Iran must be prevented from obtaining nuclear weapons.

Before I start with the Pro's arguments and introduce counterpoints, I would first like to give a little history between the US and Iran. Iran had been ruled by a series of kings, known as Shah's for close to 2500 years now. The US entered Iranian history at the time of Dr. Mohammad Mosaddegh, the Prime minister of Iran who was the one who really ran the country while the Shah was more of a figurehead. Mohammad Mosaddegh was a widely popular ruler of Iran when he was elected in 1951. Prior to his election Iran had languished in poverty and neglect with little hope for its people, but he changed that. Mosaddegh nationalized the nations oil reserves which immediately brought in wealth to Iran that had only been dreamed of before, and Iran soon began climbing out of poverty. Mosaddeh had turned the fortunes of the country around while the Shah, who tried to gain power over Mosaddeh, made himself very unpopular among the people at the same time. The Shah of Iran was seen as one of Iran's biggest enemies while the prime minister was seen as their biggest hope, forcing the Shah to leave Iran to the delight of Iranians. Iran then enjoyed peace and prosperity, but it was short lived. How did the US respond to Mosaddeh's rule in Iran? Well the US overthrew him, replaced the beloved Prime minister with the previous Shah who turned out to be a bloodthirsty tyrant comparable to Hitler who liked to live in opulence, and Iran fell back into grinding poverty in a matter of weeks.... http://en.wikipedia.org...http://www.bbc.co.uk...Naturally, Iranians were pretty pissed off at us. It didnt help that the Shah was more concerned with westernizing the country rather then modernizing it, essentially forcing a very conservative people to give up beloved traditions wile still subjecting them to economic decline. The King also ruled with an iron fist who used secret police regularly to prevent uprisings against him, and killed protestors very frequently, but it got worse. In 1979, the people overthrew the tyrannical rule of the Shah and instead placed power in the hands of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader of Iranian faith. The Shah had fled to America where he was met with open arms. Now it doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out that a country who overthrows a beloved ruler, replaces him with a ruthless dictator, and then offers that same dictator shelter once he is kicked out of the country, all while that dictator is responsible for millions of people dying, would not be well liked. Then we went ahead and gave funds and weapons to another nearby dictator (Saddam in Iraq) to wage war against Iran...... Point is: Iranians hate us, and they have numerous damn good reasons to hate us, because we keep meddling in their affairs. Now onto the Pro's arguments1) Suspicious activities from Iran that includes spying. "First, according to the AEI Critical Threats Project the NYPD has monitored, recorded and verified multiple Iranian reconnaissance units documenting vital areas in New York City........... This evidence indicates an ever growing amount of suspicious activity on the part of the Iranians........... Iran was the instigator of an assassination attempt on U.S. soil coupled with various terror attacks against key targets........ The officials said the plot included the assassination of the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, Adel Al-Jubeir, with a bomb and subsequent bomb attacks on the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington, D.C."Basically, the Pro is arguing that since Iran has taken up suspicious activity against the US, then if they were to get a nuke they would use it against us. But heres the thing, countless nations have already spied on us and they have had possession of nukes but never used them. China, Russia during the Cold War, North Korea, Pakistan, etc are all nations who have nuclear capabilities and who have spied on us or our allies, and several of them are just as unstable as Iran, but they have not used nukes even though they have them. If nations like Pakistan, North Korea, or Communist Russia could spy on us with nuclear capabilities and choose to not use them, then why is Iran any different? Just because nations spy on the US or plot against us does not mean they will nuke us or our allies when they get enough nukes, because other nations have done the exact same thing and HAD nukes yet didnt use them against us, and Iran wont be any different. 2) Iranian ties to terrorismPro brings up Iran's extensive ties to terrorism and groups like Al-Qaeda who the US is openly at war with and that Iran could arm these terrorist organizations with nukes. Let me go ahead and say that Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Pakistan and even iraq have all had ties to some terrorist groups who have it out for the US, yet those nations have never given any kind of nuclear or chemical weapon to these terrorists to use against us once. Now with that in mind, we can logically conclude that Iran would under no circumstances give any of these terrorist cells a nuclear bomb. And heres why. - 1 - Iran hasnt even given any of these terrorist groups airplanes, why the hell would they give them their only nuke? Iran funds terrorists because giving them money is easy. Giving them military hardware though is something Iran never does, and if Iran wont even give them large weapons of war like vehicles, then why would they go out of their way to give them a damn nuke? It just doesnt make sense that they would do that given Irans history of what they actually do give to terrorists. - 2 - It would be a death wish to give terrorists the nuke. If a terrorist organization were to use an Iranian nuke on Israel or the US, the US and the rest of the world would retaliate as if it was the Iranians who carried out the attack themselves. This would quickly bring about the demise of those in power, so the leaders of iran have no incentive to put their state of rule in jeopardy and in the hands of terrorists who have nothing to lose. The Iranians would never give terrorists a nuke because they would essentially be digging their own grave, and wouldnt even have any control over who gets nuked, where, or when. Since there is no incentive for Iran to do such a thing, so why would they do it?"A strawman argument against intervention is that Iran is incapable at this time to create a functioning warhead and ballistic missile needed to strike Israel. I will refute the capability fact later"I accept they have the capability, you can go ahead and save yourself that character space. 3) Regional arms race" 'We cannot live in a situation where Iran has nuclear weapons and we don't. It's as simple as that,' the official said. 'If Iran develops a nuclear weapon, that will be unacceptable to us and we will have to follow suit.'" - Some Saudi Arabian official"In this argument Pro argues that if Iran gets a nuke, then Saudi Arabia will get a nuke, and then there will be hell to pay. This is the opinion of one offical in Saudi Arabia and not their official policy, but more importantly the US and other nations already have massive economic ties to Saudi Arabia, and these nations could easily offer their military protection to Saudi Arabia so that they dont have to do that themselves. Need evidence? The US has already done that! During the first Gulf War, Saddam threatened to invade Saudi Arabia and also threatened to have nukes, but the US simply offered military support to Saudi Arabia, eliminating their need to develop their own arms. If Iran gets nukes, Saudi Arabia wont pursue nukes too by default. The US and other powerful nations have an economic incentive to offer their military support to Saudi Arabia should they request it, which would eliminate any initiative from them to develop their own nukes. This has been the case in the past, there isnt any reason to suggest it will change in the future.