - Oil markets One of the reasons why oil prices are as high as they are today is because of recent instability of the oil markets.... part of that instability was due to Iran threatening to block off the strait of Hormuz, a body of water where 20% of all oil is transported through. If a war with Iran were to break out, then the body of water where all that traffic goes through now lies in range of Iranian weaponry that could be used to sink such ships that would have a catastrophic effect on oil prices, and economies themselves. Iran lies next to oil rich Iraq, across the Persian Gulf from oil rich Kuwait and oil rich Saudi Arabia. Point it, Iran lies in the heart of where the worlds oil comes from, and a war between Iran and a country whose lifeline depends on oil from the Middle East makes those oil countries potential targets, and oil transports as potential targets that can be used to attack the US economy itself...... A type of warfare that the US has never had to fight against and would be costly to defend against successfully as well. - 8 - The situation could potentially resolve itself. This sounds strange but there are ways to prevent Iran from obtaining nukes, their is the Arab Spring movement and diplomacy. Both of which are viable options and here is why. As recently as 2003 Iran agreed to abide by tougher protocols from the UN about limiting their supply of Uranium, voluntarily too. As recently as 2009 there were still talks where Iran was discussing dismantling their nuclear program and Iran for a while almost made a deal. Basically back in 2009 it was almost a reality where through diplomacy Iran would dismantle their stockpiles of enriched Uranium, what happened to this though? Well 2009 was just after an "election" year for Iran and a lot of political rhetoric and nationalism was thrown around, and soon enough there was infighting within Iran that ended the deal that could have ended this whole debacle. 4 years ago diplomacy almost ended this problem, and now everyone believes that diplomacy couldnt do the same thing again with no knowledge that it almost happened back when Obama just took office http://www.nytimes.com... The US should not declare war on Iran. The economic effects would be bad, spending would explode, there would be casualties, civilian deaths would be high, the war would last almost forever, the Middle East community would hate us for being so war-mongering, and there are still other options that could be used to prevent a Nuclear Iran from happening.